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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-05-10 Hearing Transcript - Kau CDPWINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT MAY 10, 2017 A special advertised hearing regarding the Ka`u Community Development Plan was called to order at 5:32 p.m. in the Na`alehu Community Center, 95-5635 Mamalahoa Highway, Na`alehu, Hawaii with Chairman Gregory Henkel presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Joseph Clarkson, Gregory Henkel, Donald Ikeda, and Myles Miyasato. ABSENT & EXCUSED: Donn Dela Cruz. ALSO PRESENT: Michael Yee (Planning Director), Malia Ho Hall (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), April Surprenant (Planning Program Manager), Ron Whitmore (Project Manager for the Ka`u CDP), Christian Kay (Planner), Leana Gloor (Planner), Grace Armstrong (Planner), and Sarah Hata-Finley (Commission Secretary). And 39 members from the public in attendance. KA` J COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN On October 27, 2015, the Ka`u Community Development Plan (CDP) Steering Committee recommended approval of the Ka`u CDP. After reviewing agency comment, the Planning Director is recommending non -substantive amendments to the CDP. Pursuant to Section 2-28 of the Hawaii County Code, within sixty days after receipt of the Planning Director's recommendation on a draft community development plan or any amendment thereof, the Windward Planning Commission shall transmit the draft community development plan or any amendment with its recommendation through the Mayor to the County Council. Likewise, pursuant to Section 15.1 of the General Plan, the County Council may modify or amend the community development plan before enacting it by ordinance, but it shall give the Steering Committee and the Windward Planning Commission an opportunity to review and comment upon substantive amendments and modifications before final adoption of the plan. The purpose of this meeting and public hearing is to afford all interested persons a reasonable opportunity to comment on the Ka`u CDP and for the Commission to review the CDP and consider its recommendation to the County Council. HENKEL: There's only one agenda item tonight, and that's the Ka`u Community Development Plan. On October 27, 2015, the Ka`u Community Development Plan Steering Committee recommended approval of the Ka`u CDP. After reviewing agency comment, the Planning Director is recommending non -substantive amendments to the CDP. Pursuant to Section 2-28-1, .1 of the Hawaii County Code, within 60 days after receipt of the Planning Director's recommendation on a draft community development plan or any amendment thereof, the EXHIBIT A Windward Planning Commission shall transmit the draft community development plan, or any amendment, with its recommendation through the Mayor to the County Council. Likewise, pursuant to Section 15.1 of the General Plan, the County Council may modify or amend the community development plan before enacting it by ordinance, but it shall give the Steering Committee and the Windward Planning Commission an opportunity to review and comment upon substantive amendments or modifications before the final adoption of the plan. The purpose of this meeting and public hearing is to afford all interested persons a reasonable opportunity to comment on the Ka`u CDP and for the Commission to review the CDP and consider its recommendation to the County Council. So, first, we're ready to present. Ron, are you? Ron Whitmore for the Planning Commission will do his presentation. WHITMORE: Thank you, Chairman Henkel, and thank you members of the Planning Commission for making the trip out to Ka`u this evening to hear from the people of Ka`u and their perspectives on this community development plan. Thank you, Director Yee and County Planning staff for arranging the meeting and staffing it, and having me as guest. I'm actually no longer with the Planning Department. I'm Deputy Director of the Department of Research and Development, but because I was Project Manager for the Ka`u Community Development Plan, it seemed fitting for me to see this through the adoption process. So, I'm here because I'm familiar with the plan and can probably answer questions about it fairly well. I want to also thank members of the Steering Committee who are here. This—to make sure we're covered with Sunshine Law, tonight's meeting is agendized also as a Steering Committee meeting so that we can have the Steering Committee members here and who are free then to talk and share their perspectives. With us here tonight are John Cross, Loren Heck, Michelle Galimba, and Ron Ebert. Thank you very much for coming out. They aren't part of the presentation tonight, but they're free to provide testimony is my understanding and also to respond to any questions Commissioners may have for them. Okay, I also wanted to thank all the members of the community who are out here tonight to share their perspectives, hear the Commissioners' comments. It's part of what's made this planning process so successful is the active involvement of community members and the Steering Committee's efforts at listening very carefully what people have to say, working it into the plan to produce a plan that is the best representation of how to achieve the community's goals that we could come up with. Oh, also with us here tonight is Council Member Maile Davis [sic]. Thank you for coming out. Appreciate that. It's nice that she's here because the next stop for the plan after the Planning Commission is the County Council. So, what I'm going to do tonight is first provide a little context to make sure we're on the same page in terms of where, what community development plans are all about, where they come from. Then, I'm going give you a bit of an overview of the plan, speak to next steps to some EXHIBIT A 2 extent. And, we have, we continue to receive some comment about the draft plan, so I'll speak to some of the comments that have been shared as well to help you in your deliberations. First, a little context. It's important to understand the community development plans in terms of the evolution of community planning in the County of Hawaii. I, sometimes, refer to it developmentally and the County Planning Department's kind of have been an adolescent in terms of community planning through the CDP stage because prior to the 2005 General Plan, there wasn't an active community planning program. And, so in 2005, they explicitly included Chapter 15 in response to the public's desire to have a more active role and more meaningful role in the planning process. And, so this is the fifth of six CDP's that have been initiated since then, and they're fundamentally an effort at balancing different perspectives related to what needs to go into a strong community plan. I like to joke about "Community Planning 101" but, quite seriously, when you think about it's easy to embrace the idea of involving people in a greater, in a greater way in governance and in planning specifically. But, when you begin to think about how to do that, it raises a number of dilemmas and challenges. The first one is really, what is "the community?" Very often, people talk about or ask the question, "What does the community want?" And, usually, the answer to that is, "Well, depends on who you ask." Right? Because, communities are not homogenous; they're extremely diverse typically. And, so, when you sit down and start thinking about how to design a community planning process, you have to be very aware of that diversity within the community and make sure you're hearing from that diversity throughout the process and making sure people feel involved and heard through each step of the process. Another challenge you face in community planning is the need to balance critical perspectives. Obviously, community planning fundamentally is about hearing the local perspective in all its diversity and so you gotta fundamentally make sure a community plan is very much grounded in the local context—what you know about the place, what local people know about the place, and what they've identified as their core values and vision and goals moving forward. At the same time, in the same way, you don't—well, I don't build my own house. I would hire an architect if I was going to design a house. But, in the same way, in communities, they are often very clear about what they'd like to see but don't always have the skills like an architect. I would need to build a house, to actually design it, and get the structures right and make sure it stands up in a storm, that sort of thing. And so, local communities need to work also with planners and others who have industry and technical expertise that's needed. And, they help keep it practical and grounded in the law and in practice so that you're assured to get a plan that you can actually move forward in implementation, right? And, then, finally—and those folks are usually local folks that come in the form of planners, local consultants, etc., but there's also a whole lot of knowledge out there from community planning that's been done around the world successfully and so it's also important to look at how other people and other communities have solved similar challenges or achieved similar goals. And, so the third critical perspective to balance in community planning is, is really making good EXHIBIT A 3 use of that planner's toolbox, and be clear about what you're trying to do, what barriers you have in your way, what tools are best suited to overcome those barriers and get to that goal. Right? And, so, to balance all those three, and to be always mindful of the diversity in community, you really need to stay anchored in a fundamentally open planning process. And, what that means, it means many things, but a few key things here are: You need to remember that not everybody is going to be able to come to meetings. We like to think that the planning goes on at meetings like this, but it really can't be limited to that. They are obviously critical, but they can't be limited to that. People, particularly in places like Ka`u, are working multiple jobs, have long commutes, have other things going on in their lives. Not everybody has the time, and I would even say the privilege, of being able to come out and participate actively in a process like that. And, so you have to figure out ways along the, in the planning process, to make sure you're engaging people who otherwise are never going to come to you. You gotta go to them, right? The second thing is there's always, there's oft—there's common shared goals, but often diversity and preferences over, over how to achieve those goals. And, part of it is understanding the complexity some times and the challenges you have to overcome to achieve them. And, so, another key element of community planning and an open community planning process is to keep it objective and based in clear analysis. And, that's one thing we've done very extensively with the Ka`u CDP to, to actually quite to a fatiguing level. We were so meticulous about some of these things, but the advantage of it is it's all transparent. It's all open. People can see the reasoning, challenge it, question assumptions so that we're all on the same page, considering the same facts, seeing how we're arriving at the same conclusions, right? And, then amongst all that, it's always