HomeMy WebLinkAboutFeb 28 2017 Open Sess MinKAUAI PLANNING COMMISSION
REGULAR MEETING
February 28, 2017
The regular meeting of the Planning Commission of the County of Kauai was called to order by
Vice Chair Ho at 9:03 a.m., at the L-Aiu`e Civic Center, Mo`ikeha Building, in meeting room 2A -
2B. The following Commissioners were present:
Mr. Roy Ho
Mr. Wayne Katayama
Ms. Kanoe Ahuna
Ms. Donna Apisa
Mr. Sean Mahoney
Absent and Excused:
Ms. Glenda Nogami Streufert
Chair Keawe
The following staff members were present: Planning Department - Michael Dahilig, Dale Cua;
Marissa Valenciano, Marie Williams; Leslie Takasaki; Office of the County Attorney - Deputy
County Attorney Jodi Higuchi Sayegusa; Office of Boards and Commissions - Administrator Jay
Furfaro, Commission Support Clerk Lani Agoot
Discussion of the meeting, in effect, ensued:
CALL TO ORDER
Vice Chair Ho called the meeting to order at 9:03 a.m.
ROLL CALL
Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Ahuna.
Ms. Ahuna: Here.
Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Mahoney.
Mr. Mahoney: Here.
Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Katayama.
Mr. Katayama: Here.
Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Apisa.
Ms. Apisa: Here.
Mr. Dahilig: Vice Chair Ho.
Vice Chair Ho: Here.
Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Streufert, Chair Keawe. Mr. Chair we do have 5 members present
and quorum.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA
Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair we would recommend taking item F.1 (a) along with action should the
hearing be closed first on the agenda, followed by item K which is Committee reports. After the
Committee Reports are handled by the Commission we would recommend recessing the meeting
and going to the 9:00:02 agenda which relates to scheduling for various contested case hearing
matters. After that is done we would recommend going back into the 9:00:01 agenda and
continuing with the agenda under item F.3. That would be the department's recommendation this
morning.
Vice Chair Ho: I need a motion.
Mr. Katayama: Move to adopt the agenda as read.
Ms. Apisa: Second.
Vice Chair Ho: Moved and seconded all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Motion carried
5:0.
MINUTES of the meeting(s) of the Planning Commission
Special Meeting of January 31, 2017
Vice Chair Ho: I need a motion please.
Mr. Mahoney: Chair, move to approve the minutes of January 31, 2017.
Ms. Ahuna: Second the motion to approve the meeting minutes of January 31, 2017.
Vice Chair Ho: Moved and seconded all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Motion carried
5:0.
RECEIPT OF ITEMS FOR THE RECORD
Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair we are on item E, we have receipt of items for the record. I would
request that this matter be handled along with, there has been numerous testimony submitted as
part of the General Plan so maybe better to handle it at that moment and if we could move onto
item F. That would be my suggestion.
Continued Agency Hearing (NONE)
New Agency Hearing
Class IV Zoning Permit Z -IV -2017-5, Use Permit U-2017-5, and Special Permit SP -
2017 -2 to allow construction of a new terminal/administration facility, fueling are, aircraft
hangar, and associated improvements on a parcel located along the makai side of Ahukini Road
in Lihue, situated approx.. 1/2 -mile north of the Lihue Heliport facility, further identified as Tax
Map Key 3-5-001:158, and affecting a portion of a larger parcel containing 61.5 acres =Air
Service Hawaii. (Director's Report received 2/14/17.1
Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair we would recommend opening the agency hearing at this time.
Vice Chair Flo: We will open the agency hearing please.
Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair, given the testifiers that have signed up on this particular item, there is
no one signed up to testify on this item, the department would recommend making a final call for
any testimony on this matter.
Vice Chair Ho: Does anyone wish to testify on this matter, seeing none we will close the agency
hearing.
Mr. Mahoney: Chair, move to close the agency hearing.
Ms. Ahuna: Second.
Vice Chair Ho: Moved and seconded all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Opposed?
Motion carried 5:0.
NEW BUSINESS
Mr. Dahilig: Thank you Mr. Chair, given the amended agenda we will move on to action item
F.2 (a), this is Class IV Zoning Permit Z -IV -2017-5, Use Permit U-2017-5, and Special Permit
SP -2017-2, Tax Map Key 3-5-158. Dale Cua will be making the presentation on behalf of the
department this morning.
Staff Planner Dale Cua: Good morning Mr. Chair and members of the Commission. At this
time I will go through the Director's report and highlight some of the points of the project.
(Director's Report on file)
Vice Chair Ho: Is the applicant in the audience?
Mr. Shaen Tarter: Good morning Commissioners I am Shaen Tarter with Air Service Hawaii.
am the President of the company.
Vice Chair Ho: Any questions Commissioners?
Ms. Ahuna: Can you share a little bit about your organization?
Mr. Tarter: Sure, Air Service Hawaii can trace its roots back to 1948, it started as a crop dusting
and aircraft maintenance company in Honolulu. Over the years it expanded to offer flight
training, aircraft sales and eventually as business aircraft gained the capability of crossing the
ocean it evolved into the company that it looks like it is today which is a ground handling and
fuel supply company. We have 6 locations throughout Hawaii, Lihue, Honolulu, Lanai, Maui,
Kona, and Hilo. We employ 84 fulltime employees throughout the state, we sell jet fuel and
aviation gasoline as well as providing on -ground handling concierge services such as hotel,
transportation, catering, general aircraft services, as well as coordinating with all of the state and
federal agencies required to be involved with our arrivals and departures.
Ms. Ahuna: Do you still provide education or training for flight school?
Mr. Tarter: We do not operate aircraft or perform flight training.
Ms. Apisa: I guess a little history on the need for this new facility. What you have now, have
you outgrown it or lost the lease?
Mr. Tarter: Like many businesses throughout the state we have been operating out of revocable
permit space. It could be described probably generously as a large closet. Over the years we
have grown. We expect Lihue and Kauai in general to grow as you have seen over the years,
more travelers, more visitors coming to this island and plus for our employees and our clients
this facility would provide a much better experience for them. I think it fits nicely; it would be
similar to what you have seen Blue Hawaiian and Island Helicopter build at the heliport, similar
kind of building, similar profile. Just a slightly different purpose, we take care of business jets
and local helicopter tour companies, local pilots and charter companies and this provides a
comfortable, spacious accommodation for passengers and crews, provides catering pantry and
food storage, bathrooms, the kinds of things that are always in short supply. It fits with the
purpose of what we do already. It just will make it much easier and much better for our
employees and our customers.
Vice Chair Ho: Do the Commissioners have any other questions for the applicant? Dale can we
have your recommendation please.
Staff Planner Dale Cua read the Planning Department's recommendation into the record.
Vice Chair Ho: Does the applicant acknowledge these proposals?
Mr. Tarter: Yes, thank you.
Vice Chair Ho: Any comments?
Mr. Tarter: No, we appreciate the solution.
Vice Chair Ho: I need a motion please.
Ms. Apisa: I move that we accept the Planning Department's recommendation.
Mr. Mahoney: Second.
Vice Chair Ho: Motion made and seconded all those in favor say aye, Mr. Katayama.
Mr. Katayama: We have received several of these applications to improve the facilities for this
industry and I applaud that. How does the department view the capacity in terms of the Planning
Department? We always look at the segment and what the capacity is and how to manage that as
these applications come through. Who does that review for us?
Mr. Dahilia: When you talk about capacity are you talking about the air lift capacity of the
airport?
