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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlanning Dept, FY 2014-15 DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REVIEWS 4/15/2014 DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REVIEWS 2014-15 PLANNING DEPARTMENT April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 1 The departmental budget review reconvened on April 15, 2014 at 9:07 a.m., and proceeded as follows: Planning Department Honorable Tim Bynum (not present) Honorable Mason K. Chock, Sr. Honorable Gary L. Hooser Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura Honorable Jay Furfaro, Council Chair Excused: Honorable Ross Kagawa Honorable Mel Rapozo Chair Furfaro: Aloha, good morning. Today is Tax Day. That has no reason for us to have a vacant table...no. We will just have a quorum this morning as previous engagements with Mr. Kagawa and Mr. Rapozo were made, and then this afternoon JoAnn is going to a State meeting for us, and Mr. Bynum will be in in the afternoon. So we will have a quorum all day today. We need to be timely with our breaks because of the need to have four of us at the table while we are discussing. But on that note we are starting the day with Planning. We have got to 11:00 a.m., Mike and then at 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. we are going to do Housing and to start the morning we will suspend the rules and we are called back from recess and I will give you the floor, Mike. Mike, let me make sure...let me make one more housekeeping announcement and this is towards the staff. According to this schedule, today is the last of the originally scheduled meetings. The rest of the dates are filled in are all call-back, right? Okay. Thank you. Just wanted to reconfirm that. MICHAEL A. DAHILIG, Director of Planning: Good morning, Chair, Councilmembers, again Happy Tax Day! For the record, Mike Dahilig. I also have a couple of my staff members who have been working with me on the budget, Myles Hironaka and Leila Kim, who are in the audience. Leila is the former Leila Villon, and she just recently got married to Mike Kim. So if you see Leila Kim, that was formerly Leila Villon. It is a pleasure this morning to present our Department's budget proposal for this upcoming fiscal year. In this presentation we will discuss our achievements to-date, the progress of our budget goals over the past fiscal year, our budget goals for the upcoming fiscal year, challenges our Department anticipates, and details of our budget requests for Fiscal Year 2015. Since we have met on the budget last spring our Department has been pushing forward many initiatives and projects aimed at strengthening our County's Planning program. Certainly we only have so much time this morning so our budget report highlights a few initiatives illustrating our Department's drive to reach higher heights. On July 23, 2013 and partly thanks to the work of this Council Ordinance No. 950 was adopted adjusting the various permitting charges and fees charged by the Department for inflationary considerations. The Department was prepared for the fee transition and the implementation of the new fee structure went smoothly. On June 27, 2013, and again partly in thanks to the work of this Council, Ordinance 946 was adopted. This Ordinance amended the County's Subdivision Ordinance to require multi-modal circulation networks allowing travel by bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and their passengers, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities. Kaua'i was the first County in the State to adjust its zoning implementation codes to encourage smart growth infrastructure. This hallmark legislation pairs with Kaua'i's leadership in being the first in April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 2 the State of Hawai`i to have its Council adopt a complete streets policy by Resolution in 2010. In February of this year, members of our staff along with Lyle Tabata from the Public Works were invited by the New Partners for Smart Growth to present the County's smart growth efforts at their conference recently held in Denver, Colorado. Renowned multi-modal transportation expert Dan Burden organized the panel with his staff from the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute. County staff were asked to present their on the ground efforts in building momentum behind smart growth initiatives and community place making. The Department has continued its push, with the guidance of the Planning Commission, to further clarify and make more transparent its enforcement of the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance (CZO) by adopting Administrative Rules. The Commission adopted at its last meeting in March another set of rules, including guidance for implementation and enforcement of the Transient Vacation Rentals (TVR) certificate program. More rules pertaining to commercial activities on agricultural lands are before the Commission net week Tuesday, and the Department continues to develop more proposals for Commission review. Thanks to our partnership with the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the work of our Transportation Planner, the County was able to secure approximately $1.3 million in safe routes to school grants from Hawaii Department of Transportation (DOT). Further the Department was one of eighteen (18) jurisdictions awarded in a nationwide competition of municipalities a parking study grant by the Environmental Protection Agency Smart Growth initiative to conduct parking studies within the Lihu`e area The awards have shown our County is competitive in these grant solicitations. Finally, I am sure some of you are now aware there is a brewery on Rice Street. Some of you have also probably had coffee or seen an open mic session a little further down. Hardy Street improvements will be breaking ground shortly. Councilmembers Rapozo and Yukimura were just recently at the groundbreaking of the Rice Camp kupuna housing between the brewery and the coffee shop. Yes, we fully expect our kupuna to walk up the street and enjoy a tall glass of handcrafted beer. Our Department is thankful for the partnerships we have developed with Public Works, Transportation, and the Office of Economic Development (OED) to aim at purposely revitalizing our Lihu`e town core. Just to give the Council some illustration as to the momentum we have been able to build since the adoption of the Complete Streets Resolution by the Council in 2010, this illustrates the things that have been happening as we have been progressing towards implementation. You see what first happened was the policy and we are now developing new guidelines for complete streets implementation built upon the Code change and we are also integrating a lot of our philosophy and a lot of ideas in our community plan and presenting these things to the community for their feedback and input. Everything that we have gotten so far has been generally positive. Just to show that illustration of our staff working with you see Teddy Blake who is on our Community Advisory Committee for south Kaua`i and we believe that public input makes our process and product stronger and we continue to be committed to engaging the public. Here is a picture of Marie at the Smart Growth Conference and you see one of the shots that I really like showing is all of us at the Bill signing for the Complete Streets Bill. Here is a group of our guys and staff and community that have come out for our walking April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 3 audit in Po`ipu. It was very heavily attended by the community. I do want to make mention of this one guy here, Peter Nakamura and the successes that we achieved over the past year were in part to his work and he certainly will be missed. This is honestly the only picture I could find of him, because he hated the camera. I do want to acknowledge him for the successes that we have had over the past year. Beyond our achievements, measuring success over the past year comes in an evaluation of the benchmarks that we set and whether we are hitting the goals that we set for ourselves. Last year the Department came before the Council and set three demotic goals one persistence on long-range project completion with focus on delivery, two ensure customer service and e-transitions are continued and built upon, and three build on enforcement. Per the budget's instructions from the Council our Department has provided a matrix of the status of those fiscal year goals in the written submittal and where we are three-quarters of the way through this fiscal year. Let me briefly give you some description as to where we are right now. First with respect to long-range planning our Department has made great strides towards completing our plans in process, so much so that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We opened public hearings at Commission on the first three sets of ordinances comprising our CZO Update Phase II and we are in the final editing stages of two of our four General Plan Technical Studies. The other two Technical Studies should be complete within the next six months. Our Impact Fee study has been transmitted to our Agency stakeholders in a draft form. A meeting with the consultant is scheduled for the end of this month. The Important Agricultural Lands (IAL) report has been submitted to the Planning Commission for their review and is undergoing finishing touches. We have been steadily making progress on our conversion to a more digital interface with the public and we continue to make improvements to our enforcement program. With respect to digitizing our Department, we have made the staff adjustments necessary to implement the ePlan initiative. We have also made the appropriate rules and policy changes necessary to match the logistical needs of facilitating the program. We have widened our paperless initiatives. We