important to recognize that there's an element of truth in every perspective. I was taught that long ago, and I found it to be one of the critical things to remember in life. As you may, someone may be yelling at you and you may disagree vehemently with what they're saying, but they, they believe what they believe for a reason because there's an element of truth in what they see. And, the job of a planning committee and of planners is to hear that truth and to make sure it's understood and consider when choosing strategies and making decisions. And, so everybody involved in a community planning process—community members, Steering Committee members, planners, commissioners—need to come to this with a learner's hat. With an open mind. With an effort to hear and understand where people are coming from and, and the willingness to accommodate and understand it and try to find common ground. And, so, having done all that with Ka`u, we're really here tonight to celebrate. The last meeting of the Steering Committee, when they made their final recommendations, was a celebration of years of hard work of an excellent job of them listening to, hearing, and acting on what they heard from the community. In a similar way, this is another step. This is another reason to celebrate. We're now at the, one of the, nearing the end of adoption. We have another opportunity to hear from folks who see issues coming in kinda cold with a clear perspective used to, used to considering other types of land use applications. So, it comes with a very useful, critical perspective to help us further strengthen the plan, if appropriate, right? EXHIBIT A 4 And, we're here to celebrate in part because there's three fundamental things that if you leave with nothing else tonight, I'd ask you to try to remember these three things: credible process, thorough vetting, and this idea that the work is really ongoing as long it stays, and it's going to improve the plan as long as it stays based in fact -based analysis and clear rationale, right? And, so just to quickly overview. This has been an extremely credible process, highly participatory at every step of the way. Highly collaborative. Bouncing those different perspectives. Very strategic in terms of a building block approach to planning. I'll say more about this later. Systematic and transparent. You could see all along the way what was being considered, why different options were being considered, the pros and cons and how the Steering Committee arrived at different decisions. So, not only was the plan developed in a very credible way, but then once it was developed, it went through thorough, thorough vetting. First, with the Steering Committee who decided first of all, it needed to massage the plan to make sure it's even ready for community review. And, they went through extensive review of every strategy and the rationale behind it. Then, when they thought it was ready for the community, then it went through an extensive community review process then back to the Steering Committee. They incorporated more strengthening and revisions based on community feedback. Then, it went to the Planning Department, the agency review, and now it's to you for further review. So, it's, this thing has been vetted by everybody from every different perspective. And, so considering all that, we ask you to continue along that vein as you consider this plan. Remember what the community's objective are because that's fundamental. That's really what we're trying to achieve here. And, keep your own analysis. Build on the fact -based analysis that has been done already. Help us improve it if you see ideas for improvement. But, help us keep it to be, keep it a clear, rational approach to, to planning. Okay, so now I'm going to get a, do some quick overview of the plan just to, so we're all on the same page about what these are all about. Fundamentally, CDP's and other community plans are a form for strengthening the three pillars of any sustainable and healthy community: environment, community, and economy. And, CDP's are empowered to do that, particularly in two ways. One is around directing land use, because we all know that settlement patterns are fundamental to a healthy community. And, secondly, through actions. And, those actions can take a variety of forms, and I'll say more about that in a, in a few minutes. You should note at this point that the planning area is the judicial District of Ka`u, with the exception of a couple areas in the Volcano area that were part of the Puna CDP. So, it does include all of Ocean View, Na`alehu, South Point area, Waiohinu, Pahala, Wood Valley, Punalu`u, and all the Ag and Conservation area in between those towns, Discovery Harbour, Mark Twain. We were really blessed with a fantastic Steering Committee, and unfortunately, not everybody was able to make it here tonight, and I really hope you don't see their, their absence tonight as any indication of their enthusiasm for their work or the plan. Two of them are on Oahu for medical reasons; a third is on the mainland for a family emergency; and two others had work commitments they couldn't get out of. This was a great group not because, not only because they're great people because they're extremely representative not only of the different geography EXHIBIT A 5 of Ka`u but of different perspectives that are inherent in this community. So, you can see on the screen the geographies that were represented, but I want to also emphasize the background and perspective of some of these folks. We had a realtor. We had a land use manager, developer. We had a community builder by profession. An Army Reserve officer, a pastor, actually two pastors, I think. A rancher. Who am I missing? HECK (from audience): Farmer. WHITMORE: Right. Farmer? Yeah you're—yes, thank you. I was going to say joker, but farmer works. Yes, Loren provided levity. Kept us all sane during the process. So, anyway, great credible group of people who were good listeners both to each other and to the rest of the community and really brought an extreme diversity to perspectives to the process. What's important to note, too, is that these folks were not the crafters of the plan. Their roles were really three fundamentally. Because they are of the community, they played a critical role in helping the planning team design a process that was very participatory and really tailored to the context here. And, then, when implementing that process, they were, they played an instrumental role in maximizing community engagement along the way. And, then the, probably the most important role is the buck really stops with the Steering Committee. The plan does not enter the adoption process until the Steering Committee says it's ready, and so, they made that last and final call when they thought it was ready for your review. And, by the way, they're volunteers like you also. They put in tremendous amount of time and effort into this. You don't need to see the detail on this, but basically, it describes four phases of the planning process followed by a fifth phase which is implementation. And, I'm going to touch on each of these phases. Just to give you an idea of the color coding here. The green is community engagement, the blue is Steering Committee key decisions, and the black is Planning team work. And, so you, again, you see just in colors on the screen the balance of perspectives and different roles and the thought that went into engaging the right people at the right time in the process. So, anyway, we started with the foundations which was to identify the core values and vision that the community has. And, I think at the time, that we set a record, but then Hamakua followed and beat our record, but Ka`u CDP was the fourth CDP, but at the time had heard from the most people during that initial values and visioning process. And part of the reason for our success is we made it really easy for people to answer, answer two core questions: "What do they love about Ka`u?" and "What do they want to see 20 years out?" We did aobviously surveys were available either online or paper, but more importantly, we had, we trained volunteer facilitators who would hold a small meeting anywhere—in a pavilion, in a carport, on the beach, in your home or living room, and go through a quick process to identify those, those core values and vision. We heard from 14 percent of the population which if you only think about statistics is a ridiculously high number. Probably more importantly, though, is we were tracking participation as we went relative to what we knew from the census where the, were the demographics of Ka`u and assured and made an extra effort in communities where we knew we were not capturing the EXHIBIT A 6 people who we knew were there. Because, again, we knew, many people were not going to come to us; we had to go to them, and so we made that extra effort. And, it was really critical at this stage because it's these goals that come out of this process that are the foundation for the plans. We wanted to make sure that we heard from the maximum number of people at that stage so that we had high confidence in the goals and objectives that we established from there. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with Ka`u, but it is really a unique and very special place. If you talk to anybody in Ka`u, you'll hear that right away. And, so they're very clear about what they love about this place and don't want to lose, and it really boils down to these three main things. There is a fundamentally, you know, just an extremely strong network of community, ohana, family, interwoven throughout the district. And, it's actually strange to even call them three different things because part of that is people's relationship with the environment here—the coastline, the mountains, the ag land. Life in Ka`u in many ways is interwoven with the place, the physical place. And, that exhibits itself in terms of a country or rural lifestyle which is quiet, which is friendly, which is extremely hospitable and generous, and people want to preserve that to the extent that they can. And, so, the Steering Committee poured through all that data and tried to capture it in this values and vision statement, and it, again, touches on some of those same themes—unique rural lifestyle, that connection between people and place, and a truly distinctive Hawaiian cultural heritage, probably more so in Ka`u then you'll probably find any other places in Hawaii anymore. And given all that, looking ahead, they do want to increase economic opportunity and that really was the highest priority for the community. But, they want to do it in a way that's appropriate for Ka`udiverse, resilient, and sustainable. They also want to protect and provide reasonable access mauka and makai as well as preserve Open space and have the appropriate facilities to support their recreational and subsistence use as associated with mauka and makai access. And, then finally, fundamentally recognize that they don't want to do any of that at the expense of family and community. So, again, I mentioned earlier the systematic approach. So, each of these key steps in the process, we stopped, and the Steering Committee made a fundamental decision. In this case, they adopted this values and vision statement to guide the work that would follow. So, the next thing we did was a community profile, and the