Mr. Katal a: Just that business segment and as we start to populate, and I assume that all of
these improvements will just encourage and they probably see a growth in that industry. And so
as these applications come before the Commission how does the Commission judge the
capacity? We do that for every other applicant that comes before us but in this particular case
who reviews that?
Mr. Dahilia: Let me answer the question this way because I think there has always been a
concern about the amount of helicopter usage on the island and the amount of air lift that is
coming in and out of the airport. It is something our department me has for years been asking
the State Department of Transportation to do comprehensively with respect to the airport and so
far they have not. They do not have a comprehensive plan for the overall airport. That is
something that we feel would, even from an administrative standpoint allay some of the
piecemeal evaluations we are having because of the way our zoning permits are handled here.
And so far they have not made that a priority; the airport has not made that a priority in terms of
overall master planning for the facility. Where we fill in the gaps from an evaluation standpoint
are things like the other one that is coming up later one, the General Plan, how these facilities fit
in the overall capacity of the island. Otherwise, when we take applications like this we are
strictly looking at it from a trigger of it being public lands. Whether this is the best use of public
lands or not, as DOT is the holder of these lands, they are already leasing these companies' areas
within their facility to conduct this type of operation. That act of a lease already predisposes us
to either review the usage for compatibility or not but I think where it really needs to start is first
with the State Department of Transportation in their master planning.
Mr. Katayama: Do you send them an evaluation like you do for other departments? We send
one for Water.
Mr. Dahilig: Yes we do.
Mr. Katayama: And their responses have been?
Mr. Dahilig: It is a matter of priority. I think if you look at the philosophy behind each of the
administrative agencies across the state and county levels they are particularly interested in their
area of expertise. Their desire is to safely move people as quickly as possible, that is their job.
Whether they are apathetic to some of the concerns that may arise around this table and from the
community, I can't speak for them but it speaks loudly when they at this point in time have not
undergone a comprehensive master planning process for their overall facility.
Mr. Katayama: Thank you.
Mr. Dahilig: The motion on the floor is to accept the Planning Department's recommendation
and it has been seconded.
Vice Chair Ho: All those in favor say aye. (Unanimous voice vote) Opposed? Motion carried
5:0.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
Subdivision Extension Request
Subdivision Application No. S-2011-16 (Cameron K. Burges) Proposed 4 -lot
subdivision, TMK: (4) 4-1-008:013, Wailua, Kauai.
Vice Chair Ho: We had 1 item on the subdivision agenda; it was an extension for Mr. Cameron
Burgess for a year with a 6 month review. I need a motion to receive this please.
Mr. Mahoney: Chair, move to receive the subdivision report.
Ms. Ahuna: I second the motion to receive the subdivision report.
Vice Chair Ho: All those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Motion carried 5:0. We are going
to take a short recess and go to the 9:00:02 agenda.
Commission recessed this portion of the meeting at 9:27 a.m.
Meeting called back to order at 9:54 a.m.
Mr. Dahilig: Thank you Mr. Chair. We are back on the 9:00:01 agenda.
HEARINGS AND PUBLIC COMMENT
Continued Public Hearing
Zoning Amendment ZA-2017-3 relating. to updating the General Plan for the Colmt oof
Kauai and technical amendments related to the definition of Development Plan. Hearin
continued 1/31/17.1
Supplemental No. 1 to the Departmental Draft of the General Plan Update.
Mr. Dahilia: Mr. Chair the department would recommend reopening the continued public
hearing at this time. We do have 9 individuals signed up to testify on this particular item. As
during the last presentation on this matter I will ask if the individual wishes to speak now or
speak after the presentation by the department, John Moore (after), Doug Wilmore (after) Gregg
Crow(not present), Ann Walton (after), Sharon Goodwin (after), Bruce Allen (after), Cynthia
Lazaroff (after), Felicia Cowden (after). I do have an additional, Laurie Cordon (passed). Mr.
Chair I would make a final call for any other public testimony for this public hearing.
Vice Chair I To: Looking for anyone wishing to speak?
Mr. Dahilia: Seeing none Mr. Chair the department would then move on to the next item which
is F.4, New Public Hearing.
NEW PUBLIC HEARING (NONE)
CONSENT CALENDAR (NONE)
EXECUTIVE SESSION (NONE)
GENERAL BUSINESS MATTERS (NONE)
COMMUNICATION (For Action) (NONE)
UNFINISHED BUSINESS (NONE)
Mr. Dahilia: We will not be recommending action on this item but if we could go into the
presentation on supplemental 1 under item F.3 (a), this is Supplemental 1 to the departmental
draft of the General Plan Update on ZA-2017-3. We have Marie Williams as well as her team
that have prepared an additional power point slide for the Commission to go into some of the
updates and proposed recommendations for amendment to the departmental draft that has been
circulated based off of the hearing on 1/31/17.
Staff Planner Marie Williams: Good morning Chair Ho and members of the Planning
Commission. As the Planning Director said this is the continued public hearing for ZA-2017-3,
the update of the County of Kauai's General Plan. When we opened the public hearing on
January 31 st we accepted public testimony and we did a presentation as well giving a high level
overview of the plan and the contents. Since then we have received an additional 7 pieces of
emailed or hand written testimony and those have been transmitted to you as exhibit 3 to
supplemental 1. What we will be doing today is giving an overview of our first batch of changes
that we would like to recommend to you based not only on the January 31 st workshop we had
but the testimony we have received as well as some additional informal agency comments that
have been emailed to us. To present we have brought down our consultant from SSFM and I
would like to introduce again Dr. Cheryl Soon who is our prime consultant and the lead on this
project. We will go straight into the power point presentation. As a quick overview we will be
presenting today exhibit 1 which are the text changes that we are recommending to the
departmental draft of the General Plan update as well as exhibit 2 which illustrates some land use
map changes and those would be in chapter 4 of the departmental draft. I will turn it over to Dr.
Soon.
Dr. Cheryl Soon: Chair Ho and members of the Commission, I had the pleasure of being with
all of you on January 31 st for the first presentation and I was particularly interested to listen to
the comments from those who came to testify and then have had the opportunity in the last few
weeks to read over those comments. This part of the presentation I would like to really do some
clarification that I felt arose from some of the testimonies that had been forthcoming. The first
one is to remind everyone of the hierarchy of activities and plans in the Kauai planning system
and the Kauai General Plan is situated at the top of that hierarchy. It sets forth the policy
direction for the county by developing written policies and it also sets forth the spacial policies in
the form of land use and other policy maps, so really 2 components. This is described and this
chart comes directly from chapter 1, page 1-2. But in addition I would like to remind everyone
that General Plans are mandated by state law, HRS 226-58, as well as your county Charter,
section 14.06. Your first General Plan was adopted in 1971 as part of Kauai County Code
Chapter 7. It was updated in 1984 and again in 2000. None of those times, and this time, it is
not a regulatory document but it does set forth the development of regulatory documents such as
the Comprehensive Zoning Code. So case law as well as the way they are structured in the law
setting up the planning system, and this is common not only throughout all the counties of the
State of Hawaii but throughout the nation, a General Plan is required as the basis for your
zoning code. So while you might make regulatory decisions based on the zoning code if they
went to court they would have to be supported by the policies in the General Plan. That is why
we put it at the very top of the hierarchy. Again, common practice since the 1920's when the
first zoning codes and the first General Plans were developed in the United States. We have 120
years now of history of General Plans. I just wanted to remind everyone of that.
As with everything in life things have evolved as to what goes into a General Plan and it is
incumbent upon the professional planners such as myself to stay current in the field. We have
mandatory certification that we need to keep current every 2 years and so in preparing the
General Plan update for Kauai we have the benefit of knowing what's happening in other places.
