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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMarch 14 2017 PC Open Min Draft LAKAUA‘I PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING March 14, 2017 The regular meeting of the Planning Commission of the County of Kaua‘i was called to order by Chair Keawe at 9:04 a.m., at the Līhu‘e Civic Center, Mo‘ikeha Building, in meeting room 2A- 2B. The following Commissioners were present: Chair Kimo Keawe Mr. Roy Ho Ms. Kanoe Ahuna Ms. Donna Apisa Mr. Sean Mahoney Ms. Glenda Nogami Streufert Absent and Excused: Mr. Wayne Katayama The following staff members were present: Planning Department – Michael Dahilig, 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 Chair Keawe called the meeting to order at 9:04 a.m. ROLL CALL Mr. Dahilig: Vice Chair Ho. Mr. Ho: Here. Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Ahuna. Ms. Ahuna: Here. Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Mahoney. Mr. Mahoney: Here. Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Katayama, Commissioner Apisa. 2 Ms. Apisa: Here. Mr. Dahilig: Commissioner Streufert. Ms. Streufert: Here. Mr. Dahilig: Chair Keawe. Chair Keawe: Here. Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair you have 6 members present this morning. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair the department would recommend taking the Executive Session at lunch, otherwise taking the agenda in order. Chair Keawe: Do I have a motion for the amended agenda? Mr. Mahoney: Chair, move to accept the amended agenda. Ms. Apisa: Second. Chair Keawe: All those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Opposed? Motion carried 6:0. MINUTES of the meeting(s) of the Planning Commission Meeting of February 14, 2017 Chair Keawe: Do I have a motion? Mr. Mahoney: Chair, move to approve the minutes of February 14, 2017. Ms. Ahuna: Second. Chair Keawe: It's been moved and seconded all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Opposed? Motion carried 6:0. RECEIPT OF ITEMS FOR THE RECORD (NONE) Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair we have nothing other than testimony that we will submit as part of Unfinished Business and we will circulate under item L. HEARINGS AND PUBLIC COMMENT Continued Agency Hearing (NONE) 3 New Agency Hearing (NONE) Continued Public Hearing (NONE) New Public Hearing (NONE) All remaining public testimony pursuant to HRS 92 (Sunshine Law) Mr. Dahilig: At this time it would be appropriate to make any call for Sunshine Law testimony under Chapter 92. Chair Keawe: Do we have anyone to testify on Sunshine Law issues? Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair, given the agenda what I will do is I will break it up into 2 parts, one is the General Plan testimony concerning the Unfinished Business item as well as the item that is posted relating to the Shoreline Setback. I will take the General Plan first and ask whether an individual wishes to testify now or at the agenda item, John Moore. Mr. John Moore: I handed out testimony to everyone. My name is John Moore, Director of the Hawaiian Sustainability Foundation and today representing the Kauai Community Coalition. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Ann Walton (late), Gregg Allen, Ken Taylor. Mr. Ken Taylor: Good morning Chair and members of the Commission, my name is Ken Taylor. First of all I passed out a document or packet of information and I will be talking a little bit about some of it. The first thing I would like to talk about is my estimates of the cost of the buildout of this plan. I've come up with some numbers of $564 dollars per taxpayer at the total buildout of the plan. My request is that you have a cost analysis done on the plan because, myself included and most of the people on the island, could not afford this kind of increase in their taxes on an annual basis. A developer wouldn't go forward with a project without knowing the cost benefit of that project and neither should we. It just doesn't make any sense. Please request a cost benefit analysis of the plan. The problem is, and if you look on the front, the ecological footprint is a measurement of the load imposed by a given population on nature. It represents the land area necessary to sustain current levels of resource consumption and waste discharge by that population. If you look in this document you will see on page 4 or 5 our ecological footprint. We are currently living way beyond our resource availability. The average American requires 4.6 acres per person; multiply that by current population, about 72,000. That means we would have to have 907,000 acres to accommodate the current population, the current population, not the increase. That is more than 2.5 times the size Kauai. We need to take a good look at these things and understand what we are doing to ourselves. We can no longer continue this because these are the kinds of things that are costing us money. Further back in the document there is a document entitled "The definition of Sustainability". I don't believe the plan before you is sustainable. If you read carefully the definition of sustainability you will find the first law of sustainability. 