way we engaged the community that time is through what we call the community summits. We first did a whole lot of research ourselves. Found out what we could about Ka`u through census data and natural resources information and information from NOAA and all kinds of different places, but then we brought that out to community and (a) asked them to confirm it and (b) we had, we had pukas. We had holes in our information so we had to get, learn more about it from people who knew the places and particular places really well to fill in those gaps. So, we did that in community summits and then captured all of that --the community knowledge and secondary knowledge in the community profile. And, then the Steering Committee took the community profile, combined it, findings from the community profile, combined it with the values and vision statement, and came up with the objectives. EXHIBIT A 7 And, they really fall into three main areas. There's 12 core objectives, and they all are fundamentally about managing conserving natural resources, preserving and strengthening community character, and building a resilient and sustainable economy. They aren't on the screen, but in your Backgrounds and Recommendations. They're in the CDP near the end of Section 1, I believe. I'm sorry, I don't have the page number on me. So, then, the community had done kind of its core fundamental work at that point and then it, a lot of the attention turned to the CDP team whose job it was to take those community objectives, identify what's already in place to help achieve them, where the gaps are and then, therefore, what needs to be done in the plan to achieve the community's objectives. And you see that represented here in kind of a foundational way. Again, the values and vision are the foundation built upon that, and further refined are the objectives. And then we need to find the appropriate policies and actions to achieve those objectives. And, this is an important point which is a little unique for Ka`u but really kind of critical, because some of the confusion in people's interpretation of the CDP is rooted in these differences. We, as we were doing the work, realized that you gotta be careful what you call things `cause that means different things depending on what you call `em. And, even looking at the General Plan, there's often confusing language about what something really means when it says it's a policy versus an action or an objective, right? And, so we identified four fundamental different types of strategies. The first one is what we call land use policies, and those really are an expression of the ability the CDP's have to detail and designate land uses to try to really influence the settlement patterns, right? And, so those, those become the official land use policy for the CDP, and there's two types of those actually in a CDP. There's those that are really just intent. They're an expression of what's desired, and they aren't controlling in nature. But, others are controlling in nature, those that are very specific about what, what is appropriate where. And, then the second type of County policy is what we call County actions. Those are things that don't just automatically happen when the plan is adopted. You can identify capital improvement priorities like road improvements, water improvements, what have you, but just because it's in the plan and the plan gets adopted doesn't mean it has to happen. It requires follow-up action on the part of the Council and the administration in terms of budgeting and staff dedication, that sort of thing, right? It's still important to do in a CDP because a community should be very clear about what it thinks its priorities are, but you gotta understand that that's not, you know, mandated by law when the CDP is adopted. And then there's, and this isn't the best term probably, but something we called advocacy, things that are fundamentally outside County jurisdiction. Because what you realize very quickly when trying to find strategies to achieve community goals is much of what needs to be done is outside County jurisdiction especially here in Hawaii where health, education, highways, and many other important issues are outside of County jurisdiction. And, then the fourth and, I would argue, arguably most important strategy, are those community based collaborative strategies. Those things that the County can't do anything about, the State EXHIBIT A can't do anything about, the Feds can't do anything about that really require local leadership and initiative. And, so the CDP is clear about those four distinct types of strategies, and it's really helpful because, in part, once it's adopted, implementation then is very clear. Planning Department knows what it needs to do to guide its land use decision making. CIP priorities are clear. We can clearly communicate to DLNR. You know, DOA, what we'd like them to do to support community, and then the community has a roadmap itself for moving forward on achieving the community's objectives. This really doesn't do justice to the CDP, but this is the CDP in a nutshell. So, it becomes a County policy document, guides Federal and State agencies, and guides community-based action to do four fundamental things. And, those numbers are simply correlated with the sections in the CDP. So, Section 3 is the land use section where we—where the community tries to be clear about what the preferred settlement patterns are and how it, and what tools it thinks are appropriate to use to achieve those settlement patterns. Section 4, then, is the environmental piece, and there's subsections for all the different types of natural and cultural resourcescoastline, agriculture, mauka forests, historic resources, etc. Fifth is community infrastructureroads, water, parks, schools, etc. And, then, finally economic development. And that was another bit of a difference in Ka`uis because, (a) because the economy really was the highest priority in the community development planning process and (b) even though we knew it was largely outside County jurisdiction, we thought it would be an injustice to not give the economic section as much attention as we gave everything else. And, so, you'll see that chapter or Section 6 of the CDP is just as robust and detailed as the, the other sections of the plan. Okay, so that work was done, and a draft CDP was developed. And as I mentioned earlier, it then went to the Steering Committee, and they went through an extension, exhaustive review themselves, then they made a lot of refinements, and then they said, okay, it's ready for community review. And, we didn't just hold a hearing like this, explain, do a 45 -minute presentation and ask for comment. We bent over backwards to make it easy for people to understand what's in the plan and provide meaningful feedback. We had, we obviously, the plan was available in hard copy in various community centers and libraries. You could rent a copy. You could buy a copy. You could review it at the Planning Department. We would deliver it to your house if you wanted one. So, the CDP was available for review. We also had what we called, "Speak -Outs" which is where in a room like this, you put up posters with stations, organized roughly by the way the CDP is organized. And, people could see on a poster fundamentally what the CDP is trying to achieve and how. And, then people could put post -it notes on it, provide, could just talk story, and there were recorders there who would transcribe everything people were saying so we, so we were able to capture thousands of comments that way through people just talking story, asking questions, sharing their perspective on what they saw and heard. EXHIBIT A 9 And then we also had what we called "focused discussions" because there are some hot topics in Ka`u. You're going to hear about some of them tonight. We knew what they are, and so we said all right, these merit even more attention. We're going to have meetings just focused on these issueseconomy, coastal management, Discovery Harbour, Ocean View, Punalu`u. You know, all the hot issues that we know are very high priority and also somewhat contentious. And, so we gave people an opportunity to come, tell us what they wanted to talk about, talk through how the strategies do or don't address their priorities, and use their input to further strengthen the plan. So, then, all that came back to the Steering Committee. They further strengthened the plan based on all that very useful community input, and then in October of 2015, as you heard earlier, it went to the, the Steering Committee made its final recommendations to adopt the CDP. So, then, it went to the Planning Department and went through agency review. And, that's what you primarily have in your binder in front of you. I just want to give you a very quick orientation to it if you haven't had a chance to dive in completely yet. But, up front, and it's in the, with the red tab, first red tab, you have the recommendation, then in that section there's a table of contents. And the first section then is the background, and it shares, it's very clear about the authority of a CDP vis-a-vis the General Plan. That's the white tab. I hope yours are colored the same way mine are. And, then there's the plan elements. It's just a, kind of a guide to how the plan is organized where you can find what we worked hard to kind of index it and make it cross reference so it's easy to find things. There's an executive summary. There's a more detailed explanation of the CDP strategies. There's a whole lot of supporting working documents that were developed while developing the CDP, so those are all available. You can have access to those. And, perhaps, and most importantly, for every one of the strategies in the CDP, there's a written rationale explaining what it's trying to achieve and why this particular strategy was chosen. And, that, I think, is of particular importance to look at if you do have any questions about any of the strategies `cause that should answer your question, and if you have ideas and questions that then prompt potential improvements or strengthening of it, that's the place to have the conversation. And, then, there's a planning process explanation in the back and a few words about implementation. And, then as exhibits, you have the full CDP, the full strategy rationale, and also the Planning Team's comments on all the agency comment that was received once the plan had arrived at the Director's desk. So, yeah, so in early of, early part of last year, the plan went out for agency review, and we did it at this point because when we, we obviously were engaging different agencies along the way while developing the plan, and many of them were kind of, were anxious, we're happy to provide input but kinda anxious to kind of just see what the final product was, right? And, so, once it was done, we sent it out to all those same agencies when you get applications that come before you typically go to, so County, State, Federal, and many private organizations as well. EXHIBIT A 10 And, the types of comments we receive fundamentally fell into four categories. Some were just, you know, simple stuff like typos and style preferences. Others were just, were coming at things without a full understanding. They didn't have time to read the rationale, and so they just didn't quite get the full context. Others were