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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-02-07 Hearing Transcript - Christian Liberty Amend SPP 925WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAII HEARING TRANSCRIPT FEBRUARY 7, 2019 A regularly advertised hearing on the application of the CHRISTIAN LIBERTY MINISTRIES OF HAWAII, INC. (AMEND SPP 925) was called to order at 9:03 a.m. in the County of Hawaii Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawaii with Chairman Joseph Clarkson presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Gilbert Aguinaldo, Joseph Clarkson, Donn Dela Cruz, Donald Ikeda, John Replogle. ABSENT & EXCUSED: Thomas Raffipiy. ALSO PRESENT: Michael Yee (Planning Director), Malia Hall (Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Windward Planning Commission), Jeff Darrow (Planning Program Manager), Maija Jackson (Planner), Christian Kay (Planner), Alex Roy (Planner), Jessica Andrews (Planner), and Sarah Hata-Finley (Commission Secretary). And 37 members from the public in attendance. APPLICANT: CHRISTIAN LIBERTY MINISTRIES OF HAWAII, INC. (AMEND SPP 925) Application for amendment to Special Permit No. 925, which allowed the establishment of a private school, church, and summer camp facility on approximately 5.53 acres of land within the State Land Use Agricultural District. The applicant is requesting: 1) a 15 -year time extension to Condition No. 3 (Complete Construction); 2) to amend Condition No. 6 (Roadway Improvements); and 3) to add the construction of four (4) additional classrooms, bathrooms, parking and related improvements. The property is located at 16-675 Milo Street, approximately one mile east of the Kea`au Town Center at the end of Milo Street in the vicinity of the former Puna Sugar Company Mill site, Kea`au, Puna, Hawaii, TMK: (3) 1-6-152:021. CLARKSON: And, we'll proceed with the first item on today's agenda which is an application from Christian Liberty Ministries of Hawaii, Inc., and Christian Kay will be making a presentation. KAY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Members of the Windward Planning Commission. Great to see you today. If I can turn your attention to the screen, as the Chair said, this is an amendment to a Special Permit, No. 925. The subject property is located in the Puna District of Hawaii Island; more specifically, in the Kea`au area. The subject property is located right here. For reference, we've got the Kea`au Bypass Road, pardon me, Kea`au-Pahoa Bypass Road, running generally north -south through the EXHIBIT A slide, and the subject property gets its primary access off of Milo Street. Just for further reference, Kea`au High School is in this area here. The Applicant is requesting an amendment to Condition No. 3 to allow a 15 -year extension to the deadline for completing construction. Additionally, they are requesting an amendment to Condition No. 6 to remove the requirement to install rolled asphalt -concrete berms along the subject property's Milo Street and 18-1/2 [sic] Mile Camp Road frontage. And, finally, they are requesting an amendment to the permit to allow the construction of four additional classrooms, bathrooms, parking, and other related improvements. The stated reasons for request is the Applicant has been diligently working toward the development of the subject property in accordance with the Special Permit since 1996 and has completed all of Increment I and a portion of Increment IL As the project is self-funded, the Applicant has attempted to balance the construction of the campus as well as the funding for school, church, and summer camp operations over the years. The request to build four new classrooms, bathrooms, parking, and related improvements will accommodate expanded preschool and kindergarten classrooms, and finally, for students' safety, school policy prohibits students from walking along the road fronting the school property. Students and faculty only use a striped crosswalk to access the upper campus. Otherwise, they remain on school property at all times. Based on the proceeding, the Applicant believes that the requirement of rolled asphalt -concrete berms along the properties frontages is not necessary. The County zoning for the subject property issorry, Ag -20, my apologies. I thought we made the changes to the presentation. The underlying zoning is Ag -20. Surrounding zoning includes Agricultural — 5 acres across Milo Street, some Limited Industrial zoning and some Industrial - Commercial Mixed Use zoning which is the site of the Ulupono Park. The State Land Use designation for the subject property is Urban, pardon me, Agricultural as indicated in green, and there is some surrounding Urban State Land Use designations as indicated in the pink. Finally, the subject property is mixed designation under the General Plan's Land Use Pattern Allocation Guide Map as Medium Density Urban indicated in the orange color and Industrial indicated in the gray. Other surrounding designations are Important Agricultural Lands indicated in the green color and Low Density Urban indicated in the mustard color. Here is an aerial photograph of the subject property and surrounding areas. Again, we've got Milo Street as the access in the 8-1/2 Mile Camp Road which is a