4 Chair Keawe: Can you wrap up your testimony Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor: Consumption of resources cannot be sustained. Chair Keawe: Could you wrap up your testimony please Mr. Taylor: I hope you will take the time to read these few pages completely. In the last section of this document shows a map of the requirements of… Chair Keawe: We will go through the document Mr. Taylor, thank you very much for your testimony. Mr. Taylor: To make housing affordable Kauai would require $31.61 per hour of wages to make housing affordable. These are the kinds of things that need to be looked at that weren't looked at in putting this plan together, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Judy Shabert. Unidentified Speaker: I will present for her later. She is not here today but she gave me her testimony. Chair Keawe: Are you testifying for someone else or are you waiting for someone else to show up? Unidentified Speaker: I will be testifying on her behalf. Chair Keawe: Does she have a written submission? Can we just go ahead and receive the written submission, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Cynthia Lazarus (later), Arlen Minor Ho (later), Bob Cox (later), Wayne Souza. Mr. Wayne Souza: Good morning, my name is Wayne Souza. I am speaking on behalf of the Hanapepe/Eleele Community Association. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Susan Remoaldo. Ms. Susan Remoaldo: My name is Susan Remoaldo and I agree with the previous speaker. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Jean Souza. Ms. Jean Souza: Good morning my name is Jean Souza and I agree with the previous 2 speakers. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Carl Imparato (later), Felicia Cowden (later), Greg Crowe (later), Gordon Oswald. 5 Mr. Gordon Oswald: Good morning my name is Gordon Oswald and I have been on the island since the late 80's on and off. I am very concerned with our island, number 1 because I feel that we are developing too much outside of already existing developed areas. What I would like to do quickly right now is read a letter that I had written to the Commission. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Joseph Dunsmoor. Mr. Joseph Dunsmoor: What I would like to share is nothing that is actually very specific but to speak about vision and goals. I am a big proponent of vision and part of that vision is memories. I am Joseph Dunsmoor. We all have memories, we all have memories growing up, we all have memories of nature, and we all have memories of family and community. I think part of our vision is that we create memories for our children and within our community and so visioning what it is that we want, not settling for what we can get but actually visioning for what it is that we want. And for that I think we need to bring in the people that can actually say they want to have a community, we want to have sustainability, and we want to see land being used for agriculture. We want agricultural housing that has been lacking on Kauai for quite a long time. We want to see community and community gardens and we want opportunities for the children to have memories. As we put this together we talk about roads and highways and development and that, let us keep in mind that we are doing this for the community of Kauai, not for the visitors or not to make ourselves more beautiful and put on more makeup but so that we can have a good life. And that our children can stay on the island and not be forced off economically. So sustainability and for your information my definition of sustainability is if you can live without Federal Reserve notes and gasoline and still be happy. Community and culture and the culture of agriculture, I don't know what that means to you but I know it's an opportunity to create vision and not just bureaucracy or legislation. I don't believe that visioning should come from the top down, it is beautiful if it does, we don't seem to have that happening in America today, but from the bottom up, from the people, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Greg Allen. Mr. Greg Allen: Aloha Commissioners, thank you for your time. I am a partner in what is called Hokua Place, a residential subdivision for the people of Kauai sitting around the middle school in Kapa'a, Hawaii. A project that has planned 650 units of townhomes and about 87 single family homes in a total of around 130 buildings, meaning basically less than 2 buildings per acre trying to continue the rural theme of Kauai and yet provide townhouses which are currently unavailable in Kapa'a so they can be purchased our Kamaaina who can't afford a single family home. Also we will be meeting the Kauai Housing Ordinance where 30 percent of the project is affordable. Chair Keawe: Can you state your name please. Mr. Allen: Greg Allen. I am told that the project is taken