substantive. Many were just expressions of support. Others saw issues differently or thought other strategies might be more effective. And, then, there's a whole lot of comment about Discovery Harbour which you'll hear more about tonight I imagine. And, then there were a lot of comments specific to implementation and how the CDP would go from adoption to implementation. So, like every other time when the plan went through review, lots of good ideas, suggestions, and so, you'll see many of those are reflective in the draft that you have before you tonight. So, then, it went back to the Director's desk, and the Director considered all the draft CDP, all the agency comment, all the work that went into all of that, and at the end of the day, decided to make a favorable recommendation to you for your recommendation to the Council. At the same time, included some non -substantive revisions, and that "non" part is important because as Chairman Henkel read at the beginning, if Council is considering any substantive amendments, then before they make their final decision, it has to come back to the Steering Committee and back to the Planning Commission before they make their final decision, so. And, those non -substantive revisions are really of three types—incorporating agency recommendations for improvements, some organizational improvements, and then what really is, most simply, clarification. I'm not going to go through the first two. They're really pretty straightforward and included some improvements in flow, some updates from agencies, that sort of thing. If you would like to see a kind of a track changes version of that, I have it on my computer tonight if you'd like to or can provide it to you otherwise. But, the clarification really boiled down to the land use scope of CDP's. And, this gets touchy because, you know, obviously we're doing CDP's because we want to have the community's perspective in preferences and goals for their community expressed through a CDP, and yet, we also need to be mindful that the General Plan is very clear that the General Plan is controlling if there's a conflict between CDP's and the General Plan, right? And, so I put this on the screen in part because they informed the Director's suggested refinements but also because they speak to some of the comment that you received recently as well. But, these are all verbatim quotes from Chapter, Chapters 14 and 15 of the General Plan, and then I highlighted in blue the kind of a key land use related ones. So, the CDP's do have the authority to direct development. To designate development patterns and to guide zoning and land use, but, in those instances, if there's conflicts between the CDP and the General Plan, the General Plan is controlling, right So, that's really important to understand. And, it gets a little messy because, so, you'll see in a CDP, recommendations for land use policy that we know is different from what's in the General Plan. And, that's important because the whole point of a CDP is for the community to be very clear about what it'd like to see. But, at the same time, you gotta recognize that until, if and until, those recommended changes are actually adopted as amendments to the General Plan, they, they make the community's preference clear, but fundamentally, the General Plan is controlling in terms of land use decisions, so. EXHIBIT A 11 So, what that meant in practice was refinements in some up front sections. Section 2 is the authority section, so you'll, I'll show you some of those here in a second. And, then, those same clarifications have implications for Policy 7, 39, and 93. Seven is the policy, map policy, and 39I forget, it's also a land use related policy. I forget which one. The "shalls" and "should" are also a refinement in that they, we looked again very hard about the Planning Director's authority, and these two policies speak to both the Planning Director's and the Water Supply Department's authority to make decisions and decide that "shall" was a, was, could be implied to, you know, supersede somehow the authority that the Code otherwise gives the Planning Director or the Department of Water Supply. So the thought "should" was more appropriate. And, just so you know, I should have mentioned this earlier, we had a meeting with the Steering Committee a couple weeks ago to go through all of this, to review it, and so they're very aware of all of this. We walked through every one of the detailed revisions, and so they understand what was recommended and why. So, I'm sorry for the small print, but I did want to show you examples of what those meant, so Section 2 is the applicability section of the CDP which describes basically the authority of the CDP. And, so you'll see how those refinements are reflected here, so the best example is the addition of managing growth and the addition at the end of 2.1 there of the very specific language directly from the General Plan about what a CDP can do. And then 2.2 very importantly makes it clear that if there are direct conflicts that the General Plan shall be controlling. And, that, the Chapter 15 also explicitly permits the CDP's to recommend amendments to the General Plan and so it's very appropriate for there to be things in the CDP that are, that are different from the GP and for an action in the CDP to say, hey, we need to now go and amend the General Plan. And that's Policy 7, the land use policy map, and so you see again there the replacement of definitions with the word, "designations" `cause designations is what is used in the General Plan and also the addition of the language. This was assumed and understood. They thought it was helpful to make it crystal clear that this applies unless the CDP and the General Plan are in direct conflict. So—ah, great. So, now we're at the, in the adoption phase obviously at the Planning Commission meeting and what comes next then is tonight's meeting, as already been mentioned, a follow-up meeting on June 1st back in Hilo. And, just so the public understands, that's a regular meeting of the Planning Commission so there'll, there are other agenda items. Is that correct? [Secretary's Note: Ms. Hata-Finley nodded yes to Mr. Whitmore.] Yeah. And, that will be at 9 o'clock at the Aupuni Conference Center [sic] Room in Hilo. And, then you'll make your recommendations within the 60 -day window that you're given, and then it'll go to Council. They'll go through a similar process before they're making, making their final decisions. Okay, so, because you've received comment since receiving the Director's Backgrounds and Recommendations, we thought you'd find it helpful for us to cover those a little bit because and we wanted to handle this the same way we've handled all the public comment all along which is to help the decision -makers understand it in the context of the working draft we have before us, right? EXHIBIT A 12 And, there was one that came in today that we did, we didn't have time to incorporate, but they were rather, there were the three other main topics that were mentioned in the comment recently. Discovery Harbour was one of `em, shoreline setbacks another, and land use in Pahala at the old Pahala Mill Site was the third. But, before diving into that, we again wanted to remind you that, you know, this, this is really an opportunity to celebrate, and part of that celebration is continuing this kind of robust, fact -based, objective approach to achieving the community's objectives, and we'd invite you to embrace it in that spirit. I see this, really, as another opportunity to further improve and refine the CDP if it does have deficiencies, but let's make sure the, that conversation, that debate stays grounded in the, all the work and analysis that has come before. Okay, first up. You know, I really appreciate the enthusiasm and obviously care and compassion people in Discovery Harbour have for their community. They've been to a lot of these meetings. Probably find it very frustrating that there is seemingly, you know, miscommunication about what it is we're trying to do and what it means relative to the past and the current state of affairs in Discovery Harbour. So, I'm going to try and clarify it, but you'll probably hear additional testimony. We can discuss it further afterwards as well. So, what people are referring to is those two parcels. These two here. I generally call them the "Gateway Parcels" `cause I can't ever remember the TMK numbers, but we are here in Na`alehu. You go down the highway, take a left on Kamaoa Road, another left on road whose name I always forget, and then you enter the, one of the main entrances of the community is here. And that, the community center, fire station, and the old restaurant which is now a school are at that intersection. Just so you have your bearings. And, the explanation for—well, you have two resources that you're supposed to understand—what the Steering Committee recommended, one is Exhibit 2, Pages 4 and 5. You can also turn to the rationale for the CDP for Policy 7. There's a Discovery Harbour subsection there. But, let me try to summarize the drivers of the decision that the Steering Committee made. Now, what the Steering Committee was trying to do was use the symbology and designations of the LUPAG Map, which you're all familiar with, and apply them and revise them as appropriate for Ka`u. The idea was to keep it simple. Let's use the same nomenclature, same tool, same language and that facilitates, then, subsequent considerations of amendments to the General Plan, right? And, so what it was doing is around the whole community looking at current land use designations in the General Plan and considering whether they were still appropriate relative to the community's objectives. So, the four sub -bullets, they are what the Steering Committee fundamentally considered when it was considering (a) whether to make any change in Discovery Harbour and if so, to what. And, I probably should start by saying that the current LUPAG in Discovery Harbour is Rural. So, it's not an Urban or an Ag designation. It's Rural. And, where the Steering Committee landed was to recommend a change to Low Density Urban. Let me explain why. So, first of all, we heard a tremendous amount from people in the community about the strong desire, at those two parcels in particular, for something that's not Residential. It wasn't complete EXHIBIT A 13 unanimity about what that should be. A lot of people support the idea of some kind of resort at one scale or another. And, but, but there is fairly, there's very high level of support for something other than housing there. But, then it gets a little more complicated. A lot of agreement as well about the suitability of a small-scale resort as long as the infrastructure challenges were considered `cause road improvements would be required, water system upgrades, and probably some other things as well. So, people were happy to see a small-scale resort there as long as it was mitigated appropriately. So, everyone's pretty much on the same page at that point. Not universally, but most people. And, then, then you run into this challenge and this gets confusing because fundamentally, the covenants of the community have nothing to do with zoning or County land use designations or what not. But, they came into play here because the CDP Steering Committee considered this at some length and decided that it