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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-06-15 Leeward Exh A (USE 17-000068) LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI‘I HEARING TRANSCRIPT JUNE 15, 2017 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of VERIZON WIRELESS (USE 17-000068) was called to order at 9:32 a.m. in the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, Community Center, Building G, 74-5044 Ane Keohokālole Highway, Kailua-Kona, Hawai‘i, with Chairman Keith F. Unger presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Keith F. Unger, Nancy Carr Smith, Scott Church, Collin Kaholo, Perry Kealoha and Sonny Shimaoka ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Barbara Nobriga ALSO PRESENT: Malia Ho Hall (Counsel for the Commission), Michael Yee (Planning Director), Maija Jackson (Planner), Christian Kay (Planner) and Noriko Sauer (Commission Secretary) And six people from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: VERIZON WIRELESS (USE 17-000068) Application for a Use Permit to allow the construction of a new, non-manned telecommunication facility, consisting of a 60-foot tall steel “monopalm” telecommunication tower and related facilities within a 750-square foot portion of a 11.325-acre parcel of land situated in the County’s Single- Family Residential (RS-10) zoning district. The property is located within Waikoloa Village at 68- 3670 Paniolo Avenue situated at the northwest corner of the Paniolo Drive and Puʻu-Nui Street intersection, Waikoloa, South Kohala, Hawai‘i, TMK: 6-8-002:031. UNGER: First agenda item, New Business, Applicant Verizon Wireless, USE 17-000068, application for a Use Permit to allow the construction of a new non-manned telecommunication facility consisting of a 60-foot tall steel monopalm telecommunication tower and related facilities within a 750-square foot portion of a 11.325-acre parcel of land situated in the County’s Single-Family Residential zoning district. The property is located within Waikoloa Village at 68-3670 Paniolo Avenue situated at the northwest corner of the Paniolo Drive and Pu‘u-Nui Street intersection, Waikoloa, South Kohala, Hawai‘i, TMK 6-8-2 Parcel 31. Staff, are you ready for your presentation? KAY: Yes, sir, Mr. Chair, thank you. Good morning, Members of the Commission. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. I’m glad to see your smiling faces. All right, as the Chair mentioned, this is an application for a Use Permit. The subject parcel is located in the South Kohala District of Hawai‘i Island, and it is generally, or more specifically, located in the Waikoloa Village area. For your reference, this is Paniolo Avenue running generally north-south through the slide. The subject parcel is outlined in red. For better understanding where it is, the Waikoloa School is here to the north of the subject parcel. 1 EXHIBIT A The applicant is requesting a Use Permit to construct a new non-manned 60-foot tall steel monopalm tower with twelve eight-foot panel antennas and twelve remote radio head units mounted on top of the tower and related facilities within a 750-square foot portion of a 11.325-acre parcel situated in the County’s Single-Family Residential zoning district. The monopalm will emulate the appearance of a palm tree with the pole made to look like the trunk painted brown and imitation palm fronds on top of the pole. Additionally, the antenna will be painted green to match the frond color. The applicant is requesting the Use Permit for this facility in that it will allow Verizon adequate wireless telephone service to the center area of Waikoloa Village, to the school, nearby churches and surrounding neighborhoods, as well as to travelers along Paniolo Avenue. The height of the facility will also allow sufficient handoff of signals to existing telecommunication towers at the southern end of Waikoloa Village and Huehue Ranch. Here is the applicant-submitted site plan. On the left – oh, pardon me – on the left hand side we’ve got the entire parcel shown with the project area, or the permit area, outlined here in the red dash line. On the right hand side we’ve got a little bit zoomed in showing the existing property. This is the property of the Waikoloa Baptist Church. There is an existing childcare facility located towards the southern portion of the property and the parking area, and the telecommunication facility will be located here along the northern boundary of the subject parcel. They are proposing a twelve-foot wide, approximately 320-foot dirt road to access off of Paniolo Avenue to access the facility. The