have purchased additional iPads for staff use. We have also expanded the number of submittals necessary to our Department for paperless submission. Finally, we have expanded our use of social media by openly inviting engagement via Facebook and Instagram. You can see here one of our standard slides in south Kaua`i where we tell people to send us pictures, let us know what you think south Kaua`i should look like. We invite them to use these hash tags on their social media posts. We are actually up to 99 friends on Facebook now on our Department page and if you have Facebook you could actually be our 100th friend. We are aware that our Information Technology (IT) Division has a lot of things to do and although we would like to see progress on having a digitized land management system we understand there is a commitment there to do that, but there are other priorities in the pipeline and when they are available we would be able to move forward on that goal. Now enforcement has been an area in our Department where we needed to invest a lot of time and effort in order to bring us to a level of excellence. The last year was difficult given the high-level of scrutiny our enforcement program was under, I think it benefited us in the long run because it prompted us to self-evaluate our work and accept our failures. Sometimes admitting shortcomings is the first step towards the process of improvement and I live that has created a paradigm shift with our staff to seek excellence versus just getting by. Thankfully we made adjustments to stabilized our enforcement program, including seeking leadership, consolidating functions, creating new ones and broadening partnerships with our sister agencies. We continue to invest with training in our staff and April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 4 set targets for outcomes. As you can see from our report, our Department has hit a high of 110 contested-case hearings. But not all are TVR cases just to be clear. Of which 63 have been resolved by stipulation, reconsideration or abandonment. What I am happy to report is we have actually exceeded our fine cap and have collected to-date $105,000 in fines based on our enforcement program alone. We do have 14 cases that are presently with the hearings officer for this position that means it is a full-blown contested-case hearing. 33 of these contested-case hearings are still pending disposition. With respect to that money, this Council was gracious in being able to pass a law that allows us to use up to $100,000 in funds to invest in our enforcement program. This money I commit will not go unused per the legislation of Councilmember Rapozo. Our Department has already begun to utilize the fund by purchasing equipment and has already hired an enforcement research specialist to assist her inspectors with the file research necessary to do the case and generate the paperwork and notices necessary to win should a case actually hit contested case hearing. I would say that we are not quite there, but I am pleased with the steady progress we have been making. I would like to thank Mike Laureta for his work stepping in and getting his arms around the program and setting a course for our initiatives. We are aware that one of our goals over the past year was to try to integrate digitally our enforcement files with our regulatory files and as I mentioned previously, we are...I do have a commitment from Brandon that we are moving forward on some type of land management system, but given the other competing priorities we are just waiting in the queue. All in all I think we have come close to hitting our benchmarks given our goals over the past year and there are some areas that we have come up short, I admit but I think we have put forward a good effort towards realizing the goals we have set. So like with any budget proposal we start again with the goal-setting process for this upcoming year. Looking back at the progression of the Department, I have become more cognizant of diminishing returns when you focus on too many things at once. This year we have set two clear succinct areas of work that we believe will continue to strengthen the work in our Department. First long-range planning is at the top of our list. We have been successful in the past, but now we are entering unchartered territory as we seek new leadership for the programs. Second where leadership has worked in the strengthening of our current enforcement program and to continue the progress of aggregating small successes we believe that the organized structure for enforcement needs to be consolidated as a Division under uniform guidance. Just for comparison based on last years goals and this upcoming years goals. I think you will see that there is not much of a change. I would like to describe building upon work that we have done over the past year and trying to again bring that work to a higher level. With respect to long-range planning, I do want to make a commitment to the Council that we are trying to be as prudent and efficient in trying to recruit a replacement for Peter. That is not one of the goals, but I wanted to mention that for your information. Specifically we do want to see completion of the community plans, specifically a review of the Lihu`e and South Kaua`i plans by the Commission by the first-half of Fiscal Year 2015. Further we want to review of the East Kaua`i community plan by the Commission by the second-half of Fiscal 2015. We are making another attempt at finishing this plan after we entered into some contractual disputes with the previous consultant. We have retained the University of Hawaii, Department of Urban and Regional Planning and in fact we are convening a CAC Meeting for East Kaua`i next week. We would like to see completion of the General Plan Technical Studies and launch the General Plan process, specifically completion of the remaining technical studies for the land use build out, health, and coastal hazed studies by the first half of Fiscal Year 2015 and infrastructure and health by the April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 5 second-half of Fiscal Year 2015. We have already submitted the paperwork to award a consultant for the General Plan Update and we look on-track to launch the GP process by the first-half of Fiscal Year 2015 and appoint a CAC. IAL implementation is the next phase of our JAL process. After we present the report to our stakeholders, including this body we hope to begin landowner consultations by the first-half of Fiscal Year 2015. Finally, with respect to the first goal we want to continue implementation healthy place making initiatives. We want to focus on the Rice Street redevelopment initiatives with our partnerships with OED and DPW. We want to support DPW on implementing $1.3 million in grants from the Safe Routes to School Program and we want to seek more grant funding available for both staff capacity-building and implementation of initiative. Finally we want to launch a new educational campaign on introducing smart growth and benefits of healthy place making. With respect to our second goal, and this is the enforcement division goal, we would like to create a new enforcement division as part of our second goal. What this means is that we need to reorganize our Department to create a Division and process the necessary Human Resources paperwork to take care of those approvals. We do also once that is done begin recruitment for a new Enforcement Division Supervisor. We also want to continue memorializing our protocols and procedures and rules and strengthen the logistics based on these rules and provide contested-case hearing support. We have found that by providing clear administrative rules and clear processes there is less confusion and less debate as to what exactly should happen as we go through these due process hearings. As you have seen we did hit a high of 110 contested-case hearings and we are down to 33 that we still need to take care of disposition with another 14 currently pending before the hearings officer. We want to bring this number down. This takes a lot of work for the Department and the sooner that we can get this bubble pushed to the pipeline the more we can focus on more proactive initiatives, behind enforcement. Finally like anything, with the change in rules and the change in laws and the constant work that my staff has to do continuing education is necessary to build the capacity to do the work we need to do. So what we would like to do over the next year is establish clear skill benchmarks for inspectors and make clear what their expectations and responsibilities are. Now that we have laid out our goals for the upcoming fiscal year certainly there are elements that could knock us off course or cause us to slow down. Here are the five challenges that we can foresee for the Department in the upcoming year. You may recognize them as they have not fundamentally changed over the past twelve months. The first one is the lack of office space. Given the recent space study by DPW if you aggregate the space our Department currently occupies, it is about half of what we need. Further our Department has nearly hit the projected target for that studied space outlined in the study given the number of employees where we are at with our Department right now. We are coming to a scenario where I am becoming concerned about the delays in making progress specifically on the secured consolidated office space and the effect on office morale. We have staff and files located in three different locations, files located in five different rooms, including the Kapule lobby. One of my concerns is the lack of file security and organization. I have made a map just to illustrate what my staff, when we are tasked to do research on a particular parcel, the places that they have to go throughout the County to actually find a file. You will notice that we have staff in three