didn't think it was practical to recommend a land use designation for an area that would, that it knew was inconsistent with CC&R's. Where it also knew that it'd be next to impossible to revise those CC&R's because the requirements, the legal requirements within the document in terms of the number of lot owners or homeowners required us consent to a, a change. So that was in the back of their minds. And, unfortunately, and I'll get to this in a second, the CCR's, CC&R's are a bit limiting in what they allow, but there's also debate about that. But, given the constraints, the Steering Committee understood about those, it wanted to honor the desire for non-residential. It didn't think Resort was possible given the CC&R's. It also wanted to recognize that Ka`u doesn't have a large enough population to support four large commercial centers, and that the General Plan and the CDP reiterated this. Had identified Pahala, Na`alehu, and Ocean View as those primary commercial centers. It didn't want to create a fourth, and so it compromised by, with the land, Low Density Urban designation, which is consistent with the existing residential development nature of that area. Plus, it does allow for some small-scale commercial development. It would even allow for small-scale resort development, potentially, but at very low density. A couple things to consider. And this, this is really geared towards folks from Discovery Harbour. I knowI know that I just explained that the CDP can designate and detail land use, but in this particular instance, the CDP is not going to be the driver for what happens on those two parcels `cause fundamentally, you gotta work with the State Land Use District that the parcels are in and the zoning that they have `cause the CDP doesn't change that anyway. And, it's in the State Land Use Agricultural District, and they're zoned Open. And, given that, the landowner can at any time, and could have for the last however many years they've owned it, submit a Special Permit application to propose doing whatever he would like at whatever scale. It would come to the Planning Commission for consideration, but that has been an option and still is an option. The other route there's two routes the owner has—the second route is the more arduous one, to actually go through the State Land Use Boundary Amendment, General Plan Amendment, and EXHIBIT A 14 Change of Zone. So, I just want to make clear that the CDP doesn't affect that and won't affect that. And, I also may want to, and given that, my understanding is that fundamentally, this is a disagreement within community that the CDP isn't going to resolve. And, the disagreement centers around, and if you read the testimony during agency comment that we got about Discovery Harbour, you'll see this. Letters from attorneys from both sides of the issue. Letters from community members from both sides of the issue, and they're basically arguing about three things: this legal status of the charter of the homeowners' association, the legal status of past development plans for the area including those two parcels; and what the CC&R's allow. There's also disagreement about whether the CC&R's that the Board is working with are the legal CC&R's. But most people, the Board, the CC&R's that the Board is using identify that the uses for these two parcels are in quotes there. "Single-family residential or Village commercial or multi -family residential," right? So, again, though, the Steering Committee looked at that and saw it, "Well, given our options, LDU is the best fit for that." And, so that's more or less where it landed. And, we can talk more about that if you need to. Okay, second issue that came up through testimony lately or in the last week or two was the Pahala Mill Site, and the arrow there is pointing kinda to the center of it. If you're familiar with Pahala, it's on the makai side of town just after the Plantation House, just mauka of the highway. So, if as you were passing Pahala, if you looked up to your right, you would have seen a mill near the highway. Beyond that was the old, currentI'm sorry, current—mac nut processing facility, and beyond that, the Old Mill site. And, in this case, it is important to understand all the land use designations. It's, it's mostly Urban although this portion here is also a part of this TMK in question, and that's in the State Land Use Ag District. And, it's zoning is five different types. So, we have Open, two types of Residential, I believe if memory serves, Ag -1, Ag -20, ML, and MG. So, that's the zoning, and as you all know, the zoning is what drives permitted uses. And, then, the General Plan, like in many places, is messy and not very helpful. The large yellow blob in the middle is Medium Density Urban. The orange is Low Density. This bluish gray is Industrial. And, strangely enough, the pink and green are Ag. And, so, the task of the Steering Committee was to try to make this be more sensical, right? `Cause, you look at that, even the broad brush stroke doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Since the role of these maps is to guide future land use, right? So, they suggested this change. And, it does a few things. One, is it centralizes mixed use and commercial development into two nodes, and if you know Pahala, it kind of has those two nodes and it wants to further infill around those with mixed use and commercial uses. It retains the actively used Industrial area here which is along—it's actually a road here you don't see on the map, but it's an active baseyard. And, then it thought, okay, so we'll use it. How about a nice and Medium Density Urban node here, extend it across the road and include the Plantation House and beyond. But, then otherwise, when you think about Pahala and its settlement pattern, its future settlement pattern, from a land use and planning perspective, it makes sense to make this area available for in -fill residential development to accommodate future growth. So, that's where the Steering Committee landed on that particular area. EXHIBIT A 15 And, here's some of the rationale behind it. So, a lot of the Industrial zoning around the Island, particular in rural communities is legacy zoning from the plantation area. A lot of the old mill sites were zoned Industrial at the time. Today, that, in many cases, it wouldn't even be necessary `cause many of the uses associated with agricultural processing and manufacturing and value added are permitted in the State Land Use Ag District. But, again, many of these small towns have these legacy zoned areas often right in the heart of town, which really, in many cases, aren't appropriate any longer given the proximity to residential areas, and because within Industrial broadly defined, very noxious uses are permitted, right? Which people are entitled to—to develop in those cases. And, so, the other thing is, though, there's water and roads available there, which if you—as you know, with development are critical to any successful development or redevelopment project, and so we thought, okay, let's make use of the resources there, keep the village tight and clustered and small, make that available for infill development. Oh, and the fourth bullet, as you can imagine, doing a mapping exercise like this, it's impractical to contact all landowners. We did in some cases where we were suggesting a change to Conservation or Open because in the General Plan, if you ever do that type of amendment, you're required to bring the landowner into the loop. However, in this case, we actually thought this was an advantage for the landowner, and so it didn't reach out this landowner specifically because we though, you know, it's actually more likely they'd want the higher density associated with Residential development than what they'd otherwise be allowed with Ag -1, Ag -20, or even Industrial designations so. The final thing to remember is at the end of the day, the CDP's intended in this case to designate preferred future uses. It doesn't immediately change the General Plan. So, the General Plan is still controlling. Okay, final issue, shoreline structural setback. Now, this, this was probably the most talked about issue during the planning process, and if you know Ka`u at all, you quickly understand why because the landscape in general, the environment, the resources, natural and cultural, are just part in parcel the community out here—and, the shoreline and coastal areas in particular. They're unique. They have a unique set of resources, and people protect them here with passion. And so what the CDP tries to do is use every tool available to limit development on the shoreline, and those words in quotes there are straight out of the community's objectives, and this is very high priority for the community. Again, for a number of reasons: subsistence, recreation, culture, ecosystems, views. You have some—you have some unique ecosystems in the coastal areas of Ka`u you're not going to find anywhere else. And, then, it also understands that Ka`u's economic future is not through housing development along the coastline. The CDP clearly identifies where coastal development is appropriate. Redevelop Punalu`u in a way that's appropriate and aligned with the community's objectives. And, the General Plan is very clear. Don't develop other coastal areas until you've fully developed those that are already designated, right? And, so, this is not a question of jobs versus environment or anything like that. It's fundamentally about really what is most aligned with community values and what is the greatest economic benefit for the community. One of the Steering Committee members said it very eloquently while discussing the setback and said, "you EXHIBIT A 16 know what? You know, this really is an economic issue. In fact, the coastline in many ways is Ka`u's greatest economic asset. And, so, it's critical that we protect that in our CDP." And, so, the CDP uses every strategy at its disposal to try to do that. Most of the coastline is in a combination of State Land Use Conservation and LUPAG Conservation and Open up to varying distances inland and lot, and much of it is in the SMA. Sometimes, quite a distance inland; in many cases, about 500 feet. So the CDP makes maximum use of all those available tools. But for years, the community has also been pushing very hard for some kind of structural setback at the shoreline. Very frustrated with the fact that there's a 40 -foot minimum established in State law and County rules, which from someone in Ka`u just seems ridiculous given the 80 miles, roughly, of undeveloped, mostly undeveloped coastline and such unique pristine resources. And, so, the community was insistent on using the structural setbacks as, as one of the tools. I'm going to share these pictures just toand if you haven't spent a lot of time in Ka`u, you really need to understand the unique nature of this coastline. So, a bit of understanding about structural setbacks, this is—State law and County rules speak to the shoreline setbacks. And, fundamentally, the State gives the County's authority to establish setbacks by rule or ordinance at distances greater than 40 feet if it would like to. And, so, the Steering Committee through the CDP is making effort to do that, right? The Planning Department Rule 11-5 establishes a minimum shoreline setback at forty, but it also gives—but it doesn't establish any kind