out of the plan because of public concern. I know there is great public concern for the traffic in the corridor through Kapa'a. I also know that the State DOT Office is planning on constructing the fourth lane in front of Coco Palms during 2018 which will alleviate a large part of the bottle neck for the traffic in Kapa'a. 6 The north end will be a few years later but prior to our housing being significantly developed. We own the bypass road and have donated its use for the last 15 years. In the interest of people who work most of the people who want housing are working right now and can't be here but I have a whole bunch of letters. I like the idea of parks and the bike path and single family homes. Hokua Place is a smart investment for our community. This is definitely a way to grow our infrastructure and increase the supply of much needed affordable housing. Kauai desperately needs affordable housing. I have 300 letters and signatures that have come to the Planning Department which I would like to give the Planning Commission and they represent a broad spectrum of our public that needs housing. Our children can't find affordable housing. Affordable housing in now listed as houses, single family houses $499,000 dollars. A one bedroom townhouse, a two bedroom townhouse by nature of what they are will be half of that, some figure less than that. I appeal to you to continue to plan for Kauai's future which needs housing. I would offer to any of you the idea that I could build you a house and you could have plumbing or electrical, your choice but not both. We know we need roads and we also need houses. It takes 20 minutes to get through the Kapa'a corridor. Both ends of it will be improved. The middle of the bypass road will be donated by us and we will build a significant amount of affordable housing in Kapa'a. Please don't take Hokua Place out of the General Plan, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Gabriella Taylor. Ms. Gabriella Taylor: Good morning, my name is Gabriella Taylor and I am very much against Hokua Place being changed and I am thankful to the Planning Commission to make the urban, to downgrade it to agriculture which it was in initially and it needs to stay there. It would be a disaster in Kapa'a. So many people have testified against this over the last couple of years. It is the wrong place and urban development would be a boondoggle in Kapa'a. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair that is all I have signed up to testify on this particular agenda item other than those who have elected to testify when the agenda item is called. As we are on this topic I would suggest making a final call for anybody else that would like to testify on the General Plan item. Chair Keawe: One final call on testifying, 2 people. Sir will you please come up and identify yourself. Mr. Bob Cox: Good morning and aloha, my name is Bob Cox and I am here to say a lot of things about Kauai. I came here 14 years ago, I fell in love with the culture and the people and the island. What I love most about the island is O'hana. The fact that my family and my neighbors, we love each other and that we are here to support each other. I speak today not as a business owner or a resident but as a father and grandfather. I have 7 children; many of them have grown up on Kauai. I have 8 grandchildren, 3 of them on this island, and what I have seen with myself and with my family is that my children have to leave the island because there is not place they can afford to live. They want to be on their own, they don't want to live with me, they have good jobs and they want to have a place. They can go find transitional housing; rentals have skyrocketed in the last 5 years, I spent $2,500 dollars for a 2 bedroom apartment but they want to own. They want to have a place of their own. It has been a great concern of mine to be 7 able to see the development of affordable housing, a place where my son can afford $2,500 dollars but I would much rather see him invest in a townhouse, something that is affordable, $300,000 dollars that he can qualify for. My oldest son was fortunate and able to buy a home in Kapa'a but in a less than desirable neighborhood. I am concerned just to go visit my granddaughters in the neighborhood he lives. With the same money he could buy a nice house in a nice development with parks close by for my granddaughters to play. Based on what I have seen, I live in Kappa, I know the traffic, we have problems but I know it also takes money. It takes good, conscientious developers to come to our island to build a place that is affordable, that is beautiful, and that fits the criteria of what the island is all about. I think Hokua Place, I have looked at the plan, I have read about it and watched what has gone on in Kapa'a and I think it is an answer. I think it is developers who will do the right thing, who will live by the rules, produce a wonderful place, help alleviate traffic, and provide affordable housing for our own O'hana that is here. That is all