zoning for the subject parcel and surrounding area is Single-Family Residential 10,000 square feet, as indicated in yellow. Again, we’ve got the subject parcel outlined in red and Paniolo Avenue running generally north-south. And I just wanted to give you an idea and a sense of where the roadway and the facility would be located. The State Land Use Boundary designation for the subject parcel and surrounding area is Urban, as indicated in the pink color. And the General Plan Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map designates the subject parcel and surrounding area as Low Density Urban, as indicated in the mustard color. Here is an aerial photograph of the subject parcel. Again, we’ve got Paniolo Avenue running north-south, the Waikoloa School here. There is a single-family dwelling on the parcel as well that is acting as a parsonage for the church. Again, we’ve got the childcare facility here, daycare facility, and the church recently, back in 2016, came back for a time extension to actually build the church facility, which will be located roughly in this area. Again, we’ve got access coming off of Paniolo Avenue and the facility will be located roughly here to the north, northern portion of the parcel. Here is an elevation of the monopalm facility, again, showing that it will emulate a palm tree with palm fronds around the antenna, and the trunk painted brown and – we actually went and took a look at another monopalm facility that’s over by another project that we are doing in a few months, and they actually have a texture on the trunk as well to make it look like a palm tree, it’s pretty kind of fun. Again, there will be an eight-foot CMU wall surrounding it for safety purposes and – these are the elevations for the facility. Here is site photos that came from the application; we weren’t able to access the site to actually take a look at it, but I just wanted to give you a sense of where we are looking. This is looking west to the 2 EXHIBIT A site from Paniolo Avenue, this is looking east to the site toward Paniolo Avenue, and then this is looking south to the site from above the parcel. That gives you an idea of where that will be located. And here is generally of the area we’ll be accessing off of Paniolo Avenue to go back to the facility site. And here is, on the bottom left, a picture of Paniolo Avenue looking north and we’ve got Waikoloa School over here, and again looking south with the subject parcel on the right hand side. Our Planning Director is recommending approval of the Use Permit with conditions. There is one other thing that I wanted to mention: You got the background and recommendation reports last week or a couple of weeks ago, and then a few days later you received an addendum, or an amended analysis and condition. We overlooked one of the comments from Public Works but we were able to catch it in time so that all we are asking here is to add the additional language in our background report and then add the following condition relative to a flood study that was done as a requirement of the Use Permit that was granted in 1993; there is some concern that the roadway that’s being proposed is within an area of flooding inundation, so Public Work wanted to make sure that it was either outside of the area or, if it was within the area, they have the possibility of conducting additional studies to make sure there wouldn’t be any impacts on surrounding properties. With that, that’s my presentation, I’m happy to entertain any questions that the Commission may have. UNGER: Thank you. Commissioners, any questions? CARR SMITH: I have two. KAY: Yes. CARR SMITH: I was wondering who owns the property that’s vacant between there and the school. Do you know? KAY: You know, I’m not sure, I’d have to check on that. CARR SMITH: Okay. And was any outreach done within the Village? KAY: I know that the applicant did send out the required notice to surrounding property owners, and I believe that we sent the application for comment to the Village Association. CARR SMITH: Thank you. KAY: Thank you. UNGER: And no responses? KAY: No responses. We didn’t get any complaints or objections from the mailing nor did we receive response from the Village Association. UNGER: Thank you. 3 EXHIBIT A KAY: Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. UNGER: Would the applicant come up, if you would like to make a presentation? Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth before the Planning Commission? SUNG: I do. UNGER: Please state your name, your area of residence, and please speak directly into the mike for our minutes. Thank you. SUNG: Yes — UNGER: You are on, you are on. SUNG: Yes. Good morning, Chair. UNGER: Good morning. SUNG: Good morning, Commissioners and public. My name is Steve Sung, with Wireless Resources representing Verizon Wireless. I’m, I live in 2333 Kapi‘olani Boulevard, Number 3505, in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. UNGER: Thank you. SUNG: Thank you. So, I think Christian did a wonderful job of making the presentation. I can just answer any questions that anyone might have. UNGER: Commissioner Church. CHURCH: Just curious. SUNG: Yes, sir. CHURCH: I really like these monopalms. I’ve seen them from time to time. How much more expensive are these monopalms than regular towers of the same height and — SUNG: Doubles the — CHURCH: — function? SUNG: Yeah, it doubles the cost. CHURCH: Yeah, there is no requirement then, but apparently Verizon sees it worthy to put these in and — 4 EXHIBIT A SUNG: Correct. I think when you’re near residential areas, we are pretty much at guideline now; they’d rather spend the money to make, they can make basically a palm tree, pine tree, I did it in Arizona with a cactus tree, I mean just whatever it takes to stealth as much as we can, that’s what the carriers want to do now. I mean, they’d rather spend the money than have public, you know, complaints and what have you. CHURCH: That’s great. Okay. Hey, are they going to include any coconuts? SUNG: Actually, it does have a coconut on the bottom. CHURCH: Oh, okay. UNGER: Any other questions? Thank you. You may be seated. SUNG: Thank you, sir. UNGER: We’d like to go ahead and open this up for public testimony. If there’s any members from the public who would like to testify, this is your opportunity. Seeing no members from the public, I need a motion from a Commissioner to close public hearing testimony. KAHOLO: So move. SHIMAOKA: Second. UNGER: We have a motion from Commissioner Kaholo, second by Shimaoka. All in favor? COMMISSIONERS: Aye. UNGER: Oppose? \[There was one aye but it appeared to be a delayed vote in favor of the motion.\] Public hearing is closed. Would the applicant come back up, please? SUNG: Yes. UNGER: Do you agree with the conditions that the Planning Department has put on your project, and the additional condition? SUNG: I do. I’m actually working with, I just came from Public Works before I came in — UNGER: Great. Okay. SUNG: — so we’ll do whatever we need to do to make sure they are satisfied with our proposal. KAY: Great. Thank you. UNGER: Wonderful, yes, we needed that for the record. 5 EXHIBIT A SUNG: Absolutely. UNGER: Thank you. SUNG: Thank you. KAY: If I may, Mr. Chair, we were able to find the owner of that parcel in between; it’s Waikoloa Development Corporation, as well as the County of Hawai‘i. HO HALL: We are leasing it. KAY: Oh, we are leasing it. HO HALL: Yeah, we are the lease, lessee. CARR SMITH: Thank you. UNGER: Thank you. You may be seated. With no further testimony, Commissioners, we need a motion on the application. SHIMAOKA: Yeah, I move that the application for Use Permit, Docket Number SMA \[sic\] 17-068, be approved based on the Planning Director’s findings and recommendations, which shall be adopted. CHURCH: Second. UNGER: We have a motion from Commissioner Shimaoka, second by Commissioner Church. Commissioners, the floor is open for discussion. Do we need to clarify the motion to include the additional condition or are we pretty clear with the motion as it stands? KAY: It will be helpful; however, we sent it out in enough time, I think it’s still considered a part of the Director’s recommendation. UNGER: Okay, so we are good with the motion, very good. If there is no other, oh, discussion? CARR SMITH: Yeah, I just wanted to comment that I support the project. And we have a similar tree in Waimea and it blends in pretty nicely. So I think that’s fine. And the way we are all connected to our phones these days, I think more coverage is good. So I support. Thank you. UNGER: Roll call? KAY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Shimaoka? SHIMAOKA: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Church? 6 EXHIBIT A CHURCH: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Carr Smith? CARR SMITH: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Kaholo? KAHOLO: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Kealoha? KEALOHA: Aye. KAY: And Chair Unger? UNGER: Aye. KAY: Thank you very much. Motion carries, six-nothing. UNGER: You will be notified in writing of our decision. The discussion ended at 9:46 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Noriko Sauer, Secretary Leeward Planning Commission 7 EXHIBIT A