of protocol for how to establish an appropriate setback. And, so the basic argument is that because the unique conditions here, it makes a whole lot of sense to consider those unique, local conditions when considering what an appropriate setback would be in Ka`u. And the other unique thing about Ka`u is you're not dealing with hundreds of TMK's across the coastline. You're really dealing, talking about a, just a handful. Much of the coastline is already publicly owned. Remaining parcels are ginormous parcels where there's a whole lot of room to be flexible about where you would place structures on the landscape, right? And, so what Policy 28 does is fundamentally, when, when a development is proposed on lots that are at least partially and in the Special Management Area, it establishes a setback at a minimum of 1,320 feet or a quarter mile. And, this was not an arbitrary number that the Steering Committee or anybody else came up with. It was based fundamentally on two things. One was we looked, we had already mapped all the coastal resources in Ka`unatural, cultural—and as well as hazard related issues, and when looking at the map, it becomes pretty clear that once you get to a quarter mile, you're pretty much outside the areas that are richest in ecological and cultural resources. We also know as planners that, you know, if you want to maintain reasonable access to the coastline, a quarter mile is generally considered the standard walkable distance to a destination. And, so we thought okay, so if we put the setback at, you know, a quarter mile, and those areas, for instance, that are, where's there's preserves, you could establish a small, you know, a small gravel parking lot, you know, some kind of lua, and then people could easily access the shoreline. `Cause access to the shoreline is also important for the folks in Ka`u. EXHIBIT A 17 All that being said, I need to emphasize that nobody in Ka`u is really happy about a quarter mile. There's a coastal commission that was State mandated some years ago where their recommendation was 1.5. And, you don't know how many people we heard from that said, "Go deeper. Go deeper. Go deeper." Right? You know, but we wanted to have a distance that had some, some grounding and justification, right? So, what—so important to also understand is that the policy also makes it very possible for the applicant, through the normal process, it's `cause they're gonna have to submit a Special Management Area application anyway. In that application, they can provide whatever justification they think is reasonable to make a case for a closer setback. Because at the end of the day, it's the Director's authority to establish the setback, right? And, also important to understand, this is a structural setback. It is not, it is not speaking to permitted uses at all. It's simply saying where they should be relative to the shoreline, right? And, all these parcels are Conservation, near the shoreline, and in most cases, Agriculture beyond that. And so when you think about the range of permitted uses on Ag land, you're talking about farm dwellings, barns, what not, right? None of which you really need anywhere near the shoreline. So, this does not affect permitted uses on the shoreline. I just thought I'd throw this out there. This is a snapshot of one of the maps we used to help us identify a reasonable distance for the shoreline, right? So, you can't see it very well here, but the orange line is a quarter mile. This is Ka`alu`alu Bay, and so the quarter mile here, you can see there's a whole lot of resources. These are identifying anchialine ponds, Hawksbill nesting sites, beauty sites, etc. You know, the other hatchings are hazards and what not, sowhich, by the way, the Special Management Area review process also needs to consider when considering appropriate placing of structures. Okay! I think I am just about to the end. I think we're now turning to the opportunity for questions, oh no, testimony, and then you guys. HENKEL: First, Ron, are there any questions from staff I mean, from the Commission to staff? Yes, Mr. Clarkson. CLARKSON: Yes. I'm aI'm still confused about the issue of conflict with the General Plan. How many of the previous CDP's have been—where you said adopted by the Council as amendments to the plan. WHITMORE: In reference to the General Plan? CLARKSON: Yes. WHITMORE: They're all adopted individually as ordinances and if you read Chapter 16 at the top of it in the County Code, there's basically placeholders that basically says this is administratively where the community plan, plans, so that's how it's adopted. By ordinance and incorporated into the zoning or the, not the Zoning Code, the County Code, right? Malia, if I'm EXHIBIT A 18 mismisspeaking, let me know. So, they're adopted as ordinances. They don't immediately—they're not adopted as amendments to the General Plan. CLARKSON: Oh, okay. So that makes sense. That's where the conflict still remains. WHITMORE: Yeah, right. CLARKSON: Because the General Plan is not amended at all by the adoption. WHITMORE: But the General Plan in Chapter 15 is also very clear that it's very appropriate for a CDP to recommend amendments to the General Plan. CLARKSON: But, none of them have actually amended the General Plan yet? WHITMORE: Well, certainly not automatically. I can't think of any that through implementation have done it either. Yeah, so, that does tie into the General Plan review that the Planning Department is also in the middle of, and you should know that, that is being heavily driven by what the CDP's have said, so. CLARKSON: Thank you. HENKEL: Commissioners, any other questions? All right, thank you, Ron. We're going to move onto the public testimony portion and then, you know, everybody that wants to is going to get a chance to have three minutes to testify, and then Ron might want to respond to, you know, specific testimony after. And, here, we've got seven people signed up. So, we'll do four first. The first four on the list and then the last three second. Is everybody good to go? Let's recess for five minutes, okay, and everybody can gather themselves, and we'll be right back. Chair Henkel called a recess at 6:39 p. m., and the meeting was reconvened at 6:44 p. m. HENKEL: Could we call the meeting back to order, please? I'll ask the first four people to, that wish to testify that are signed up to come forward and sit at the table. Samantha Sherline, Kathy Garson, Jim Simpson, and Michelle Galimba, please come up and make yourselves comfortable. Would you please raise your right hands while we take care of the legal formalities? Do you affirm or swear to tell the truth on this matter before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes. HENKEL: Thank you. We'll start with the young lady on the right, and please speak into the microphone. State your name and where you're from, and you have three minutes. Mafia here will be keeping time. HO: It should be on. EXHIBIT A 19 HENKEL: I think it's on. HO: Yeah. Just speak in it. SHERLINE: Just hold it then—oh. HENKEL: There you go. SHERLINE: Thank you for calling me young. I'll be 79 in 27, in 14 days, 17 days. First of all, how many of you are from the Big Island? How many of you live in Ka`u? Na`alehu? So, where are you from? Oahu? Well, the reason I'm asking is I grew up on Oahu when it was beautiful. I used to surf with the dinosaurs, and don't laugh, because they don't even like it there anymore. And, now, I finally get to come home, and I'm living in a rural, quiet, peaceful, beautiful environment. And, now, condos, apartments, overbuild Ka`u? Na`alehu? Get it crowded, cluttered, congested? No! Why do you want to do that to us? Oh, that's right. The money. The money. The money. Don't shake your head, "no." That's what it's all about, and I don't like the idea, and I know it's going to happen anyway, but I can still voice my opinion. We live in Discovery Harbour where it's quiet. It's peaceful. It's beautiful. It's tranquil. And, it's going to get messed up. It always does. Every time it gets overbuilt, nobody stops to think about what they're doing to the environment. To the whole situation. It just gets totally messed up. And South Point? You wanna build down there? Leave it alone! It's beautiful. It's rural. It's natural. It's pristine. A hundreda mile and a half from the shoreline? That's not far enough. Ten miles from the shoreline. How about a hundred? Leave us alone! And that's what I have to say. And, I don't need two more minutes. I think I've already said it. HENKEL: Thank you. Please state your name and where you're from. GARSON: Hi. My name is Katherine Garson. Good evening. I'm an attorney with the law office, with Carlsmith Ball LLP. I'm here on behalf of LLC Kawala today, and we submitted written testimony about the unconstitutionality of Policy 28. And, we just urge you to consider that as you're making the recommendations to the County Council. But, we also wanted to make some general comments, and first of all, I'd like to thank the Steering Committee, Planning Department, everybody for working so hard. It's obvious that Ka`u cares about the community. It is, it's beautiful down here, and we do note that in the Planning Department, in the Planning Director's Background Report and in the General Plan, the CDP's are supposed to translate broad policy statements into specific actions. And, they should not conflict with or be contrary to the General Plan. And, again, the Planning Director and the CDP itself state that where the CDP and General Plan conflict, the General Plan is controlling. So, the Steering Committee, through the CDP, can recommend the amendments to the General Plan, but those amendments still need to be made to the General Plan itself via an ordinance, so similar to what the question that member Clarkson was asking. Now, while this all seems very, fairly straightforward, there has been confusion in the past over the legal effect of certain provisions of the various CDP's. And, so, just to kind of help assist EXHIBIT A 20 you with this, we wanted to provide—and, I'm sorry, I should have passed this out earlier—but this is a, this is a letter, February 24, 2016, from the prior Planning Director to the Kona Community Development Action Committee. I'll pass that out later. But, basically, what it says, is that it clarifies that it was for the Kona CDP. Like the Ka`u CDP, it's, it, the CDP does not amend sections of the County Code. Okay? It can't amend sections of the County Code. And, again, you're probably wondering why we emphasize this `cause I think Mr. Whitmore agreed with those statements. In the Director's report and in the CDP, it states that the land use, in the land use policy section, the policy controls limit the range of decisions that can be made in the future, and from a legal standpoint, the policies imperative are mandatory. That statement is incorrect. Where those policies conflict with the General Plan, existing laws, codes, administrative agency rules, and as the General Plan itself states, the CDP's are to recommend amendments as appropriate to the codes, maps, or administration and enforcement. The CDP cannot do that automatically. And, so for the, those reasons, we just urge you to please carefully consider all of those policy controls to avoid any confusion as to, which can impair the legal rights of the landowners in Ka`u and could possibly