different locations, and we have files spread between the basement in Kapule, the lobby in Kapule, our own Office, as well as in the Piikoi Building. It does present a challenge for our staff to be able to maintain an organized file system as well as being able to provide accurate and clear information for the public. Here is an illustration of where our files are in our office. This is where our Class April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 6 IV files are. With respect to cramped quarters we have to pretty much keep files almost stacked to the ceiling in certain cases. This is my inspector's station and this is the head of my tech section, Wes' station and we do not even have a place to layout plans. So the staffers when they have to review plans they have to lay them out on the counter because there is no desk space for being able to store the plans, as well as review them. Here is a picture of our TVR files and you will notice that these are the files that are in the lobby. Again we want it in a consolidated space but this is the only consolidated space that we could find. Beyond office space, we do have other challenges. We do continue to have challenges with meeting our match requirements under the CZM grant proposal. As you know CZM grant funds which you know are matched dollar for dollar by in-kind or direct appropriations and we have been having to spend more staff time, as well as make direct expenditures to make sure that we maintain the maximum level of grant funding under the CZM program. E-filing we see successes but it continues to be a problem for us, just because of our Code and our processes still need to be matched with the ePlan system that the Public Works has implemented. We can participate as part of the program, but being able to manage our own files in a digital space still requires work by the IT Division. Again, we mentioned that we understand they are very backed up, but we will need some type of plug- in into that system to fully realize efficiencies of e-filing. We have had success in long-range, but again, this is an additional pressure for the Department. We do have numerous studies that we are keeping track of. Luckily we have an 89-day hire that has been helping us with contract management but like anything, this just requires a lot of detailed attention and monitoring to make sure that we are not having things slip through the cracks. Finally, as I mentioned with respect to enforcement, many of the challenges that I have Councilmembers are aware of and something that we need to provide detailed attention to and persistence on an effort to ensure that we are making the progress that is being expected of our Department. As I mentioned earlier, one of our two schematic goals is a stand up an enforcement division. Enforcement is always a difficult thing because of the nature of the work. Our Office has to work as a Police Department and then provide the services as if we are a Judiciary. Our budget proposal centers around addressing the challenge head on and it has become clear for better administrative structure is leadership and that is why we are seeking to have leadership as part of our budget proposal this upcoming year. Training and rules are always something that we need to keep on top of and to maintain the persistence and attention to make ripe a lot of the issues that have become apparent with our program. From an organizational part I just want to give the Council some illustration to what we are talking about. This is a proposed organizational chart and you will see an enforcement division is put on par with the other three divisions we currently have in our Department. Currently enforcement has been spread between the three divisions and I think by consolidating the Human Resources and providing clear leadership we can make the necessary changes possible, which we have already kind of seen under Mr. Laureta's leadership. Structurally we have a Planner VII oversee the TVR program, the CZM enforcement activities, and the regular CZO enforcement activities. If you move from left to right you will notice that we have our TVR, our coastal section, and then our CZO enforcement section. You will notice at the bottom that a Planner I is part of the structure. But right now in order to support the TVR program, we have had to borrow April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 7 from the long range program, a Planner I to support the TVR renewals and processing. We have an 89-day person supporting enforcement of the program as a research specialist and again, that is being paid for out of fines that my Department has received based on enforcement efforts. This is just to tie the loop in. This is the back-end of where that Planner I is. Typically we have that person supporting our Planner VI but because of the more pressing needs in the TVR program we have had to trim the...I guess the Human Resources investment in long-range planning. I will mention that right now that the Planner VII, which was Peter Nakamura, we do not have at this time. So you will notice we are about two people down in the long-range division. Now that we presented our goals and objectives and challenges, what does this all mean? I think that is why we are sitting around the table and what does it mean from a dollars and cents stand point. Here is the breakdown of our budget. It is in our budget report that we have submitted. You will notice that the budget request reflects a 9.4% increase compared to last year's budget. The source of the increase generally comes again as the Collective Bargaining... as a result of the Collective Bargaining increases. That is largely attributed to it. The fringe costs again I think is kind of offset given some of the reductions in OPEB that I am sure the Council is aware of across the board. The other large contributor to that increase in the budget is the utilization of a dollar-funded position which is the Commission Support Clerk to create that the key enforcement leadership position and solidify the temporary staff adjustments that we made to address the department weaknesses in our enforcement program. During the TVR hearings last year Councilmember Hooser supported the idea of us looking at whether the cost of the TVR program is actually matching the amount of fees. So based off of the staff adjustments that we have made in order to have a program run, we have determined that an increase in the TVR fee is necessary and so to offset the cost of that additional position we are requesting a $250 increase in the TVR processing fee. There are also minor adjustments to the Sea Grant Program because our Sea Grant Extension Agent is part of the Collective Bargaining Unit at the University of Hawai`i and so there are adjustments to address that, as well as vacation payout and some Commission support that the Commission has requested over the upcoming year. Here is I guess a picture showing what the last fiscal year looked like with respect to a budget breakdown. Here is the upcoming year and you notice that generally there has not been much deviation in the proportion of spending that our Department has as part of its operating budget. Here is a final image that Tommy Noyes took at the Smart Growth Conference. I think you can see the room is full, and there is pretty much standing-room only in the back. The words below are things that I have put above our office door and these are things that I expect my staff every time they go into the world or they greet people that are coming in to our office, to display and carry with themselves. Because I believe that these values represent the work that this County would expect of us and is what I expect of my Department employees. I continue to look forward to the work that our Department can do together in service of this County. Mahalo. Chair Furfaro: Thank you Mike for a very thorough and direct- to-the-point presentation. Thank you very much. Starting with questions, I think I will go to JoAnn if she would like to start. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you, Chair. Mike, thank you for an excellent presentation. Mr. Dahilig: Thank you. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 8 Ms. Yukimura: I think you have given us a lot of better understanding of what the Planning Department is and I appreciate the analysis of both your problems and your opportunities, which are really on behalf of the people of this island. So thank you for that. First of all, I applaud your thinking on an enforcement division. I just wanted to understand how you are getting there, you said you are taking a position...an existing position and which one is that? Mr. Dahilig: It is a dollar-funded position in the previous budget that was position 2010. That was a Commission Support Clerk position. Ms. Yukimura: You are now proposing that it be...a Planner VII? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. You will notice it has been converted to an SR-28 at a budgeted salary of$64,920. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. You did acknowledge that we are doing this somewhat at the expense of our long-range planning division? Mr. Dahilig: That is something that we have had to do to stop the bleeding. When we looked at the Department in totality, our regulatory division is very pressed and so we have moved temporarily part of the work that Marisa Valenciano's allocated over to the TVR program to support the renewal efforts. Ms. Yukimura: That is the division head at this point? Mr. Dahilig: The Division Head is on top of what Marisa is doing. Given the austere situation that the County is in, that Planner I, that low-level Planner function is something that is going to be persistent. It is not something that we can absorb based on what we found as the work deems. Given some of the fiscal challenges in understanding what priority is, the leadership piece was more of a priority for me. Ms. Yukimura: Can we have that slide back up? Slide 29? It shows your organizational chart for the enforcement division that you want to create, right? Mr. Dahilig: Right. Ms. Yukimura: So that Planner VII will be there and that is vacant right now and you will recruit for it? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. So we want to do is convert the position from an Account Clerk to a Planner VII, and then recruit that position to then lead the program. Ms. Yukimura: Then you are having...the other positions are filled? Mr. Dahilig: The other positions are filled, all warm bodies. Ms. Yukimura: When you have the TVR program you are indicating that the TVR program is included, but not the only thing that your enforcement crews are going to be doing? April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 9 Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. Like anything, the TVR enforcement is interrelated because it does involve some analysis of CZO violations. So that is why we have...that is where we have found efficiencies in enforcement by having a unified leadership structure to look at the three different sections. So although the TVR program is one...I guess you would call it a "branch." It is reliant on work that the other branches do. Ms. Yukimura: I think that is good. I do not see TVR as a separate enforcement division or structure at all. I think that is all part of our enforcement efforts. Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. Ms. Yukimura: Maybe one of the good spinoffs from the whole TVR controversy is that we are going to develop really good enforcement practices, whatever the enforcement issue is. Whether it is TVR or anything else that needs enforcing. That is your intention here, right? Mr. Dahilig: That is our intention. I believe given the intricacies of our Code, having certain inspectors specialized with certain areas of the Code, I think at least from a development of a product that gets before a contested-case hearing's officer is important. At the same time, issue-spotting across all three areas of the Code that we enforce, TVR, CZO, and coastal and CZM enforcement I think is important for our staff to have a working understanding and if there are issues that can be spotted on say a coastal inspection related to TVR, that information can be easily issue spotted and passed off to a TVR inspector for further analysis, given their more in-depth understanding of that part of the law. Ms. Yukimura: There are certain commonalities to all violation handling including inspections, legal protocols, etc.? Mr. Dahilig: I agree, yes. Ms. Yukimura: So you have a TVR program on one side and the other side, what is the other? Mr. Dahilig: The middle position is the grant-funded CZM inspection officer, enforcement officer, that particular individual is Les Milnes and he oversees coastal...whenever we have coastal complaints that is what he takes care of. On the right you have our CZO enforcement, things related to setbacks, overuse of the property through additional density, you know, squatting all of these different things that are not...that are in the Code. That is what the section on the far right takes care of. Ms. Yukimura: But TVR is part of the CZO? Mr. Dahilig: Right, it is. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. So ultimately, you have CZO inspectors who have different specialties. Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 10 Ms. Yukimura: The CZM enforcement is required to be separate because of the funding? Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. It is a Civil Service limited-term position. So we have been thankful that the funds have continued to come in from the Office of Planning to support that initiative. But because it is funded through the program, it has to rely on coastal-related issues. Ms. Yukimura: This planner I at the bottom of the TVR program column that is special funding as well? Mr. Dahilig: No that is long-range. We are borrowing the position from long-range to support...the TVR program has two separate functions. One is actually the enforcement of the TVR program, the other one is the actual certificate renewal and the maintenance of files and analyses of submittals on an annual basis as required under the Code so that is what the low-level planner is meant to address is that permit processing function. What we have realized and tried to address based off of the discussions with Council that function needs to be separated from the inspectors because of some of the issues that arose. It is really two functions in one when you talk about it as a program. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. If we can go to slide...it is hard for me to see the number. 12. I was going to the enforcement statistics, which is related. Mr. Chock: So the CZM enforcement officer at the end of the fiscal period, is that something that is applied for on an annual basis? Mr. Dahilig: It is a rolling grant. So it is a pass-through to the Office of Planning that comes directly from the Department of Commerce through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) program. NOAA has CZM moneys spread nationwide through states that have adopted a coastal zone management program and Hawai`i has one of the states that has adopted a CZM program and is therefore eligible for these Federal funds. In actuality we are implementing a Federal grant through a pass-through from the Office of Planning. Mr. Chock: So in terms of future support on this position, what is the forecast? Mr. Dahilig: I believe that when we look at the...at least the information that has come through the Office of Planning, based on conversations from their counterparts in Washington, D.C., that at least the Obama Administration has not signaled any type of massive reduction in the funding. However, what I would describe it is as level-funding. So what that does in essence is places pressure as Collective Bargaining elements go into place, specifically these increases, the portion of the budget that is meant for more discretionary spending is being eaten up already as we see it. Right now we have the opportunity to potentially fund four...up to four positions out of the CZM grant. The concern is that at what point will the discretionary moneys be eaten up because of the level- funding from the Federal government to which we may have to look at reduction in force types of means to maintain some of the employees in the program. So I think at this point, given the upcoming fiscal year, and given the indications that we have gotten from the Office of Planning, we are in a good place right now. But looking out two, three, four years, April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 11 given the projected Collective Bargaining increases that we are seeing, it will start to put pressure on the budget if we are left with only level-funding. Mr. Chock: Okay. How much does that account for? Mr. Dahilig: The total lump sum of the grant right now is about $280,000 a year. Mr. Chock: Thank you. Chair Furfaro: JoAnn you still have the floor thank you. The CZM enforcement officer position is not in the list in our budget? Mr. Dahilig: I guess it is transmits as an addendum of the overall budget, but not coming out of the General Funds. Ms. Yukimura: It is not General Fund. Can you provide a breakdown of our CZM funding? Chair Furfaro: Can you just clarify what you just said, is it? In the budget? Mr. Dahilig: The CZM grant funds are not considered part of this budget. Chair Furfaro: Therefore, like every other Department if it is 100% through a grant, you are not showing it as funds, but the positions are planned to be in the operating costs? Mr. Dahilig: That I am not clear exactly how that works. Chair Furfaro: Steve can you help us here so we can get an understanding? Ms. Yukimura: I think the other Departments may list them but then say they are grants. No, we do not list them? Chair Furfaro: I would like to follow-up on my additional question. Could I get from the Administration clarity so that we have continuity and consistency in the budget. He is talking about positions fully funded by grants. Some of the Departments we have seen, none of the grants show up. How are we handling Planning? What was it? $280,000? Mr. Dahilig: $280,000 as a grant budget. Chair Furfaro: Nobody wants to answer? I will send it over as a question. Okay. I just want to be consistent when I hear something that is covered by grant money and not County money because we are only dealing with money from the General Fund or Highway Fund. STEVEN A. HUNT, Director of Finance: Correct. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 12 Chair Furfaro: How are we handling it here? Mr. Hunt: In Planning, it is not showing up in that position as funded by the grant. Chair Furfaro: So the revenue is not showing up and the expense is not showing up? Mr. Hunt: Correct. Chair Furfaro: So for us it is kind of like it is there until the grant runs out. That is your point, right, Mike? Mr. Dahilig: Given a response to Councilmember Chock's question, that is what you can deduce. Chair Furfaro: That is what we can summarize, the Obama Administration gives us no more opportunity for that grant, we then have to rethink a cost if we want to continue the management and oversight of this particular area of needs? Mr. Dahilig: I agree. Chair Furfaro: Steve, thank you very much. Ms. Yukimura: I have a question for Steve. Chair Furfaro: You still have the floor. Steve, JoAnn. Ms. Yukimura: In other Departments nobody includes their grant positions in their position list? Mr. Hunt: They will show, like for instance in Motor Vehicle, a State-funded position. We will show a dollar-fund on our side. Ms. Yukimura: And explain? Mr. Hunt: And explain it is funded through the State grant. So there are positions that are shown, but the funding source is... Ms. Yukimura: I think the Chair is right in asking for a standardized process, because then it shows us the total number of positions in your Department so maybe next year that can be done. But just then it gives us the big-picture actually of number of positions? Total cost to operate? If we know there are grants. Chair Furfaro: Can I clarify that for a second? Ms. Yukimura: Sure. Chair Furfaro: JoAnn is exactly right, we got all of the grant funding. You gave us that report, but typically in the past, by the time we get to the May 8th submittal, you will have those grants there and identifying those grants with positions that are available. That is what has happened in past. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 13 Ms. Yukimura: It is helpful to see it in the context of the Department's total picture. So we are just getting better and better at this. So that will help next time to have that. So may I continue then? Chair Furfaro: You have the floor. I just wanted to follow-up with clarity here. Ms. Yukimura: Mike, actually the CZM enforcement officer is the one who would enforce shoreline setback if there are violations, is it not? Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. Ms. Yukimura: So that is an issue before us. Laws are useless without enforcement. Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. Ms. Yukimura: So that is why it is good that you are focusing some energy and look at how we are doing enforcement. So if we could go to slide 12 "enforcement statistics." So I appreciate this slide very much, because it is a follow-up on all of our concerns about TVR enforcement. You are saying that 63 appeals resolved by stipulation, reconsideration or abandonment by the... Mr. Dahilig: Yes, by the actual holder. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. And then 14 cases went to the hearings officer for disposition and are presently in hearings mode? Mr. Dahilig: They are in hearings mode. Ms. Yukimura: Are these mainly TVRs? Mr. Dahilig: They are mainly TVRs. I would say they are a blend of existing certificates or in a couple of cases they do not have a certificate. Ms. Yukimura: Good...I mean good that you are going after those, too. Mr. Dahilig: Okay. Ms. Yukimura: Then 33 still pending disposition, which means they are in what phase? You are still gathering information or preparing the case? Mr. Dahilig: I think part of it and this is cognizant of the fact that when we send things to a hearings officer, it is expensive. So whether we can come to some type of...in certain cases, amicable settlement on getting them to compliance or down the path of coming into compliance, those are things Mike along with his staff are discussing with these violators. So we are not giving the...we are not pushing for just purely efficiency reasons, but I think like any...like running any kind of court system, you want to try to come to some type of mediated point of action versus heading directly into a court. So our philosophy has been what can we do here? So I think when you look at the April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 14 number 33, they are in various stages of either factual-discovery where we are sharing information with each other. They may be negotiating certain actions, but they have not reached the level where we think that no-deal and then we go to a hearings officer. I think the 14 actually reflect a no-deal type of scenario. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. So I mean you are going to look at the...you will gather all the facts and based on the facts, you are going to decide? If we have no chance of prevailing in a contested-case hearing, you are not going to go forward in a contested case? Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. That is correct. Ms. Yukimura: On the other hand if it is clear that we have a really good case, you are not going to settle? Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. So there is this whole gray area between a clear case to convict and not sufficient evidence to convict. Mr. Dahilig: That is a case-by-case analysis that yes in fact we make. Ms. Yukimura: These are TVR? Mr. Dahilig: Right now mainly TVRs. There are a couple non- TVR related contested case hearings. I believe there is actually one that dealing with at hearings officer level that does involve a contested fine. It varies. I cannot really put them into one genre. Ms. Yukimura: You said you have hired an enforcement specialist? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Ms. Yukimura: So you are contracting with somebody to help you analyze these cases? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. So because of the legislation that this Council passed allows us to spend the fine funds, we have taken moneys from the fine account to actually pay for an enforcement specialist to act as a support for getting cases either to contested-case hearings and supporting the prosecution side, you would call of, of our house. What we have done to reorganize and support the Commission side of the house which act as the judiciary, we have repurposed one position to assist the Commission with case management and case filing and scheduling of hearings with the hearings officer. So that is kind of...we had to create essentially a firewall with the prosecution and case presentation side and then the Commission support side that is in there. Ms. Yukimura: That is working the enforcement specialist is working for you? April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 15 Mr. Dahilig: She has been on board I would say about a month now. So at least all indications that I have gotten from Mike in terms of the support she has been providing has been an addition to our efforts. I believe we are on the right path having that position in there. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. I have questions about other parts of this, but I think members might want to talk about enforcement or ask questions, other members. So I will yield the floor. Chair Furfaro: Any questions in this area right now? If not, I have one. So Mike, I will send this over, but we were just talking about is you keep having this repetitive grant for the CZM year 2011, 2013, this one is 2014. It is $287,000. Now how does this get renewed is what I want to ask? I did not quite hear what the Obama Administration is telling you about the future success of this repetitive grant. Mr. Dahilig: So I guess every...right around this time as the State is going through their budget process, too, we get a an inquiry from the State Office of Planning that asks us please provide different budget scenarios, either level-funding, an increase of 5%, or decrease of 5%. Upon which time they will get an understanding once the State budget is passed, because what the Office of Planning first does, I guess they take their haircut first off the lump sum that comes to Hawai`i to help administer the grant. Depending on whether or not the budget passed by the Legislature either provides the position support or does not provide the position support, the Office of Planning then determines what its haircut is. After that, we then get a final figure around, I guess, late- May, based off of the budget that is passed at the beginning of May. Then we are asked...to finalize what that budget looks like. Then we send it over to the Office of Planning for their approval. Then the funds are done, are handled that way. Chair Furfaro: So this should be coming up on our radar screen pretty soon? Mr. Dahilig: Yes, sir. Chair Furfaro: You choose the terminology of "getting a haircut?" Mr. Dahilig: Yes, sir. Chair Furfaro: So for three years, we only got a crew cut, with $287,000. What are the chances next time you are in the barbershop we are not going to be bald? Mr. Dahilig: I think for this upcoming fiscal year, given the indications from the Office of Planning, level-funding looks like the most probable scenario that will probably happen. Chair Furfaro: So you are feeling pretty good that we will see a repeat, for a fourth time of the $287,000? Mr. Dahilig: I think we are feeling...I do not know if "confident" is the right word, but we feel confident that we will not see something drastic that is unpredictable. I think we can predict it will be around that amount. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 16 Chair Furfaro: That will be the fourth year the same amount? Mr. Dahilig: That is correct, Chair. Chair Furfaro: Okay. JoAnn, now we can move on. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. So I wanted to talk about Important Agricultural Lands implementation. What is exactly coming up to us and what is "implementation" and how do you envision that? Mr. Dahilig: At the end of the day, what the Councilmembers will receive once we finalize the verbiage from our Commission process, because we want to make sure that the Commission is aware and understands what the study is; that the IAL study includes an analysis of all the agricultural lands on the island, and as many Councilmembers are aware, these areas have been scored based off the eight criteria that are weighted and inputted into a GIS system. We have a tool that is online already that the Councilmembers can look at. But what it will have is a recommendation of what is the threshold between 28...I guess 28 is the threshold or the score of what should be considered IAL based on eight criteria and what should not? In terms of implementation, what we characterize as implementation is a frank policy discussion with this body, as if 28 is an agreeable threshold based on the information that we provided, how much IAL should be put into the ultimate resolution that this body has to pass to trigger the police power proceeding? We have options out there. Certainly they range from everything in 28 to as many of you are aware, Professor Kim at the University of Hawai`i's proposal based on the Shintani Study to other means of coming to an amount of land that should be asked for police power proceedings before the Land Use Commission. So we are not making a final recommendation to the body as to specifically how much, but is providing a number of policy scenarios to have that kind of frank discussion. Because I think there has been concern about our consultant's methodology to calculating a specific number and certainly recognize that the recognition of important ag lands is partially scientific, but also policy. We want to be sensitive to that and not make any type of, I guess direct recommendations without going through that policy discussion with the Council. Ms. Yukimura: So the IAL report that is coming up to us does not have a policy recommendation? Mr. Dahilig: It has policy recommendations, I would say. Ms. Yukimura: About which lands to designate IAL? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. So based on the tool, there will be maps that show all the areas that have been mapped and analyzed based on the weighted process of the 28 weighted criteria. From there, how much of that 28 land and that is one part of our recommendation that we believe 28 is the number based off of the tool that the University of Hawai`i has presented. The question of how much is a deeper discussion that I do not think is fair for us to get that detailed into the specific policy recommendation. We will stand by the 28 recommendation, but how much of that 28 land should be put into the hopper for the LUC process, I think deserves more discussion. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 17 Ms. Yukimura: Are you going to be prepared to tell us how you are planning to regulate the Important Ag Lands so that we know what we are actually designating the lands for? Mr. Dahilig: That is exactly what we intend to do. Given that we knew this report was coming out and one of the very first packages that we floated as part of the public hearing process is changed to the Ag Law, the CZO Ag Law and specifically what we are anticipating is accommodations in the event that the Council should want to act and adopt an Important Ag Land Resolution. So the law creates two classes of...not the law, but the bill right now proposes the classification of two different types of Ag, specifically Ag I and Ag II, where Ag I would be all lands designated as IAL and we have a regulatory proposal based off of IAL designation, should that ever happen. So we want to be ahead of the curve from a County zoning standpoint rather than behind the curve and those are the discussions going on right now at the Planning Commission. Ms. Yukimura: You have said that you are going to start landlord consultations. I was wondering what that is. Mr. Dahilig: Once we get an idea from this body what the policy should be with regards to the amount of land that needs to be designated, should the 28 recommendation be, I guess, agreed to, given the study, then we are able to better identify what landowners will be affected should the Council set an overall threshold of lands. So once that discussion happens with this body, we would identify and begin the landlord consultations that are required under law for us to begin the process. Ms. Yukimura: That includes the State as landowner? You are taking into account State-owned land? Mr. Dahilig: We are taking into account State-owned land. I am a little unclear as to exactly what the Council's jurisdiction is over being able to designate those as IAL. It is probably a better question for the Attorney to answer. Ms. Yukimura: I hope you ask them before you come up to us with the report. Mr. Dahilig: I will make a note of that. Ms. Yukimura: It is Ag lands on this island and it seems to me it has to be included in the evaluation of the quality of Ag land and if it is IAL, it should be IAL. • Mr. Dahilig: So the information is there. So you do have all of those lands are scored. So the information is available. But we will follow-up on the question. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. I have other questions, but not about IAL and maybe there are other questions that Councilmembers have. Chair Furfaro: Mike, I think it is time before I recognize Mr. Hooser that we do get a little bit of an update on the IAL, so watch for that communication coming over to you soon. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 18 Mr. Dahilig: Sure, thank you. Chair Furfaro: Mr. Hooser, you have the floor. Mr. Hooser: Mr. Chair, that is exactly what I was going to say. I can ask a question or two, but I think we need a robust discussion on this. Sooner rather than later. I would hate to see the train move too far down the track without getting input from the Council as well. I agree with Councilmember Yukimura that obviously that the State...there is a lot of State Ag lands here and even if we do not have the legal authority to designate, they can still hold that space in terms of our overall Ag. Mr. Dahilig: I agree. Mr. Hooser: You had mentioned and I know we do not want to talk too much policy here today, but I wanted to ask one follow-up question. I enjoyed your presentation and I want to preface it with that and thank you for the thought you put into it. Mr. Dahilig: Thank you. Mr. Hooser: You mentioned, I believe, two tiers of Ag land, Important Ag Land and everything else and the possibility of ordinances impacting the uses of both of those. Mr. Dahilig: That is correct. Mr. Hooser: So I would hope that would be part of our discussion also, when we come to the full Council. Do you envision those lands that are not Important Ag Lands for designation having a broader land use potential other than agriculture? Is that the track that we are going down? Mr. Dahilig: I think our recommendation would be characterized at least as being presented heard by the Planning Commission as status quo. Given what our current regulatory regime is. We are not looking at loosening up those IALs that are not IAL. I think what we are looking at is an approach that takes the protection of IAL one level higher. So I would not characterize the proposal as having any kind of fundamental regulatory changes than what we are used to right now. Mr. Hooser: Thank you. It has been an ongoing concern of mine that just because land is not designated as Important Ag Land does not mean it is not Important Ag Land, but still land to protect and be careful how we utilize. Mr. Dahilig: I agree. Mr. Hooser: Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Chair. Chair Furfaro: I will ask the Vice Chair of the Planning Committee with Mr. Hooser to put together a communication for me to put this on the schedule of a regular Committee Meeting. Mr. Dahilig: We will be ready. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 19 Chair Furfaro: One more question along those lines you had mentioned in your presentation there was a contract dispute with one of our planners. Is that something that we should be forecasting in the, but not limited budget here? Is there a discrepancy that will lead us to some cost to exit a contract? Mr. Dahilig: I would say we are at a position that we are at a position of a meeting of the minds and hopefully settling it this way, we are actually incurring less costs than letting the contractor run through the full course of the contract. We had concerns about what was going on and before the full payout of the budgeted amount or contracted amount we put a stop to things and said we have got to look at things here. So I would not expect any kind of additional costs at this point. Certainly if that does happen, we will forward the information. Chair Furfaro: There is no surprise here for us, but what I am hearing from you there is a meeting of the minds on a way to mutually agree to exit from a contract? Mr. Dahilig: That is my understanding with the negotiations. Chair Furfaro: You just mentioned it in your presentation and I wanted to make sure there were no hidden costs. JoAnn, go right ahead. Ms. Yukimura: I do want to say the use of hash tags and I do not know what you call them...I love that you are using the new technology to involve the public. Hopefully the younger generation as well, because they are so good at this kind of communication. My question came up during our CIP discussions on the General Plan Update and my concern that one of the key issues in the General Plan Update will be growth. That we will need a very good understanding of the legal parameters for managing growth. We have been in a luxury position since 2008 because we have had a slow-down, but we remember prior to 2008 what it was like. The fact that we are...in my opinion, so over zoned, means that the issue is going to come up, because it is coming up everywhere, what volume of tourists can this island handle? What kind of traffic? All of these are related to growth. So the 3,000 to 9,000 units that are resort units that are 3,000 to 9,000 units that are somehow...somewhat entitled, what are we going to do with that? What happens if they begin to build out and bring in the kind of population growth? Chair Furfaro: That is another Planning Committee question. Let us stay on the budget. I know what you are going to say come back to that, but we just spent $1.2 million in the last year and a half to do statistically information to get us to a point that we can do a General Plan. This is the budget session. I would be glad to put it on a Planning Committee item and talk about it because it is serious. But we have 45 minutes here for budget. Ms. Yukimura: I will try to make it shorter, but I believe it is a budget issue. Chair Furfaro: I do not. Ms. Yukimura: I want to know how we are going to address this issue in the General Plan Update and whether you need money to do it? April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 20 Mr. Dahilig: I will say that as you are aware, our General