We don't take it blindly however, we choose those things that fit the needs of Kauai and that is
really the art of developing an updated General Plan. Basically what was done in this instance
was that we reviewed the latest guidance from the American Planning Association, they have a
publication that came out in 2015 on Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans. We reviewed
Smart Growth America, the Smart Growth Principal's Guidance for General Plans, the State of
Hawaii General Plan Guidance, the Practice of Local Government Planning which in the
profession we call the green book and we adapted all of these guidelines and guidance to Kauai's
General Plan from 2000 to see what more we wanted to do with it. In addition we did a number
of specific reviews of planning practices in other places that had recently adopted their general
plans and so the County Planning Department its self, did an examination of best practices in
2015, particularly looking at El Paso, Texas, Eugene, Oregon, and Beaufort, South Carolina, as
well as San Diego.
One of the sub -consultants for our team, a company called Opticos which has specialized in
ways of updating people's zoning codes to have a place orientation to them prepared a memo in
2015 called Place Type Case Studies and they looked at Beaufort County, South Carolina,
Cincinnati, Ohio, San Francisco Bay Area Regional Plan, Sacramento, and (inaudible) General
Plan, all of which had been some of the forerunners for moving into place oriented zoning codes.
My company SSFM did a memorandum on best practices with a particular emphasis on those
who were looking to have a new and updated zoning code and so in addition to the ones that had
been reviewed by Opticos we reviewed Plan Cincinnati which had received a national APA
award in 2014 for best practices in General Plans, Denver, Colorado Comprehensive Plan from
2010, Arlington, Virginia from 2013, and Petaluma, California which has always been the leader
in the planning practice, planning and zoning, in 2012. In addition we did a review of those
communities who in their General Plan were looking at improving their implementation of their
monitoring section which was one of the goals we had set out for Kauai. It had come through the
community meetings that great, fine, have a General Plan but how do you know how it is going
and so we wanted to have the best possible implementation and monitoring section for this plan.
And that helps of course breed accountability both to the community as well as to ourselves
working on the planning projects. We specifically looked at the image, Austin, out of Texas
program, the Fort Collins, Colorado program, Houston, Texas, Norfolk, Virginia, Lafayette,
Washington, D.C., Raleigh, North Carolina, Wichita, Kansas, and Plan Salt Lake Utah, all of
whom we have been presenting at our national conferences on planning, specifically with an
emphasis on implementation and monitoring. I just wanted to share with you that this didn't just
come out of the blue; there was a lot of look at best practices and national guidance for General
Plans that can be supported in the courts and can support their zoning codes.
The results of that work is that in the Kauai General Plan we looked towards a continuum
because it was already very much a central point in the 2000 plan sustainability but to continue
and expand that emphasis and to provide indicators such as reduction of suburban sprawl,
resource protection, and climate change affects is just a few of the many examples. We had a
special focus on connecting and integrating the various plan elements, in other words so that they
didn't all be situated one by one by one, but that we had cross fertilization between sections such
as transportation and housing or economic development and resource protection and to provide
greater detail for those. There was an emphasis throughout and this is very much a matter of best
practices of involving the public from the very start when you are going to set out to do this to let
them know, bring them in, get their ideas early on and then to continuously involve the public so
that when we come to the end that is a natural outgrowth of community involvement and taking
community input throughout the entire process. We have a new added emphasis on actions by
sector. As I mentioned in when I was with you a month ago not all plans are moving in this
direction but a lot of the ones that are receiving accolades for implementation are including
actions and we opted in this one to include a very large chapter on actions but to pair that with
our emphasis on implementation and monitoring. So these are the results in the Kauai General
Plan of our reviews of best practices elsewhere.
I would like to sum up my part of this presentation by slightly shifting gears to talk about the
term "framework. When we use the term framework we mean that to say how does one look at
this in its entirety? If we were to jump in and look at actions we need to know them in a context,
if we were to be looking at the policies we want them in a context. So the context, the
framework for the Kauai General Plan update which will be dated presumably 2017 begins with
a reconfirmation of the vision, a redevelopment and expansion of the goals attached to that
vision, and then the green bar in the middle part of this framework diagram is the policies. But it
isn't just a recitation of policies it is how do you cross them, how do we take something and look
at it in relationship to all the other policies. And so what we have here is essentially 10 sectors,
watershed, housing, transportation, economy, heritage, energy, public safety, and health and we
look at the cross features of those policies and we incorporate them not in isolation but by
crossing them. The actions which are grouped if you will into 4 types of actions, one is those
that require permitting action or code changes, those that require plans or studies, those that
really require working in partnership with some other entity, perhaps it's a state agency or
perhaps it is a nonprofit, and those that are best conducive to projects and programs.
The policy maps that we have included, the last time you had 2, you had the land use
designations and you had the heritage resource map. We have added a hazards map, an
infrastructure map, public facilities map, and transportation map. So we have expanded the parts
of the plan that are presented in the form of maps. That is the framework. That is the way one
looks at the full context of the General Plan. There were statements in the various testimonies,
make sustainability a framework or make health your framework, and those are part but they
aren't the single focus. Our focus is that middle green bar, taking all the polices and see how
they cross with each other deriving from the vision and going forward through the goals. I just
wanted to clarify that term because I found it being used in multiple ways in the testimonies and
I wanted you to know what we meant when we organized and created the framework for the
plan. I think I am sending it over to Marie.
Mr. Katayama: In your review of best practices in other communities which ones do you think
best fit the demographics of Kauai?
Dr. Soon: Good question. If I can sidebar it a little bit. I think that the Salt Lake, not because of
the demographics but the way they laid out a vision was very prominent in what we were trying
to mirror. The community of Beaufort County, South Carolina, had some similar demographics
and was a community that had been moving in the direction of having a zoning code that
specifically tried to protect the places they have so it was a place -based zoning code. We were
very interested in where they were by East Coast standards they are more of a rural community
and less of a big city community. If I were to isolate 2, I would probably say those 2.
Mr. Katgyama: Do they reflect the kind of geography that we have here on Kauai where we are
sort of long and narrow in terms of our population spread?
Dr. Soon: None of them are an island.
Mr. Katayama: It is more of a density of infrastructure and that is the challenge and has always
been a challenge as we look at how we maintain a sustainable island culture.
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Dr. Soon: What they both did which is where we are headed in this plan for Kauai is to say those
areas that are already developed and in many instances they were former plantation cluster
villages, is where the infrastructure exists and where it is most readily expanded and where the
emphasis should be on future growth where future growth is needed to accommodate a growing
population. Both Salt Lake and Eugene, Oregon, as well as Beaufort were looking for the same
type of end results that we felt we were looking for which is this is not a no growth policy but it
is a focused growth policy on existing areas that can be kept compact and therefore less driving
is necessary because more can be done perhaps by bicycle, by walking, less necessary to have to
drive to one activity to another.
Mr. Katayama: And do they fit the population demographics of Kauai?
Dr. Soon: They fit the density characteristics of Kauai. The age distributions are slightly
different in that Kauai has an older population than they do. Ethnically we are more diverse so
that demographic is different but that demographic to us in terms of the diversity of the
community in Kauai was a plus because it also reflected the community living patterns, the
village community patterns that they remain diverse even with the growth. The other key
demographic that we looked at was where was the growth coming from and the growth is
primarily coming from are cells from people reproducing. So we were not a community that was
getting large influx of immigrants from any particular location, Southeast Asia or Vietnam or
Mexico, and that is a planning issue that many communities on the mainland have to deal with
and right now that is not one that we need to deal with on Kauai.