subject the legal community to do more challenges with what's happening with the CDP. So, I, again, thank you for allowing us to have this input, and as you make recommendations to the County Council. Thank you. HENKEL: Thank you, Kathy. Jim? You're next. SIMPSON: My name is Jim Simpson. I live on Kamaoa Road over here after the Ka`u [inaudible]. Ka`u' has changed. Ka`u does not need to change anymore. I came to this meeting because I read the paper, and they said they're gonna do something in Discovery Harbour, so I said I'm not going to shut up anymore. There's only a few places in the whole islands that is still partly Hawaiian, very, very local. The mix of people here is good. Molokai has some. Maui has some. We have some. We don't want that support. We don't want that support. The shoreline, you get as much as you can put it in. The wildlife or forestry, anything, you can't get that. You go Honolulu, they had their beaches what they thought would be beaches. There's no room. We have to have room for the people. People, this is what they do. They said do we, the plantations close down. It's all changed now. We have people here that don't even realize that there was sugar. And they are our community. One of the things that is really important is we keep it like it is. There is going to be things come and we're going to have things built. Let it work for us, not for outside, outside. Straight to Ka`u is its people. The mix of people. They call it rainbow because it's all different kind of people, religions, food. It's all, again, you get Hawaii values, still are here to help people take care of people. We need to take care the land. You guys talk to us too much stuff I did come because I understood that everything was done. Yes, I do, and so I hadn't read the things. So, this is just all off the cuff EXHIBIT A 21 Ocean View when I came here, Ocean View when I came here had four houses. Discovery Harbour had three houses. Now, nobody, people lived in Ocean View. Nobody lived in Discovery Harbour. They had model homes. The other two subdivisions, Green Sands and Mark Twain, had nobody in it. I lived at Kamaoa Road. You come around by [inaudible]. From there, Discovery Harbour, there was a dirt cinder road. From Discovery Harbour to South Point Road were two ti plants. Everybody knows what that means. Just [inaudible] to go fishing. Now, it was nice, and it is still nice. We had to not have a prison here. We had to not have the spaceport here. So people have fought to keep this place like it is. And, thank you for listening to me, and thank you for all your work because it seems like it maybe it's going to work out. HENKEL: Thank you, Mr. Clarkson [sic] or Mr. Simpson, sorry. Next? GALIMBA: Aloha, Commissioners. My name is Michelle Galimba. I'm a cattle rancher here in Ka`u, and I was on the Ka`u Community Development Plan Steering Committee. And, I want to thank you for coming all the way out here. I often have to drive out there, and I know it's a long way to come here, so thank you very, very much. I'm going to keep this pretty short, but if you do have any questions from, that I could help from the Steering Committee perspective, of course, I'd be happy to answer those questions later. I was born and raised here in Ka`u, but I've lived in many places. Grew up and went away, and lived in other places, and then I came back. So, I know how unique and precious Ka`u is. There is both good and bad things about Ka`u. That's, that's the truth about it. But, the good things the undeveloped coastline, the rural character, the strong community ties, the pristine mountain forests—these are all things that we can't just take for granted are going to be protected anymore by our distance from everything. So, with this CDP, we, we did. It's very protective of our place, and we, we have this very strong community support for that protection. On the other hand, I think the CDP also addresses some of the bad things that we have like, as Ron as mentioned, a very strong economic development portion, and although the County can't do that much to actively create economic development, what they can do, I think, they've, they've addressed that. Another thing that would help with economic development that can be, the County can help with, is better public transportation and the updated land use policies. I just wanted to say that Ron is correct in saying that we really worked hard on that, that shoreline setback and we tried to moderate it because there was a lot of people that really wanted to go farther. And, we did, and we were, served more radical, and we came back to try and keep it legal as much as possible. So, with that, I just want to say that this CDP does express the vision and the will of the people of Ka`u, and as the CDP Steering Committee, I, I can attest to that. Thanks. HENKEL: I thank all of you, and you may be seated, and I'll call the next four people up. Kevin Asman, Lorry Brocks [sic -Brooks], Thomas Gandy, and Aubrey Hounshaw [sic- Hounshell]. Would you please raise your right hands, and we'll have one mic at each table. EXHIBIT A 22 There we go. Raise your right hands. Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth on this matter before the Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: I do/yes. HENKEL: Thank you. We'll start on the right again. Please state your name and where you're from and proceed. You have three minutes. Please speak directly into the microphone. ASMAN: Okay. My name is Kevin Asman, and I live in Discovery Harbour with my husband for seven years now. When we came here, it's been basically the same as it is now. There hasn't been any development there. When we moved here, we thought there was going to be some resort planning and which, it was fine. We were, we're happy where we are. But, what my concern is, is that the CDP has changed the zoning from Resort Commercial for the two Gateway Lots. Resort Commercial to Low Density Urban, and like Ron Whitmore said, that, and that's 30 acres. You can put six home on each acre to be a 180 homes. We already have like 500 home sites available in Discovery Harbour. I don't think we need more home sites. Said we can also put a 7-11 there. We don't want a 7-11 there. A small-scale resort. We have a beautiful golf course, which is maintained by, by volunteers. To advance that which the, the plan, or the South Point Investment Group, is a community resort with concurrent maintenance of fixing up and maintaining the golf course. Getting the driving range in. And, when it was that way before 30 years ago when it was developed, there were 13 full-time employees who worked that golf course, who kept it cut. There was restaurant, that's employees—one more minute. And, my concern is I live in Ka`u, and I love the coastline. I love everything about it. I love the fishing and the hunting and the people who do all that. We've got plenty of pigs here. People coming and getting our pigs for us. Even in Discovery Harbour. But, having a resort there isn't going to take away from the beauty of Ka`u. It's going to, and when I look around and I worked at, I've worked, I do work off and on at two of the schools here. I see the poverty. I see the kids who can't even afford local flip flops. I know, and the people that I've lived across the street from and neighbors in Discovery Harbour, some of them are homeless. They just move in with somebody else, and they've got kids with them, and these people need employment. And, you're talking about sustainable economy? Building a 180 home sites and having that, what I would think would be more low income housing please stop isn't sustainable. Isn't a sustainable economy, but having a small scale resort area would provide a lot of jobs. Thank you. HENKEL: Thank you. Next, please. State your name. BROOKS: Lorry Brooks, and I live in Discovery Harbour. My husband and I are originally from Alaska. I've lived up there for 45 years. The reason I'm telling you this is where we came from is very similar to this area, and this is why we choose it. We were hunters. We were fishermen. We were subsistence. Here, I see the same thing. I am a teacher at the Ka`u Learning Academy so I have a really unique perspective, I think, both Kevin and I, dealing with the students and talking with a lot of the parents. I think it's very usual that the number of pigs EXHIBIT A 23 have increased with the golf course. I had students telling me that they're getting `em almost every week. Anytime you clear area, yeah, just like up in Alaska, you get the moose. I think Anchorage has the highest density of moose in the whole state. But, anyway, so what's not going to hurt the hunting, and the resort, if it were built, has nothing to do with the ocean, but anyway, I think I agree with her. I listen to the students, and I talk to the parents. Most of the parents that work have to live, have to work in Kona or Hilo, and I thought it was interesting that Ron Whitmore said, you know, it's difficult to reach everybody. To have them come to these meetings. And, a lot of these parents don't get home until six or seven at night because it's an hour and a half in the traffic coming from Kona. Many of them can't make it to parent -teacher conferences so they call me on the phone, and once they get home, they want to spend time with their family. Many of my students have said they don't see a future, and they're very bright. I'm really impressed with the students here and how bright they are and interesting. But, some of them have come in and said, "Miss, I don't see what we're gonna, what I'm gonna do." Where I think that a resort would give many of them better opportunity. Something here, also. I know that it was mentioned like having a 7-11 or small businesses. We already have small businesses, and I do not want to produce competition for the ones that are already here where a resort would not be competition. It would bring people in. It would enhance the businesses. I know the policeman that lives next to me has said he's always asked by people is there any place to stay around here. I'd like to stay another day or two. No, we don't have any hotel. We don't have any motel. So, there's definitely a need. So, it's a service that does not exist as yet. Another thing, it's a private business. There's no taxes being used to develop it, and it brings revenue. I know some people don't want to hear that, but it brings revenue to the County and to the State. I guess that's it. HENKEL: Thank you, Mrs. Brooks. Next? GANDY: Yes, hello. My name is Thomas Gandy. I live in Mark Twain Estates. I apologize in advance if I'm in the wrong time and place, but my issue is yurts. I have just a few talking points I'd like to run through. That plastic single-wall structures are not compatible with conventional houses built to stringent and expensive Code standards, yurt cause an adverse effect on property values and quality of neighborhoods. In a realistic situation, low -value dwellings would reduce the tax base and the County's revenue. There needs to be some control over where substandard dwellings can be placed so it's not to ruin existing subdivisions. And, I think the Planning, you know, should—shouldn't even allow these yurts in just small lotted subdivisions. I have pictures to share, to show you the existing houses and then this yurt that was built there that, that's incompatible in my