private road here. Access is currently from Milo Street, and there is an access from the side road as well. This is the extent of the existing development on the property, and we'll look at the site plan to show where additional development is planned. Again, Milo Street running generally east -west through the slide, and the 8-1/2 Mile Camp Road here. The proposed additional classrooms and bathrooms will be here with taking access off of the 8-1/2 Mile Camp Road, and the additional development is going to be here and here around the fieldhouse with some additional parking, other classrooms, and amenities. EXHIBIT A 2 Here are some photos of the site. This is a—upper left is a view of the campus from across Milo Street, and this is a view here on the lower right, a view of 8-1/2 Mile Camp Road looking south toward Puna. Here are some views of Milo Street looking east or makai and a view of Milo Street looking west or mauka toward Highway 130. Also, in this picture is the striped designated crosswalk. This is at the main campus on the left-hand side and the upper campus which includes a ballfield and some offices. The way the crossing takes place as I understand it is as students with faculty supervision would cross along here, go into the upper campus behind a fence and this tree buffer so the only time they'd be crossing the road would be along the crosswalk. Finally, the Director is recommending approval of all the requested amendments to Special Permit No. 925. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions the Commission may have on this project. REPLOGLE: What is a rolled berm? KAY: I thought you might ask that. So, that is a rolled asphalt -concrete berm. This is farther up toward the highway, and again, this is kind of the Ulupono Business Park here. So, and you'll also see these along Puainako Road by KTA. You'll see them along Ainaloa Boulevard in Puna. So, this is what they are. Just about a six-inch raised berm. This was something that back in the 80's and 90's, Department of Public Works would require as part of permits. In consultation with Department of Public Works now, they no longer recommend these. So, that kind of was in support of why the Director felt that requirement wouldn't be necessary now along with the policies that the school has prohibiting walking along the road. And, the school, you know, the Applicant also said, you know, they didn't want to encourage students walking along the road, so they didn't want even that there as an option. Anything else? Did I answer your question? REPLOGLE: Thank you. KAY: You're welcome. REPLOGLE: Yes, it does. CLARKSON: Any other questions from the Commission? I have a question. Are there any children that walk to the school or does everybody pretty much come in by bus or auto? KAY: My understanding is the requirement is that they be dropped off onto campus property, but I'll let the Applicant address that. CLARKSON: Okay. KAY: Okay, thank you. CLARKSON: And, could you just show me, please, the photograph with the—yeah, there. EXHIBIT A 3 KAY: Oh, sorry. The crosswalk? CLARKSON: Yeah. So, I just noticed that I don't see any footpaths, you know, any trails on that grassy area, so it doesn't look like it's getting a whole lot of foot traffic. KAY: That's correct, yes. So, there is actually a graveled foot path on the upper campus property behind these trees, and that's, that's what the students access to get to the administrative offices if they need to, in the ballfield is kind of further in that direction. So, again, there's no the requirement was to pave the road and to add a 5 -foot walkway on either side, but again, my understanding is the school policy prohibits actually having students walk on those, those side roads, and have accommodated alternative options. CLARKSON: Thank you. KAY: Thank you. CLARKSON: If there are no further questions, will the Applicant or their representative please come forward? KERN: Good morning. CLARKSON: Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter before the Planning Commission this morning? KERN: Yes. RIMEL: Yes. CLARKSON: Please introduce yourself and whether you're the, who you're representing and proceed. KERN: Good morning, Chair Clarkson, as well as the rest of the Windward Planning Commission, Mr. Director, Corporation Counsel, and all the wonderful Planning staff, I'm Zendo Kern, the planning consultant. To my right is Troy Rimel. He is the president of Christian Liberty Ministries. So far, staff did a great job as far as doing the presentation goes. Relatively straightforward application. They've been a service to our community for many, many years. I think everything that we are requesting here is very straightforward in alignment as far as safety and furthering their ability to bring this project to fruition. And, I'd like to just let the Applicant talk a little bit about what they have been doing and what they do and as they're moving forward. RIMEL: Okay. Thank you so much for having us this morning. Basically, over the past 20 years, we've been trying to develop that property, and one of the reasons why we didn't finish is because we're trying to do it debt free. So, we've been working in the past 7 to 10 years to pay EXHIBIT A 4 off all of our debt so that the property is