Mr. Katayama: None of the communities in Florida and how they manage their plans...
Dr. Soon: The ones that get written about, the Florida experience, is two -fold. One is influx of,
if you will, snow birds, people from colder climates coming in their retirement years to live
there, lower cost of living and a better climate for them so they have to deal with that issue. The
second issue that Florida and other communities on the east coast are having to deal with is the
proliferation of hurricanes and so they have an opposite effect of people out -migrating because
they have been hit with 1, 2, or 3 hurricanes and it is too stressful. Florida has a different set of
issues that, although Kauai has had 2 major hurricanes the bottom line population has not been
an (inaudible) because of it.
Ms. Williams: Thank you so much Dr. Soon for explaining the framework and how the best
practices did guide the entire process of this plan from the very start. I would like to now go
over some of the proposed changes to the future land use map. This essentially would be
changes to chapter 5 of the departmental draft. There are in fact a set of 5 changes that we are
proposing today. I will go straight to the maps. First of all this is map 5-2 for the
Waimea/Kekaha Planning District and if you see the red oval area to the west of Waimea Town,
we are proposing that we add additional residential community to the town to allow for some
residential expansion. Moving on to the Ilanapepe/Eleele Planning District, we did hear at the
last meeting me had a desire to not have neighborhood/general shown on the higher elevation
areas of Hanapepe and so we did in fact remove that and we did return it to residential
community which is what it is in the existing General Plan. Also if you move down to Port
Allen we did make some changes as well, we previously designated the entire harbor area and
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industrial area as transportation and we corrected that. So the industrial zoned areas are in fact
designated industrial in this plan and we also did expand neighborhood general out to the east of
Port Allen as well to allow for a mixed use environment there rather than residential community.
Moving on to map 5-4, the South Kauai Planning District, we did add what we are calling
provisional agriculture to the area below Numila area. I believe that the Wahiawa Gulch is on
one side of the area circled by red. This is a recommendation in the South Kauai Community
Plan which was approved in 2015 and what it does is it acknowledges that even though the area
is designated agriculture through the Community Plan and the General Plan, that the landowner
does have a master plan for this area and that the future of what this large area should be, should
in fact be determined through a future community planning process tied to the Hanapepe/Eleele
Planning District. That is the last of the proposed revision to the future land use map. Do you
have any questions on those changes? I would like to turn the presentation of the text changes to
the Senior Planner on this project, Lea Kaiaokamaile.
Ms. Kaiaokamaile: Good morning Commission Chair and Commissioners, thank you again for
your time this morning. I actually only have 1 slide but it is a little long. What I will be doing is
describing the list of recommended amendments to the draft General Plan based on the testimony
that was received at the Commission hearing on the 31 st. We received as was mentioned a great
number of testimonies as a result of that first hearing, some are captured in the matrix that is part
of your packet today that you have probably been looking at. These are summarized on the left
hand side of the screen and they include general revisions to grammar, etc., addition of Ole to
Noeau which as you know are Hawaiian proverbs and poetic sayings from Mary Kawena Pukui.
There is an expanded description of the General Plan framework. In the watershed section we
have expanded the description linking traditional wisdoms and management practices to current
watershed management and provided more description within the climate change subsection.
There are additions to the transportation sector as well as the critical infrastructure sector. In the
parks subsection we included descriptions of parks not included in the previous draft. There is
an expanded text on industrial use and manufacturing.
In the economy sector there were revisions made to the actions under permitting and code
relating to provisions for unentitled resort designated land, some of what Marie just shared. We
added missing information regarding the Kauai Emergency Management Agency which is
formally the Kauai Civil Defense. In the education subsection we added a description of all the
Hawaiian language and cultural based schools on Kauai and their importance especially toward
identity and sustainability. In the community health section, this one was expanded to include
advancing native Hawaiian health equity. Access to recreation and subsistence activities is
another addition, and language regarding protection of native Hawaiian rights was also added.
There are more amendments that will part of the next hearing packet that we already have. On
the right side, this is just a short list of some of these amendments being prepped as we speak.
First and foremost an index and it is a big job to prepare this. There was a lot of testimony the
last time about who certain topics seem to be missing from the draft however as a large cross -
sector type of document it is difficult sometimes to find all instances in which a subject is
discussed. For instance traditional land management, water, health, preparing for climate
change, all these topics may be spread out throughout the document so we thought that the
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addition of an index would be helpful especially in finding specific topics or when we get to
implementation later on.
Moving on, we have prepared a discussion on the Public Trust Doctrine which was brought up
during testimony the last time. We will also be adding some descriptions regarding the Kauai
Nui Kuapapa throughout the document. In regard to agriculture we expanded the discussion of
traditional land management and sustainability, added a subsection specifically on aqua culture
and what is going on today and we will be providing some recommendations from the farm to
restaurant study that was just published last week. There were also clarifications and additions
made to the performance measures section, a discussion of public art which was missing from
the previous draft. We are also working to change the action matrix to make it more user
friendly. In regard to heritage resources we have revised some of the language based on the
testimony previously provided regarding visual resources or scenic resources. There is
additional language on exceptional trees. The Future Land Use section, the text has been
revised. There was also some testimony regarding community forestry opportunities, I think in
Anahola that was provided to us that will be part of that next matrix, and finally more language
regarding emergency management response. Of course the department will consider the
recommendations of this Commission as well as public testimonies that we hear today as we
continue to hone the draft plan, thank you.
Ms. Williams: Do you have any questions?
Vice Chair Ho: I have a question for Lea. How do you get protection under important
agricultural lands or how does one go about getting a designation?
Ms. Kaiaokamaile: It is a little complicated but to sum it up there are 3 different processes.
There is the public process in which the State Department of Land and Natural Resources and the
Department of Agriculture are responsible for putting forward their recommendations for
designation of public lands. The second would be the private or farmer designation process and
that happens separate from the county process in which case a landowner or farmer would
petition the Land Use Commission directly for lands that meet at least 1 of the criteria of
important agricultural lands. The third process is the county process in which the Kauai IAL
study was part of fulfilling and what that involved was the public process and stakeholder
advisory committee which helped to bperationalize that 8 criteria. Some of them are so broad,
for example water, there are many sources of water, there are many different issues with water so
what happened was it was broken down further and it was a weighted assignment that also had a
mapping component with it. The study is there and there are recommendations in there for how
the county should move forward to designate. To date, all the designations at least on Kauai and
I think statewide have been only by private. Kauai, I think, is ahead of all of the other counties
as far as its identification of candidate lands. This too would go to the Land Use Commission
and they are the ones that would essentially look at those maps and prioritize which lands to
move forward. There is no end process to this as well so as we have gone out to approach
landowners for instance for designations some of them have opted to take that process upon
themselves and designate their own properties.
Vice Chair Ho: What would be the benefit of this, protection?
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Ms. Kaiaokamaile: There are incentives on the state level for lands that are important
agricultural lands. Our number one recommendation that we came up with in the Kauai study
was really for the development of an IAL program. The legislation its self did not require the
counties to have any incentives, it was encouraged, these things have to be developed and
adopted. For example maybe looking at our agricultural dedication program and perhaps having
some component of IAL in there, tax incentives, etc. So those are things that are supposed to be
or we look to providing lands that have this IAL designation but to date, at least at the county
level, there are no specific incentives other than what you are already allowed for currently for
agriculture uses.
Ms. Williams: That concludes our power point presentation. I will return to the supplemental
Director's report and our recommendation today is that this body does approve the changes to the
departmental draft shown in exhibit 1 and exhibit 2, and also keep the public hearing open as we
are in the process of preparing an additional set of changes and more changes based on the
testimony received today.
Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair, just to add to the departmental recommendation, we can handle it in one
of two ways as Marie mentioned, we can ask for the Commission to formally adopt the
amendments but we would need a motion to approve on the floor which would mean closing the
public hearing. We could do that but our commitment is to not ask for formal action yet because
we have another meeting scheduled for this in 2 weeks. Or the other option is we could just
incorporate this into our report and handle it as an amended recommendation based on the draft.
We leave it up to the Commission's preference. I think what the recommendation is though is
that it formalize the changes so there is no question about the fluidness but it would require a
closure of the public hearing but we would ask that continued meetings be held going to the next
session. That is the catch 22 here on this. We will ask for public testimony, the public hearing is
still open. Would you rather go forward with that and then figure out what to do?
Chair Ho: Yes.
Mr. Dahilijz: We do have individuals signed up to testify, John Moore followed by Doug
Wilmore followed by Ann Walton.
Mr. John Moore: Aloha, my name is John Moore. I am the Director of the Hawaiian
Sustainability Foundation. I have been living her fulltime for 16 years. Today I am part of the
Kauai Community Coalition which many people will be testifying. We were born out of the
collective Neighborhood Associations of Kauai which we brought together last summer to work
together with the county on the General Plan. And then out of that group there have been about
40 people that have been active from all the different neighborhood associations working on the
different sectors and the different parts of the plan, working with Mike and Marie and the
Planning Department. We have come to a different conclusion and a different philosophy on
what Kauai's future should be in terms of a General Plan. The ideas included and the outreach
that is included in this departmental draft we applaud because they have really done a great job
of listening to the community. What we disagree with is that the general plan should be a
definitive plan of action for our entire island and everything about our island. We believe that
we need another 6 months of working with the Planning Department, the community, the state
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and federal agencies, and we should all be getting together to decide which exact direction we
are going on this island. Define the direction, define the framework, define the model, and then
the polices will all be written to support that direction and we know how to weigh each policy
that will come forward and each issue that will come forward. Right now what we have done is
the department is operating under the philosophy that we create a collection of ideas that are
mostly really good ideas but there is no way for the future of Kauai and the decision makers in
the county council to come up with, well what is more important, the tourism, the local housing
market, the Air B&B predominance that is going on. There is no definitive direction that we are
going towards. We ask that you listen to the testimony of the neighborhood associations and the
people that have come together and we ask that you give more time. There is no hurry for us to
be adopting the departmental draft right now as the General Plan because we believe that
working together collaboratively with all the wonderful people in the Planning Department and
Planning Commission we can come up with a better direction for our future, thank you.
Mr. Dahilig: Doug Wilmore followed by Ann Walton followed by Sharon Goodwin.
Mr. Doug Wilmore: Honorable Chairperson, Honorable Commissioners, and fellow residents of
Kauai, my name is Douglas Wilmore. I have lived on Kauai part time since 1991 and have been
a full time resident since 2002. I am a retired physician and presently a fruit farmer. I am a
member of the group of individuals that John talked about. First I would like to commend the
Planning Department staff on moving the General Plan forward by continuing to include input
from the public. The plan recognizes that we on Kauai are at a critical crossroads and it is clear
that the Planning Department staff is making every effort to understand the major issues that
occur with Kauai. I joined John Moore to have concerns about the plan and the deficit which is
the initial structure and foundation of the plan. I thank the consultant for bringing forward a
slide that shows us their representation, vision and goals, cross sectional policies and actions,
pointing out that they put the emphasis on cross sectional policies, not on vision and goals. And
I ask all of you could you right now write down how you see Kauai being 10 years from now and
20 years from now? What is your vision because unless we have that vision we will not be able
to provide goals? What do we want that vision to be? Do we want it to be a green environment?
Do we want to be an optimal tourist destination? Do we want it to be a sustainable place or do
we want it to be the world's leader in pot holes? What is or vision? And we need to think about
that because we don't have that and we need to have that.
The next issue I would like to address is how the Planning Department is going through the
process of rewriting the plan. Realize that the plan for 2000 went through this same process and
then was put on a shelf, nothing was done, nothing occurred because of that. We now are 1.4
million dollars into investing in this plan and we are using the same process to devise a plan that
we used for a plan that was never used. So I think it is time for a paradigm shift and for us to
reconsider how we go through this planning process. One of the things about the paradigm shift
is that we need more time. All of you are successful people and you know about planning time,
scheduling, looking at (inaudible) points and looking at the final process. I think we should ask
the Planning Department for a work process, to give us a work plan that would provide some of
these things both for you people to know where we are going with this and for the public to
know where we are going. Actually, people of Kauai deserve no less, thank you for your
attention.
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Mr. Dahilig: Ann Walton followed by Sharon Goodwin followed by Brue Allen.
Ms. Ann Walton: Thank you Chairman Ho and the Commissioners for taking the time to listen
to us today, my name is Ann Walton I am a recently retired natural resource management
planner and capacity development trainer for NOAA. I am now working as an international
consultant. I am a concerned citizen and a member of the Kauai Community Coalition. Through
the process of organizing the community to more effectively engage in the General Plan update
process we have discovered that on Kauai there is a significant amount of community leadership,
technical expertise, traditional knowledge, and just plain willingness from the community to roll
up their sleeves and really learn about and tackle the challenges Kauai is facing. Additionally,
much like what the Planning Department has done we have looked to other communities and
discovered that none of our challenges we are facing today are unique. Only the setting makes
us different. We have come to realize there are some pretty good models of practice out there
worth consideration in terms of their application to Kauai. Most of all we have learned that the
real success stories are the result of collaborations between the community and this government.
Instead of continuing to have this conversation about collaboration between the community and
the county I believe we have a team of skilled and knowledgeable volunteers that are willing to
make a significant commitment to ensure this happens.
Specifically we are proposing to work with the Planning Department staff on taking the current
draft of the General Plan as it looks today and spending the next 2 to 3 months building a model
of sustainability for 1 sector such as housing, for example, or it could be any other sector that is a
priority. The intention is to build off of the accomplishments of the General Plan to date, there is
a lot of good work that has been put into the plan and to take it to the next step to ensure that we
have absolute clarity about what we want to achieve, aka specific outcomes based on a strong
vision, goals and policy by 2035 in regards to a specific sector such as housing. We will work
towards ensuring all activities under the housing sector or whatever sector are result based
activities and move us towards achieving that stated outcome so we can realize our vision. We
will develop milestones along the way as indicators that we are moving in the right direction and
we will cross reference the housing sector or whichever sector with other sectors in the General
Plan to ensure we are creating an integrated plan.
From this point forward let's work towards creating a community/county partnership. Let's
recalibrate where we are today, determine if the General Plan is really addressing the challenges
Kauai is facing. Then let's start the work towards creating a future that is truly sustainable in
terms of quality of life, food security, energy independence, conserving open space, conserving
precious resources, and maintaining opportunities to adapt to a changing world. Let's show that
we have learned from the mistakes of our past and successes of others and make a course
correction in county planning before we lose the opportunity to do so. Sound, forward looking
collaboration and visionary planning is the last bargaining chip we have to make Kauai a better
place to live. We hope you will accept this offer to work collaboratively in taking the next step
in this direction. We are volunteers who are willing to give up the next 2 or 3 months to do so.
Thank you for your consideration and willingness to take on the difficult challenges that lie
ahead and I also urge you as the Commission to not adopt the plan until we see all of the
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changes, part 1 and part 2, integrated into the plan so we have a better idea of what the plan looks
like as a whole, thank you.