view. So, thank you very much. HENKEL: Thank you, Mr. Gandy. And, Avery? [sic] MIYASATO: Aubrey. EXHIBIT A 24 HENKEL: Aubrey. HOUNSHELL: My name is Aubrey Hounshell. I am a member of your community. I've been here for 20 years. I'm from Denver, Colorado. I own five acres on Road to the Sea; three acres that this CDP will turn Commercial on the highway; two acres up in Ocean View; and I just sold my property in Eden Roc. So, I'm heavily invested in your community regardless of what you do with the planning and the zoning. Some places that will benefit me; other places it may not. But, I think the most important thing for the people of Ka`u and, more importantly, the children of Ka`u is that this place stays to some degree the way it is with open country, 4 -wheel drive, access to shoreline fishing, and surfing. The cultural sport of surfing, kuwa [sic-he'e nalu], as you may know has been removed from our ability to get close to the beach. We have to leave our vehicles out. Road to the Sea has exquisite surf spots, and we are separated from Pohue Bay. I have a subdivision thing where by purchasing in Ocean View, I have a right to a slip in the harbor at Pohue Bay, and I see it in black and white. So, it's very easy to make black and white pictures or documents that say what you're gonna do and how you're gonna do it and to put parks and schools in communities like Ocean View. But, the truth is, is that Ocean View has become overpopulated, a proverbial wasteland of poor people. Immigrants from other countries that don't have opportunities. And whereas I'm very fortunate because my mind was developed in Denver, Colorado, and I came here. I see opportunity in land use, and I want that as we developed this community we keep the truth of Hawaiian practitioner, cultural, surfing, fishing, diving. We gotta keep it open. No more closed gates on the, the ranchlands. Pohue Bay is up for sale. So, as we go to do these things, just please consider the children and the access that they have to the resource and that another commercial entity or development isn't going to continue to close doors. And, if you travel, Kailua-Kona, you'll see that it's no different than Westminster or Nevada or Aurora, Colorado. Shopping malls and strip malls, and that's where we're heading. The developers don't need the County money. They don't need the tax base. They bring the money, and to some degree they're allowed to shift and move gears and do whatever they want. And, then the community the children and the people of the community—are the by-product of those decisions. The Napo`opo`o extension, there's a shoreline access. I've been denied access so many times to there. And, it's just, it's, it's not right to put up gates and to close the people's access to their resource. And that will be my testimony. HENKEL: Thank you, Aubrey. That's—I've got one more to testify that signed up. If there's anybody else, please sign up now, but you, you four, I really appreciate your testimony. You may be seated. And, we'll call Starlette Freitas up. FREITAS: Do I sit here? HENKEL: Yeah, wherever you're comfortable. Would you raise your right hand, please, Starlette? Do you swear and affirm to tell the truth on this matter before the Planning Commission? EXHIBIT A 25 FREITAS: Yes, I do. HENKEL: All right. Please speak into the microphone and proceed. FREITAS: Okay. God, I'm nervous. I don't do this stuff I grew up here in Ka`u in South Point, and growing up, we didn't have a lot of these things we have today. You know, South Point Road, Kamaoa Road was red cinder. You know, hardly had houses. Ocean View lucky if had two houses. Two lights from South Point you could see, you know? My parents raised us to live with what we had. We lived off the land. We hunt pig. We eat fish. You know, the plants that we have here is medicine for us, you know? I grew up here, and I used to think, "Oh, no more nothing." You know, and then I moved away and then I come back and I learned that we live in the best place in Hawaii, you know what I mean? You guys put one resort there, it'd be killing our natural resources, you know? It's like already with what Discovery Harbour has over there. Our local people, you cannot do this. You cannot do that. You cannot do this. You know? And, even the shorelines. It's like one time we go to the beach and these people make like we going kill the animals, but we swim with these animals for years. You know what I mean? We protect the animals. We protect the land. You know? We need more schools and we need a lot of things, but we don't need no condominiums. You know what I mean? Our water today is getting damaged. You know, you get people that coming over here, they take the water, and they selling the water, and we buying our own water, you know? Ocean View get plenty people that got nowhere to go, you know. It doesn't need—we need schools. We need things. But, we don't need no resort. You know, people, we travel far, but we do what we do because we love our `Hina. It's been this way for years, you know. All I can say is that we live off this land. You know the love we have for this land and the people is how we go around, we take care and we like it this way. You know, kids can still be kids. You can run around, you know. Your kid can run up the street and the other aunty or the uncle going take care, "eh!" You know? You cannot do that any kine place. And, we like keep our traditions, you know. But, I just ask that you guys humbly consider what I had to say, you know. And, that's all. Thank you. HENKEL: Thank you, Starlette. You may be seated. Ron, would you like to respond to any of the testimony? WHITMORE: Sure. Just very briefly. So, two main points, I guess. And, I apologize. I know the land use language and designations are confusing. But, just again, one more time to try to explain the Discovery Harbour situation. The, those two parcels, their current zoning is Open. They are not zoned Village Commercial. And, the CDP, anyway, doesn't change the zoning. The problem is not the CDP or any County or State land use entitlements. Tthe challenge is the CC&R's, okay? The current landowner tomorrow could submit an application to develop a resort. There's no land use designation in his way, okay? And, the CDP isn't going to impact EXHIBIT A 26 that one way or another. I apologize for the confusion. The Village Commercial term is in your CC&R's. It's not anywhere in the State Land Use Law, Zoning Code, or General Plan. So, just to clarify that. ASMAN (from audience): But, it isn't in our CC&R's. [inaudible] HENKEL: Excuse me, but I'm sorry, but we cannot allow any testimony outside of the public testimony portion. He's responding. All of you, this is going toyou know, we're not going to do an action today. We're going to in our June lst meeting, and you'll have another opportunity to testify there. But, Ron, I'm sorry. Go ahead. WHITMORE: No, I just, I apologize. I know this stuff gets confusing. So, and then the only second point is, you know, Kathy, I really appreciate your comments. I think you're right on the, you know, the General Plan isn't as clear as it should be about the meaning of and the authority of CDP's vis-a-vis the General Plan, and we're, the Planning Department I believe is trying to, it has plans to clarify that during this General Plan review. And, so, you know, the Steering Committee and community did the best it could to find language it though was consistent with what authority the General Plan gave it and tried to be, used all the existing tools available. So yes, it is very specific in some cases about the—what it really liked the Planning Director to do in certain cases where the Director has authority to do something, but we, I don't think we crossed the line and said you trump the authority of the Director or the authority of the Planning Commission or the authority of the Council, right? So, it's, it's really a balancing act. Trying to be super clear, trying to make good use of the tools that are in the toolbox without overstepping, right? And, it, but fundamentally, the language in the GP isn't clear enough in terms of distinguishing the authority, and so, but you're right. At the end of the day, the General Plan is controlling and so that's always going to be the last call, right? So. HENKEL: All right. Could we have a motion to close public testimony? IKEDA: Motion to close public testimony. MIYASATO: Second. HENKEL: It's been moved by Commissioner Ikeda. Seconded by Commissioner Miyasato. All in favor, say "aye." COMMISSIONERS: Aye. HENKEL: Opposed? The public testimony portion is closed. Will there be a motion for action? We're limited to specifically what action we can take and basically that's toI think Christian was going to clarify this, right? KAY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. It's our understanding that because we're going to be continuing this to June 1st, there's no action to take tonight. HENKEL: Would there not be a motion to continue? EXHIBIT A 27 KAY: Yes, you can take a motion to continue. That's correct. HENKEL: I would look for a motion like that. MIYASATO: Chair Henkel, before I make a motion, you know, I'd just like to thank everyone for coming out and expressing your concerns. And, you know, my uncle used to have the ranch right down this road, right next door to the Galimba's one. Our ranch, we ranched this land for many years, 12,000 acres all the way down to the ocean. The ocean down here, the beach, the shoreline is amazing, yeah? We'd stay at that house, that green house right across Hana Hou Restaurant. I'd hunt up in these mountains with the Cabreros family. I learned how to rodeo right here in this arena with Hano Grace, and you know we'd rush to do our cattle work, and jump on the four wheelers and, head down to the shoreline. Go fishing, check out the beach. So, I share all your passion and concern for this area. And, just thank you for coming out and sharing your testimony and concern. With that, Chair, I'd like to make a motion for a continuance. IKEDA: Second. HENKEL: It's been moved and seconded to continue to the June 1st meeting. Discussion? I would like to concur with Commissioner Miyasato that we really do value all of your input, and we appreciate you coming out, and we realize, too, the distance involved. You know, Hilo is the, the seat of our government. I live in lower Puna, and I thought that we were kind of geologically, geographically separated by my 30 miles, but, you know, driving out here today, I realized that I could walk to, walls to Hilo from there. And—and, we really do appreciate it. And, I appreciate the work that the Steering Committee did, too. So, any other discussion on the motion, Commission? Then, with that, all in favor for a continuance, say "aye." COMMISSIONERS: Aye. HENKEL: Opposed? Then, the, this hearing will be continued to June 1st, and I'm looking forward to seeing you some of you there if you can make it. Oh, is there a motion to adjourn? MIYASATO: Motion to adjourn. HENKEL: Sorry, we got one more motion. We didn't adjourn. I'm sorry. My bad. IKEDA: Second. HENKEL: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting. Allin favor, say, "aye." COMMISSIONERS: Aye. HENKEL: Opposed? All right. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, staff EXHIBIT A 28 The discussion ended at 7:21 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 29 EXHIBIT A