I had to say, I hope you guys make the right decision and keep it in the plan. It is a project that will start in 5 years and the traffic problem will be worked on by then. I think we have solutions but we can't be closed minded and shut down growth for our local residents. Everybody has a dream, they want to stay here and they want to own a home. I would like to see my family come back, thank you for your time. Mr. Arlan Kaleolani Minor Ho: Aloha Commission Chair and Commission members, my name is Arlan Kaleolani Minor Ho. I am a Kauai born native son of Kauai. I am listening to all the testimony today and I came to see what was going to be said about our General Plan. I can see familiar faces on the Planning Commission. I talk about, just like every other person on Kauai we talk about ideas that are happening and projects that are being developed and why is this not being taken into consideration and why is that not being taken into consideration. I do understand what you guys have to look at and the big picture and development of Kauai. You guys have grandchildren, you have children that you want to see grow up and live here and I know that would be the last thing for you guys to do is to develop Kauai where it wasn’t a place for your own children to be able to live. I know of a couple of County employees that have 2 jobs, 1 to pay their wages here a way of living and the other to visit their families, their daughter that lives in Vegas because it is cheaper to live. I'm fortunate enough that when I came back home I moved in with my grandparents and fortunately enough we hui together and own the home together. We are a multi-family in 1 home and we make it work. In my business I see that a lot. I see families coming together to be able to live here and to be able to make ends meet and go pay check to pay check. I see a lot of fathers that have 2 jobs and they still live on the beach. Circumstances change, our decisions in life change. I do believe in the development of affordable housing on Kauai. I do believe that it needs to happen. I looked at Hokua Place, where it is I think is a great place to be. It is above the flood zone, it is right of the edge not really going into the interior. I see the traffic study and how it's going to help with the bypass. I live in Wailua Homesteads. I know what the traffic looks like. I try to avoid Kapa'a between 9:00 and 4:00 so that I can get through. I believe there are homes that need to be made available to local people. It is your decision and your foresight to see what is going to actually work for Kauai. I look at you here and I can see there is a wealth of knowledge in making sure that Kauai is affordable for the next generation. I hear of sustainability and being able to grow your own food and that is great to see everybody picking 8 their own tomatoes. I see a small few people actually gardening. I just want to say I am a proponent for affordable housing, please help us to keep our children here on Kauai, thank you. Mr. Andrew Stennet: Aloha to the Planning Commission, my name is Andrew Stennet. I am an 18 year resident of Kauai, also a business owner and a father of 6. I love Kauai. My roots are very rural from a tiny town in Idaho and Kauai is what I grew up with on with the tropical flare so I love it here. One issue is my children have 1 by 1 left the nest and gone to the mainland for greater opportunities and if there were affordable housing, a greater availability of affordable housing I would love to see them come back and live on Kauai as well and contribute to the community. From everything that I have seen about this plan and everything that I know about it, it is a well thought out, well organized plan to promote the growth in housing that the future will hold for Kauai. In short I am 100 percent in favor of Hokua Place. Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair, given that those that have indicated they would like to testify on this item have already elected to testify or deferred their testimony to the actual agenda item's discussion, I understand there are individuals that would like to testify on the Shoreline Setback Determination that was posted as part of the agenda this morning. I do not have anybody signed up to testify but I would recommend making a final call for any testimony on this item. Chair Keawe: Final call. Ms. Karen Diamond: Good morning Commissioners, Karen Diamond. I am testifying this morning on behalf of myself and also the Limmu Coalition. The shoreline notice before you is an exemption and it is for the Ridge Project which was formerly known as the (inaudible) Project and it has now come before you as an exemption to our shoreline setback laws. The most troubling part of it is that at the end of December the State rejected the certified shoreline for this project. In early January this project got presented to the Planning Department with the rejected certified shoreline except it didn't say it was rejected, it was like it was the best thing on earth. On top of that