Mr. Dahilia: Sharon Goodwin followed by Cynthia Lazaroff.
Ms. Sharon Goodwin: Good morning Commissioners, Chairperson 11o, Planning Director
Dahilig, other Commissioners, the Planning Department, and our audience. My name is Sharon
Goodwin and I live in Wailua Homesteads. In studying the Planning's revisions for the
Watershed sector I feel a part of what was missing in the original draft is now emerging and that
is the Ahupua'a system of resource management and environmental stewardship. Thank you
very much Planning (Department), for including Ahupua'a concepts and thank you for adding the
Kuleana Act of 1850 and public trust concept, thank you. In your revision notes you added HRS
Chapter 174, C (2), this is the Declaration of Policy for the Water Code. Please print the
Declaration of Policy in the General Plan for the benefit of people who do not have a way to get
this information. Moving on, what I feel is still missing in revisions are the imposing threats of
manmade diversions.
Last Saturday I saw at Blue Hole, Waialeale, a bone-dry north fork of the Wailua River. I have
never seen anything like it. I was stunned, in disbelief, I couldn't speak. After some moments I
felt rage, 100% of the water was flowing in a ditch down there into a tunnel and none of it was in
the riverbed destined for Wailua Nui Ahuano, Poli' ahu Heiau and the Hikinaaka Heiau. What
do I think is needed? Legally acquired water permits on adequate resources that are based on
scientific evidence on what we have. This is our public trust water. We must do everything
together to bring it into balance. The Ahupua'a is more than lines on a map. Inside the Ahupua'a
social, spiritual, cultural values are woven together. This we must have. I attended a
Commission for Water Resources Management Meeting in January, in fact in this room from
which I take this quote, "the public trust is the state's obligation to protect water resources." The
Hawaii State Supreme Court acknowledges, when the public trust concepts are followed
Hawaiian rights are protected and when Hawaiian rights are protected the public trust elevates
protection for everyone. In other words we all benefit. We as an island community have a lot of
work to do together. I am going to stand up now and I am going to do this for the water because
the water cannot be here to speak for its self, thank you.
Mr. Dahilia: Brue Allen followed by Cynthia Lazaroff followed by Felicia Cowden.
Mr. Bruce Allen: May we combine our time?
Vice Chair Ho: Both of you will speak?
Mr. Allen: We probably have something that will take 4 minutes but we would like to combine
together.
Vice Chair Ho: Mr. Allen please step up here.
Mr. Allen: Honorable Chairman and members of the Planning Commission my name is Bruce
Allen, my family has been here since 2009. Our kids went to Kaniukapono Charter School and
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my fiance Cynthia and I are now developing our local food production farm in Anahola. I am
very grateful to the Commission, truly, for extending the opportunity to give feedback. I am
very impressed with the comments and the additions made presented today. We learned that the
draft circle of sustainability which we worked on for the past couple of years has been included
today in the Director's report, this particular graphic, so we wanted to come and have a chance to
comment on that. The purpose of this circle is to help us all see ourselves, our island, as a whole.
We human beings have a hard time keeping the parts of any complex system in our heads, our
relationships with our own spouses and family and neighbors is complex enough. When we
approach the larger community problems we typically try to break everything down into small
pieces and solve each piece by its self but each piece affects all the others. So it might be useful
to have a simple way to see the problems share by our whole community and how they are all
connected. That was the motive force over the last 2 years in creating this graphic.
To create the picture of the whole island we have been meeting with many members of the
community to imagine together a circle of life for Kauai. We have been through many drafts
constantly updating the prototype with teachers and school kids at Kunuikapono and Island
School, with international experts, NGOs, Kauai Community Coalition, Coherence Lab, and
others. The most simple and clear answers have come from our children, from 3rd graders, from
5th graders, we asked them what do all people and all elders, the animals and plants that were
here long before us need to live, to thrive in our Kauai circle of life. We received the same
answers in every class, the students quickly answer we need good food to eat, we need clean
water to drink, a nice place to live, a way to move around, and we don't have wings like the Ewa
Bird, the Frigate, who the children are delighted to learn can stay up in the air for 2 months. And
though it has a wing span of 7 feet weighs only as much as 1 big coconut. Every class has come
up with the same things we all need to live which are the 10 community systems in the middle
ring of this circle, food, water, energy, recycling, governance, health care, education and so forth.
They also told us we need to take care of one another and the land so aloha aina and malama aina
are now at the center of the circle.
We then asked how to bring out 10 communities systems into balance with one another, our
whole island and our whole planet. For example we get most of the food we eat by shipping it
from far away, burning a lot of diesel, putting a lot of carbon into the atmosphere so even though
we are a small island we have a rather large carbon footprint. So we looked at how the larger
world is affecting us. The weather has been changing, there are more hurricanes, the beaches are
receding, there is plastic on the beach from faraway places. So we look at how we can have a
resilient community in the face of these big changes. The planetarium influences such as
changes in our climate and oceans are depicted in the outer ring of the circle. This draft circle is
only a tool, a framework to assist us to think in an integrated way and we saw today as Dr. Soon
presented more work on the cross sectoral relationships in the plan which is excellent. This tool
might possibly be useful in our larger planning process. We can see that we can easily map, we
have seen how we have looked at the General Plan's 10 sectors map nicely onto the circle and it
allows us to see how all things fit together. This can help us to think about the actions we can
take in one sector that will affect the other circles and the whole.
The circle as we have been working on it over the past couple of years we have envisioned it as
creating a free public website for anyone in the community to access and see by clicking on any
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of the spots who is doing what on what topic. Having a picture of the whole might help us shift
the way we see ourselves like when the astronauts first saw the earth from space and shared the
image of our blue planet helping us to see that we all have a common home. We have even been
told that what we plan here on Kauai might be useful for other communities around the world to
develop their own circles. So if it might be of service in the planning process we are eager to
continue working together and see what we all might create, than you very much.
Mr. Dahilia: Felicia Cowden followed by Greg Crowe.
Ms. Felicia Cowden: Aloha, I am Felicia Cowden. I came here predominantly to hear the
update. I want to thank the Commission and the Planning Department for listening to the people
and I see a lot of the things that we've asked for go in there. I applaud the community too for
stepping in and adding to this. I was listening to the last couple, I want to say I am the person
who last time brought their community circle and kind of pushed them to help. Our community
from time to time we have some really extraordinary individuals here and so these guys are
really humble, painfully humble when I listen to their presentation. They are at a global scale
people who come in and help countries at war and countries in big conflict make decisions to
help create a better reality. I don't want to brag for them but they are understating their capacity.
Having known that they worked for the UN and the State Department and all kinds of other
places doing really pretty extraordinary things and they are basically just nice community
members also. They are worth listening to and worth bringing on and helping a little bit. I really
value that they are very willing and they have been looking at this stuff for several years and I
was saying you have to go talk to the Planning Department because they are doing the same
thing. So they have been helping and thank you for that. I basically want to say thank you for
keeping this testimony open and being willing to take a little bit longer time. Having helped on
the last General Plan update I know that a lot of the reason it didn't get updated was because
there wasn't the political will at a different layer to be adopting it, it took a number of years. I
don't know if you can put in any deadlines in there but I will leave that to you, thank you.
Mr. Dahilia: Greg Crowe.