completely debt free, and then everything that we do after that, we have to raise the money—the Board will not let us build until we raise the money in order to build. And, so we slowed things way down. Part of that is, is so that we can keep our tuition low enough so that we can minister to the people of Puna, which we all know is an economically depressed area. And, then the other thing is we don't want to be an economic burden to the community or create a bad situation where we get ourselves, spend too much money and not have enough to pay it back, and not be able to pay our faculty and things of that nature. So, that's why we've taken our time over the years, to be able to raise the money as we go, so that we can maintain that status of being debt free. Keeping our tuition low so that we can help the people of Puna. KERN: So, like I said, overall it's a relatively straightforward application. I'd be happy to answer any questions, and I humbly ask for your support. CLARKSON: Did you read the Planning Director's recommendations, and do you agree with them? KERN: Yes, we do. RIMEL: Yes, sir. CLARKSON: Any questions for the Applicant? IKEDA: Yes, I have. You know, I'd like tothere's two questions I want to ask. Why did it take you 22 years to ask for an exemption for that asphalt, you know, the berm? RIMEL: Why it took us that long? IKEDA: Yes, because I mean according to the initial permit, it was six months after the Bypass Road was built, and you never built it. RIMEL: Well, it's an interesting story. When they first, when we first started building down there, the road was not paved at all, and actually, we didn't even know because our access would have been top of Milo Street by the gas station all the way down. And, so when the application originally went in, they didn't even know where the Bypass was going to cut across, there was still a lot of speculation. And, so, we were responsible for paving Milo Street all the way down to the corner where it meets Railroad as well as the 8-1/2 Mile Camp frontage. During the course of the construction, we asked for an extension on that because they started to build the Bypass, they cut off our access, and then they said okay, we'll give you an extension. After that, we went out one day and someone was doing the centerline survey on the road. And—and, so we went out and talked to him, and they said the State of Hawaii is paving all of Milo Street all the way around to the papaya factory as well as the 8-1/2 Mile Camp Road. So, we didn't have to pay for it. So, when we went back into the County, you can go back and look into the records, it was right around Christmas we were asking for the extension on the paving and the berms and EXHIBIT A 5 everything, and after we got done explaining that it was already paved, the County didn't know about it. The State just did it because they, you know, denied us access and created a really difficult situation, and the only thing they said to me was, "Merry Christmas." So, at that point, I didn't think, because the State took care of it, honestly, I didn't think we were going to have to do the berms. Plus, we had created a rule that we didn't want students to walls along the road because of Puna Rock and the trucks and things of that nature. So, that's the reason why. IKEDA: Okay, and the second thing was I wanted to know how many, how many credits do you have? Water credits? KERN: I believe he has eight water credits and the Department of Water Supply in consultation with the application said that they didn't have any—there's no problems as far as water goes. IKEDA: Okay, so when you have the total buildout, you'll still be okay? KERN: That's correct. Because they looked at it based on the overall buildout, not just the amendments or what's existing today, but the overall buildout of it, and there's no problem with that. IKEDA: Okay. I'm good. CLARKSON: Any further questions? Thank you. You may be seated. KERN: Thank you all very much. RIMEL: Thank you. CLARKSON: As of this time, we have received no request from anyone to testify on this matter. So, the Chair would ask for a motion to close public testimony. DELA CRUZ: So moved. AGUINALDO: Second. CLARKSON: All those in favor? COMMISSIONERS: Aye. CLARKSON: Opposed? Motion carries. Public testimony is closed. So, at this time, we need a motion for action. IKEDA: I move that the application to amend Special Permit No. 925 be approved based on the Planning Director's recommendation which shall be adopted. EXHIBIT A 6 AGUINALDO: Second. CLARKSON: It's been moved and seconded that this Planning Director's recommendation for approval be approved. Any further discussion? Further questions? If not, please call the vote. KAY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Ikeda? IKEDA: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Aguinaldo? AGUINALDO: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Dela Cruz? DELA CRUZ: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Replogle? REPLOGLE: Aye. KAY: And, Chair Clarkson. CLARKSON: Aye. KAY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Motion carries five, nothing. The discussion ended at 9:19 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah Y. Hata-Finley, Secretary Windward Planning Commission EXHIBIT A 7