Plan Updates and community plans go through a community process. Like anything, we try to put together a cross-section of community members to get a pulse and an idea of where our planners should be directing their efforts with respect to analyses? Certainly the issues that you raised with respect to the amount of unfettered growth that has happened in the past and whether that needs to be controlled through regulatory means are areas that if the CAC wants to start going down that trail we have to be prepared to support. I think what you are suggesting are areas that we need to be prepared for in anticipation of some of these policy questions that may come up during the CAC process. We do have...I believe at this point, some wiggle room with our remainder in the balance of our General Plan Update line item to maybe take a look at whether some type of white paper or something may be appropriate to at least give the CAC some legal parameters with respect to addressing these types of issues. So we are not, I guess, essentially wasting time. I think it is something that I am open to a discussion with. I would be...I do not think it is appropriate for me to throw a figure out on the floor. Certainly we can work it within our current appropriation allowances. I would rather look at it that way first than just saying that I need an extra $40,000. So we would probably need a little bit of time to take a look at it and see whether or not we can take care of these issues and address these issues in- house, or with the moneys that we already have, versus just trying to pad our budget. So we can take a look at that. Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. I appreciate that you are trying to do it cost-effectively and I just want to clarify, it is not about statistics. It is about the legal issues and parameters for managing growth, which I believe we will come right up to. We have with every other prior General Plan Update that has been a key issue. I appreciate your willingness to take a look. Mr. Dahilig: Okay. Ms. Yukimura: Lastly, your discussion about the...how do I explain it? The need for better IT support in the development of our data and your files and your information and your applications is signaling to me there is a major interdepartmental issue that needs to be addressed, just like our Human Resources Payroll issues that affects all. So does this whole GIS system. I would like to know if...I guess I am looking at the possibility of adding another high-level position in IT that would focus on this particular initiative. Because we have heard it from everywhere that this is both needed and has a lot of potential, even for public access to information. So I just wondered what thoughts you have on that? Mr. Dahilig: I think looking down the road, the ideal scenario for anybody that deals with regulation in the County, I would say you have a spatial map, and if you click on a parcel that all the different permits and all the different files and everything can be accessible through some type of GIS interface. I think that is the goal that I think many of us are operating under the same impression on. On the flipside, the intake and the processing of additional regulatory applications is done paperless. So that everything is a seamless system and everything is in one place. I think one of our, I guess, challenges with how our Department operates in contrast to the current ePlan review process that is in place is that we essentially operate the opposite way from the way that the building regulations are setup. You have a plan that comes in and is analyzed a certain way, versus our Department, we take a look at approvals first and all of the different scenarios and we get down to the plan. Specifically, I would characterize that as how the Class IV zoning permit process is now. So the way the ePlan permit system is set up, we April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 21 cannot catalog both, I guess, based on our regulatory requirements, that process of whittling down the spatial analyses and documentation and it requires away for us to have some type of interface to talk to ePlan with. Ms. Yukimura: It seems like the e-file tail is wagging the overall GIS dog. Mr. Dahilig: I guess I would not characterize it that way in the sense that we know there are plug-ins and we have been made aware of that. There are plug-ins that can be made, if we have a line management system that talks to ePlan and that can talk to our GIS system. So essentially it is building around. Ms. Yukimura: You are building around the ePlan rather than starting from the beginning and saying what are all of the land management plan functions? The permitting processes that have to integrate? Mr. Dahilig: I guess given the decision to go down the ePlan route, at least the way that I would look at it, it was the most paper-intensive process that was currently...when you look at the overall regulatory regime. Ms. Yukimura: I know. Mr. Dahilig: That was the most paper-intensive element and that is why I think there was some deliberate purpose behind wanting to build behind that process first. Ms. Yukimura: I do not think any of the ePlan efforts were bad. I have commended that we are doing that, but if you step back and look at the larger picture, because you talk about codes and processes, that you cannot do yet, because the interface has not been figured out. Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Ms. Yukimura: That means it is stopping your process. I will talk to maybe Finance and the Mayor's Office about that. Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Any other questions? Mr. Chock. Mr. Chock: Thank you, Chair. I had some questions here in relation to plans for this coming fiscal year there is an increase in consultant services $45,000 I see here and the services that you are look at implementing? Mr. Dahilig: Part of what the increase is attributed to, Sea Grant is considered consultant contract and the Collective Bargaining that the University of Hawai`i had to pay for that position is folded in there. One other thing, if you look at the "other services" line item, what previously was allocated for the direct match for CZM programs specifically $30,000, that was previously under "other services" so that was moved down to "consultant services" to make that more clear where that money is supposed to be spent for. Mr. Chock: So this figure that we see, it will more of be a consistent figure moving forward? April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 22 Mr. Dahilig: Correct. Mr. Chock: As well as vacation payout, is that cumulative and we will see that come back again? Mr. Dahilig: Inasmuch as there are individuals in my Department that I would not want to see retire, that is at some point going to be a reality and given the instructions from the Finance Department and the Mayor's Office, concerning how we plan for that, we have to. So these are kind of one-time shot kinds of expenditures. Mr. Chock: So it is not going to come back next year? Mr. Dahilig: I can make the commitment that I hope we do not spend it this year and you see it again next year. So hopefully those in my Department do not necessarily retire. So you may see it again next year, but because we have not spent it. Mr. Chock: Keep them around longer. Good. You spoke about the need for increased space. Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Mr. Chock: I can see that is anti-productive and something that you need to look at. So my question I was thinking about the size of the space that you currently have. You said you need about double that amount. What is that amount? Mr. Dahilig: Right now from the aggregate standpoint we are just about 3,500-3,700 square feet of aggregate space. Given the space study, based on a projected number of employees in the year 2015, we are supposed to have close to 8,000 square feet. We have already hit that target last year in terms of the amount of employees that we anticipate having. So even if we were to move to a space that was planned in the space plan, we would have essentially no space to grow. So any space is welcomed at this point, but if we are going by the methodology laid out in the space plan, even if we are put in what is outlined, we would very quickly outgrow that space, if growth in the Department is anticipated over next few years. Mr. Chock: Are you part of the planning for the space? Mr. Dahilig: I have been in consultation with the County Engineer and his staff on where progress is on other efforts and certainly I do not mean to reflect it as them having done an inadequate job because there are other competing issues coming into play because we are not the only Department in the bucket here. Yes, we have been in discussions with DPW but it is just taking a long time. Mr. Chock: Thank you for the presentation. I appreciate it. Ms. Yukimura: On the space issue, I really appreciate your advocacy and I urge you to speak up on it, because part of the space problems that you have now are because there was not advocacy on the part of the previous Planning Director. That is why Planning, I feel, was left behind when the space issue was...and so now, and Planning is growing appropriately because the need for Planning is so great. So you should April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 23 make sure that 8,000 square feet, maybe a whole different section so you are all together is part of the space planning in the new growth that is going to happen. I have another question. Chair Furfaro: I want to close this on the General Plan before we go any further. I would encourage members here, I was a member of the last General Plan. When we ended, we all agreed that it might be better to have a couple of years in advance to do some pre-planning, evaluate the CZO, you know? Look at Subdivision Ordinances. Special development plans for