Mr. Greg Crowe: Good morning Commissioners and panel, my name is Greg Crowe and I am a
member of the Kauai Community Coalition that has been working on improvements to the
General Plan update since its first draft release in November or 2016. 1 am also participated for
over a year in efforts of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee to improve the Affordable
Housing ordinance for Kauai and I have run a family business that did small residential real
estate development and construction and some rural areas with issues similar to what Kauai is
now facing. As an example the general points that apply to the entire draft plan, I will use the
issue of affordable housing because I have some background knowledge and experience in that
area. First I would like to preface my comments with compliments and admiration for the huge
amount of work and many good ideas in the draft update. Any of my comments are offered as
additional improvements and constructive criticism with the spirit of aloha and kuleana.
The current draft plan also includes affordable housing as a top priority but like its 2000
predecessor there is no action plan to accomplish this with specific policies, timelines,
monitoring, and goals that are necessary to achieve adequate affordable housing development,
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while there is a stated willingness to consider new approaches and lists of possible actions many
of which are good. This current draft plan does not include a clear system path and path of
action to solve the current crisis situation in affordable housing. Many of our long term
residents, even those born and raised here, cannot find affordable housing and are forced to leave
Kauai. Even many who are currently in a house are housing insecure, in danger of losing their
home and unlikely to find other affordable housing. The lack of effective and legitimate options
has resulted in increasing noncompliance and an unofficial policy of non -enforcement because
there is currently no other way for average citizens to just do what they need to do to get by. But
non -enforcement opens the door to increasing abuse by those who are simply speculators and
profiteers exploiting the situation or those who cannot afford to pay almost any price.
Think of the tares in our social fabric when members of our island wide Kauai O'hana cannot
afford to stay, pushed out by speculators and profiteers. This is not only a loss to displaced
individuals it is a loss to the future quality of life for everyone on Kauai. As briefly mentioned in
the current draft the Ilawaii State Legislature has already provided legislation that contains
innovative thinking and enabling provisions for affordable housing and sustainable living that
Kauai could use immediately. We can start by including those in similar (inaudible) action plans
in this General Plan update. Key provisions in the state legislative examples which are footnoted
below in my written comments are exemption from statutes and rules that make affordable
housing and sustainable living projects difficult or prohibitively expensive and provisions that
require fast track processing in a maximum of 45 days by various government agencies and
county council. Building on those provisions I would like to offer this as one suggestion of a
paradigm shift that would change the (inaudible), fast track approval of developments of
affordable ag. based sustainable communities that include tiny houses in the mix, or for a shorter
name fast tracked affordable eco -villages with tiny houses. We can and must do everything
necessary to make something like that happen on Kauai. We can start by including the necessary
and sufficient provisions in this General Plan update along with detailed action steps, timelines,
goals, and monitoring. We can adopt already proven models. Kauai citizens deserve the best
practices from its own history and from around the world, screened and adapted to serve the
unique characteristics of Kauai today. Thank you for your consideration.
Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair those are all the people that have signed up to testify prior to the sheet
being circulated and everyone having notice to sign up on the sheet before he hearing. I would
recommend making a final call for any additional individuals who have not signed up to testify
to come and testify at this time.
Vice Chair Ho: Please come up.
Ms. Jean Souza: Good morning, Jean Souza. I came here today to listen to the presentation on
supplement No. 1 but having heard some things I feel compelled to sit here today to share my
thoughts. I heard that the public testimony will be taken today on supplement No. 1. I believe
that the public notification process on supplement No. 1 has been flawed. No notice has been
received from the Planning Department on supplement No. 1. Unlike the emails we received for
the departmental draft a couple months ago I have not received a notice about supplement No. 1.
It was only because of some informal notification that I went looking for it last night. I strongly
suggest that public testimony on the departmental draft and supplement No. 1 be continued to be
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received for at least the next 2 weeks. I also request that the public be notified by the Planning
Department on the next supplement No. 2 that we heard is currently in the works so that it may
be given proper review by community members. I think it is important to note that community
and neighborhood organizations have a systematic process to review these kinds of documents.
Please give these organizations sufficient time to properly review and craft comments to you on
this important document. Thank you.
Mr. Tom Shi emoto: Good morning Chair and members of the Commission, for the record my
name is Tom Shigemoto. I am speaking on behalf of the company I work for, A&B Properties. I
just received this updated copy of the land use plan for the Hanapepe/Eleele area and I want to
thank the staff for the work that you have done and will continue to do on behalf of not only
major landowners but everybody on Kauai. I was going to come here, not to testify, but to ask a
question about this provisional agriculture designation that was included in the area in front of
the Kauai Coffee Factory, Numila, but I think Marie did an excellent job explaining what that
entails. So instead I want to again for the record raise this issue regarding the land use east of the
area designated on the land use plan. I had submitted testimony earlier with maps showing what
designations I thought was appropriate and based on my testimony the last time I noticed that
there have been significant changes so again, I thank the staff for doing that. But the area I am
talking about now lies east of the areas designated residential community and neighborhood
general. There is a strip of land that is still in agriculture; if possible I would like to ask your
consideration designating that area like the area in front of Numila as provisional or conditional
agriculture, again if possible.
What happens is as land developers when we develop properties we know we have to put in our
infrastructure and so it's based on the amount of potential future density that would be allowed
and so if the critical mass isn't sufficient then there may be difficulties in us proceeding with
getting the land entitled. Secondly, when we go before the State Land Use Commission in all
probability they are not going to give us all of the entitlement, they will probably do what they
call incremental distributing so I think it would be fairly safe to allow that. If the General Plan
doesn't reflect some kind of future growth then our chances of getting the entitlement are less or
not even possible. That is all I am asking if you could consider. You know that this is the first
step in the process, we will have to go to the county council later on and I want to just disclose
for the record that I know it is hard to designate these areas that I am asking for then we will be
approaching the council to do the same. Thank you very much for your time.
Mr. Dahilijz: Mr. Chair that is all the individuals I have signed up to testify as well as people
who have raised their hand. Given the testimony and our earlier discussion our intention is not to
ask the Commission to entertain a motion to act today because I think there is still testimony that
is coming in. As a side note I would implore those that are continuing to follow this process that
we need comments that are specific in nature that address specific items within the plan. I hear
the calls for deferral or delay but I think our concern at this point is what, within the tangible
draft, needs changing or amending. That is the best useful stuff for us in terms of generating the
amendments for the daft. I know there are also concerns regarding notice, because we are in a
formal process now we are complying with Chapter 92 Hawaii Revised Statutes regarding
notice, that 6 days prior to every time the Commission hits it. We have been announcing it at
the last meeting and we have through our channels as much as we can disseminating formally
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that we will be hitting the Commission meeting on the 28th but again the only formal notification
that we do hit is 6 days prior. But I will say for the record that everybody is aware, our intention
is to put this on the agenda in 2 weeks on March 14th. There will be a supplement that comes
out 6 days beforehand pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes, section 92, and that is available for
the public to take a look at when the agenda is posted. We have nothing to hide at this point in
terms of our scheduling and we intend to bring it again to the Commission in 2 weeks. In fact
that will be the only agenda item on the record at that meeting.
With that though we do have the supplement 1 recommended changes to the draft. There are, as
I mentioned after the presentation, there are 2 ways to handle this but in order to do so we would
have to close the public hearing even though we are overall saying we are not intending to act on
the item we would have to take the formal step of actually closing the public hearing to make the
formal changes to the amendment. Or, what we could do is we could roll that into the
supplement 2, handle all the changes at that point and then when the Commission is ready we
just keep rolling the changes into the supplement. I am open to suggestions in terms of what is in
the Commission's best interest in terms of how to facilitate the litany of changes that will be
coming through in the process. We could take these, approve them now as part of an amended
change so you are left with a smaller docket or we could just have a running list of these changes
that would continue to go until the Commission is ready to act on the agenda item. I am open to
facilitating whatever the Commission needs at this point.