certain districts and certainly incorporates the community values. So we said okay, maybe we need to allocate a couple of additional years to do that. So the old plan was passed 75 days after it went through, it was passed by the Council in 2010, on November 29th. Okay? So we are supposed to by State directive, redo this every ten years. So we added two years to the piece. The old General Plan we had a budget of$480,000. We did not do any pre-planning. So this Council, when I served on it, we approved basically $2 million. This effort was based on the fact that we would get into these areas of SMA and regional plans and community values and somewhere along the line was that discussion also that dealt with what is on or before carrying capacity? What can we grow? I was assuming that those questions would be shared by the community plans and would also be shared by our legal department as we have spent almost $1.2 million in the last year and a half to prep us to launch into the General Plan. Now we have $800,000 of carryover moneys of which Marie has set here and said to us that we feel we can do that. I would encourage if there is any dialogue about getting us to the General Plan so we can mandate what we expect from the Council to you folks in advance, so that they are well-coordinated and that must include the County Attorney's Office on the question about these legal questions that might be challenging us about carrying capacity. That is all I have got to say about that going forward. Okay? So members, you want to have some discussion in Committee about some of these philosophies and so forth, that is where we should do it. Okay? I appreciate all the work that the Planning Department has done, and we have also given a lot of time and money, including the moneys for the Important Ag Land study that needs to be in Committee, not here. Moving on we have half an hour left for budget questions. Go ahead, JoAnn. Ms. Yukimura: You have on page 72 of your budget, the project manager...two project manager contract positions, dollar-funded. How are you going to use those positions? Mr. Dahilig: The positions were used as support positions and we are using one as a support position for the manpower necessary to take care of this bubble of plans. We have somebody that we are using as a project assistant to support our planners as they are going through the planning process. So she takes care of the business end of the house, I would say. As well as logistically supporting them when it comes to things like coordinating meetings, editing reports, and these types of things. Ms. Yukimura: That is good. But it is not funded. So you have that position ongoing now and you are using grant moneys of some sorts? Mr. Dahilig: We are using residual funds on an 89-day basis. Ms. Yukimura: Oh, it is an 89-day contract? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 24 Ms. Yukimura: When you say...out of your CIP moneys? Mr. Dahilig: Some of it has come from CIP previously, but we do have some other moneys in our budget with respect to the salary line item. Ms. Yukimura: Come Fiscal Year then, to the extent that you have 89-day contract moneys? Mr. Dahilig: I guess the way I would characterize it, we have had a loss of one of our employees and so that salary that is not being expended and has been repurposed to support that position where it was previously supported through Bond Funds. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. The other position? Or both are intended to do that the long-range plans to be support positions? Mr. Dahilig: Right now we are only using one at this point. Ms. Yukimura: Okay. I just want to say...I am just going to say one sentence with respect to the General Plan Update, based on the Smart Growth Conference this past year, fiscal impacts of various growth scenarios would be very important and we need to make sure that is part of the General Plan thinking and homework. Thank you. Chair Furfaro: Additional questions for Planning? So Mike, getting up to the date of July 1st, at this point how many positions do you have vacant in your Office? Mr. Dahilig: At this point we will have just one and that is Peter's. Chair Furfaro: You will just have because you have identified recruiting or somebody is leaving? Mr. Dahilig: That is Peter's position. Chair Furfaro: Where are you with Personnel on the general recruiting? I know you are looking for someone and I heard that through the narrative. Are we advertising for minimum requirements to take us to Honolulu? To the mainland? Mr. Dahilig: I think it involves a larger, broader discussion. Unfortunately we had this vacancy occur and if it makes the most sense versus there are other ways of creating leadership for the Department? We are going through that process right now of just going through that due diligence and asking ourselves the question, do we just keep it as-is or do we look at changing some of the structure? We are at that juncture right now and once we get clarity, there will be some pretty quick action right afterwards. Chair Furfaro: Okay. I guess where I am coming from, I will just spit it out, since I cannot seem to talk around it. In the organizational chart that you presented, at some point is the Planning Department going to have two Deputy Planning Directors, one taking care of the routine business, the Commissioners and application side April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 25 and someone else who is taking care of the long-range pieces? Do you see yourself splitting to that degree? Mr. Dahilig: What you have brought up is something that I think is a relevant question. I do not have an answer yes or no on that, but I think it does beg the question of is our business side of the house operating efficiently as our Planning side of the house? I think whether that is specifically addressed by the filling of this position or whether we have to look at adjustments to our structure, I think is what I need clarity on first before I can provide an answer. Chair Furfaro: Everybody talks to us about continuity and so forth and continuity comes from first having a long range plan about the structure of the organization. It might be three years down the line, might be four or five, but you see the enforcement and long-range planning separate from the permitting and action of the Commission itself and being led by two Deputies. If that is where you see yourself, the recruitment has to be based on you recruiting somebody who can evolve to being one of those candidates and we have not crossed that bridge yet. Mr. Dahilig: I whole-heartedly agree with respect of taking that approach of when we look at personnel resources we just cannot look at the here and now. That succession planning is critical to also looking at our structure. Chair Furfaro: Okay. If nobody has anymore, I have a few questions as I go through my checklist here. IAL process, you know we are going to put some communication on the Council Agenda very, very soon. Your enforcement fines and so forth, $105,000 that you have, you are handling it the same way we are handling the Building Department Revolving Fund? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. Chair Furfaro: You are using those moneys? Has there been any talk of not capping that fund, that there might be...I am sure there are more fines out there to collect. Why would we cap it at $100,000? Mr. Dahilig: That is the first idea in my mind focusing on how we can most prudently spend the money and going over the cap, how do we have it funnel back to the General Plan? We have not talked about whether that $100,000 is an appropriate cap or not? I do not know if I have an opinion on it, but I would say that what you are seeing is a result of our success. So whether that is appropriately capped at $100,000 or valued at a higher amount, I could not give you an opinion on the floor, Chair. Chair Furfaro: Please take a look at the Building Department's Revolving Fund because you think they are up to $200,000 now. Mr. Dahilig: Okay. Chair Furfaro: I would like to see that money being focused on your needs in Planning, when challenges do come up. Even if it is for contract services. But please take a look at that. Where are you on the list of priorities for office planning? Have they moved you to number one? Mr. Dahilig: I believe we are either 1 or 2. So we are up there. April 15, 2014 Planning Department (ss) Page 26 Chair Furfaro: Okay. Do you need my vote? I will say I think you should be number one how is that? Mr. Dahilig: Thanks. Chair Furfaro: I think Planning is the single most important thing we can do in this County for quality growth. It should be at the top of the list when it comes to looking for space. Okay? Even own my question about finding...recovering rent for the Auditor, you should be at the top of the list. You heard my comments about the contract disputes? If something goes astray, you let us know right away? Mr. Dahilig: I will, sir. Chair Furfaro: Bumping the fees on the TVR fine, that is coming up here for public hearing and we send it back to the Planning Commission and so that is moving along. I want to tell you how much I appreciate seeing your summary about enforcement. Do you have anything else that you want to share with us? Mr. Dahilig: No, sir. Chair Furfaro: JoAnn? We are going to adjourn your group's budget hearing. There will be no call-back for you. But do know that Important Ag Land will come up for discussion, as well as getting a little bit more of the parameters on the upcoming General Plan, okay? Mr. Dahilig: Thank you, Chair. Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Mike, thank you very much. Thank you everyone from Planning. We have Housing at 11:00 a.m. None of us have been able to take a break. So let us take a break and start at 11:00 a.m. again. Caption break, too. There being no objections, the Committee recessed at 10:41 a.m.