Ms. Apisa: When you say close the public hearing you mean today's public hearing or in
general?
Mr. Dahilig: Under Chapter 8 of the code, even though we are amending a different chapter, this
falls under Chapter 8 of the code, what is required is a public hearing and the public hearing has
to be held and closed before the Commission can take action. It is a regulatory requirement not
anything formal. However every time there is this agenda item before the Planning Commission,
under Chapter 92 of the statutes you still have to have public testimony so it would exactly the
same but the difference is the formality of actually closing a hearing so you can take action. In
order to be able to amend you need to be able to start taking action on the draft so I hope that
clarifies.
Ms. Apisa: If I understand it correctly it seems to me to make sense that we close the public
hearing and then incorporate this and then go forward.
Mr. Dahilia: We can approach it that way.
Ms. Apisa: I'm not sure it is just what I am hearing.
Mr. Mahoney: It is a little confusing. We could adopt the changes and there still would be room
for more changes. I think the changes so far have been good but if the opportunity for further
testimony and changes are going to be available...
Mr. Katayama: I think it always gets confusing if you have red -line copies floating around, it is
a bit cumbersome. To me, as we accept sections of these changes and it seems like supplemental
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I no one has quarreled with that it will help the reading if you incorporate it. And if there are
issues with that in subsequent meetings the public can call the Commission's attention to it.
Again, I think just from a review process for everyone it is easier if you keep embedding the
changes so you know what the document has evolved to as opposed to we have supplement 1
and then supplement 2 and supplement 2 corrects portions of supplement 1. To me it gets a little
cumbersome intellectually to follow along. From a transparency point of view the public can
continue to comment on the plan as prescribed and as being modified I would go with
incorporating changes subject to further review.
Vice Chair l lo: The recommendation would be to keep it open?
Mr. Katal No, close it and approve the changes of supplement 1.
Mr. Dahilig: And then it would be to defer the item as unfinished business. Just for the record,
because this is not a permit action once you close the public hearing there is no action timeline.
The only timeline that is pressed upon the department is once action is taken we have 60 days to
enroll to the council so unlike a permit situation when you close and agency hearing we have a
certain amount of time to act. In this particular case because it is a public hearing with a zoning
amendment and not a zoning permit then the act of closing the public hearing does not put a
timeline on action by the Planning Commission.
Mr. Katayama: So restating that, the public will have the ability to vet any portions of the
document as it is evolving.
Mr. Dahilig: Right. We will work as expediently as we can to get as much notice as we can but
we are obligated under Chapter 92 to at a minimum provide notice via the agendas that come
forward because that is the formal process. But just for everybody's sake I will announce for the
record that we are intending to schedule this item and only this item for the March 14th meeting
and that we would encourage the public to comment specifically and vigorously on particular
items within the plan and suggest changes so that we can evaluate it and provide proper
recommended disposition to the Planning Commission on those recommended changes.
Vice Chair Ho: Mr. Katayama's suggestion carries well?
Ms. Apisa: Yes.
Vice Chair Ho: Then I would ask Mr. Katayama to make the motion.
Mr. Katayama: I move that we close the public hearing.
Ms. Apia: Second.
Vice Chair Ho: All those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Motion carried 4:0.
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Mr. Dahilia: In order to facilitate this we would need a motion to approve the General Plan draft
and then we would have a motion to amend. We need 2 motions. I need a motion to approve
Zoning Amendment ZA-2017-3.
Mr. Katnama: I move that we approve the Kauai Planning document ZA-2017-3.
Mr. Mahoney: Second.
Vice Chair Ho: Motion on the floor has been moved and seconded; do you wish to add
amendments to the motion?
Mr. Katayama: I move to include supplement 1 to the department draft of the General Plan
update.
Mr. Mahoney: Second.
Vice Chair Ho: Moved and seconded all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Motion carried
4:0.
Mr. Dahilig: Supplemental 1 is now included as part of the working text for the amendment. If
there is no further discussion then Mr. Chair the department would recommend deferring the
item to March 14th.
Ms. Apisa: So moved that we defer this to March 14th.
Mr. Mahoney: Second.
Mr. Katayama: Chair, may I make a comment please. I would like the department to consider,
and the last speaker I think posed an interesting conundrum, is that all the ag. land that we have
designated in the General Plan, the owners of those properties probably see the highest and best
use not in ag. but in some other use. And as we try to preserve agricultural lands one of the
things that we need to do is somehow take away the premium that is viewed as being an up -
zoning of the use. There have been sales of development rights or the ability to sell your
development rights but the instrument is not a zero sum game and I think the value that is
derived from those sacrificing those rights is sort of viewed as a huge discount to the landowner.
I think if there can be what I would call a synthetic instrument that will be able to transfer
development rights to where the county views that it should be able to develop and make that
process sort of a win/win for the county and the developer and the landowner of agricultural land
it will help preserve the urban or maintain out the urban encroachment that we are currently
seeing in agricultural land. It should be a natural progression the way we have our zoning codes
and our ability to up -zone land. And you don't blame any of the landowners for doing this.
Agricultural is the least costly way of carrying land until it is ready to be developed and until we
address that issue you will continue having erosion or the migration of land to the highest and
best use. So if we deem that agriculture is an integral part of the ecosystem then somehow we
need to maintain that balance. It will take some creative portraying of what that vehicle looks
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like but I am sure we have a lot of smart people and the ability of the department to create
something.
Mr. Dahilia: We will definitely work on it and try to get it in before the next round of suggested
edits from our department hits the floor in 2 weeks.
Vice Chair Ho: The motion is still to defer all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Motion
carried 4:0.
Mr. Dahilig: Thank you Mr. Chair, we are deferred until March 14th on this item. We will
repost it again and it will probably be the only item on the agenda for the 14th so we just ask the
Commission to be prepared again to mine the draft. We will make the suggested changes
available when we post the agenda 6 days prior, under the law, and if there are community
members who want to have us evaluate and incorporate their changes into that next batch of
suggested items to the Planning Commission we would ask that those comments come in sooner
than later because we are going to be releasing those suggested changes 6 days prior to the 14th
which would be the 8th. Other than that Mr. Chair that is all the items under new business. The
only announcements that we have is that the next meeting is on March 14th, 9:00 a.m. in this
room and I have the on -deck sheets and I will circulate in terms of permits that will be coming
before the Planning Commission. I will say that March is pretty lean; we have cleared out March
understanding that we have the draft of the General Plan so we want to devote the Commission's
full attention to these items. There will be 1 particular, at the next meeting, 1 particular shoreline
determination that may catch some eyes and we anticipate making a determination on Friday that
is related to the Hanalei Ridge shoreline setback determination. There may be some testimony
that comes in at that first March meeting related to that determination. The department expects
to release that on Friday. Other than that the real heavy stuff that we expect to start coming in
with permits will be coming in during April so as you see the calendar that is generally what is
coming forward. That is all the announcements I have and there is no further business before the
Planning Commission.
ADJOURNMENT
Vice Chair Ho: A motion for adjournment.
Mr. Mahoney: Move to adjourn.
Ms. Apisa: Second.
Vice Chair Ho: Moved and seconded all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Motion carried
4:0.
Vice Chair Ho adjourned the meeting at 11:24 a.m.
Respectfully Submitted by:
P41
Lani Agoot
Commission Support Clerk
( ) Approved as circulated (add date of meeting approval)
( ) Approved as amended. See minutes of meeting.
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