the exemption means that the project is exempt from all shoreline setback laws. So we find ourselves in the position of having completely discounted the State shoreline certification laws and the County now wanting to completely forget about the shoreline setback laws. Basically a complete undermining of our coastal zone management laws and that is not sitting well with the community and it is not sitting well with me. As the Commission you are in a strange place because the way the shoreline setback law was written this is just being noticed to you and you don't have the decision whether to accept it or approve or anything. So I am just here today to hold our legal prerogative to say that we don't agree with this decision and will be following up legally with our different options, thank you. Mr. Carl Imparato: Aloha Commissioners, my name is Carl Imparato. I live in Hanalei and I am speaking on behalf of myself and the Hanalei Watershed Hui of which I am President of the Board. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: I would recommend making a final call for any other item on the agenda this morning. Chair Keawe: Final call. We would like to take a short recess for 10 minutes. 9 The Commission recessed the meeting at 9:55 a.m. The meeting was called back to order at 10:06 a.m. CONSENT CALENDAR Status Reports (NONE) Director's Report(s) for Project(s) Scheduled for Agency Hearing on 3/28/17 (NONE) EXECUTIVE SESSION Mr. Dahilig: We will be taking the Executive Session during the lunch hour. GENERAL BUSINESS MATTERS (NONE) COMMUNICATION (For Action) (NONE) COMMITTEE REPORTS Subdivision Mr. Ho: Two items for consideration this morning, D.R. Horton got an approval on a subdivision map, Helen Martin, subdivision extension request was approved. Chair Keawe: Do I have a motion to approve? Mr. Mahoney: Chair, move to approve. Ms. Apisa: Second. Chair Keawe: Any discussion, all those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Opposed? Motion carried 6:0. UNFINISHED BUSINESS (For Action) Zoning Amendment ZA-2017-3 relating to updating the General Plan for the County of Kauai and technical amendments related to the definition of Development Plan. [Hearing continued 1/31/17, hearing closed and deferred 2/28/17.] Supplemental No. 2 to the Departmental Draft of the General Plan Update. Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair, Marie will be presenting further discussion points and potential amendments based off of supplemental 2 that has been distributed to the Commissioners. I 10 would also mention just to kind of premise her presentation that there is also an additional handout that has been submitted that looks like an inverse triangle as well as something that looks like this. Our intention just to make clear for the Commissioners as well as the general public is that this was not released as part of supplemental No. 2, this is something new that is being proposed but we figured we will get it out early so that everybody can see it. So her presentation will also encompass some of this discussion but our intention is not to ask the Commission to take any action today because we believe this will probably need some soaking and some discussions. We believe having it here for the public's information at that same time is probably prudent for everybody. With that Mr. Chair if I could have Marie give her presentation. Ms. Marie Williams: Good morning Chair and members of the Planning Commission. As Mike said today we have transmitted the supplemental report, supplemental 2 which you did receive last week and then supplemental 3 that is really us introducing the objectives and we did want to get it out there as soon as possible. I apologize for the lateness of us transmitting it. Perhaps what I can do is we can address supplemental 2 first and I can walk you through it. If you go to exhibit 1 it shows the department's proposed changes to the departmental draft in a table form. Rather than read all 11 pages of changes I can go over some of the topics that are covered and then if you have any questions I am here to answer them. What we have done in this version in exhibit 1 of supplemental 2 is we are proposing changes including an index that would be in the back of the plan to improve user friendliness and allow people to cross reference topics. We include language to strengthen the link between land use and transportation. We also include actions pertaining to lowland forest restoration. We made some improvements to the drainage section and then we added information about a State project on Transit Ready development that recently came to our attention. We also changed the language and made some organizational changes to the agricultural sub-sector text. We wanted to call out the historical underpinnings of agriculture and also do a better job of explaining why access to healthy food is important and bring up aqua-culture as well. We incorporated comments from the Civil Defense Agency and the Water Department and then finally in Chapter 3, in our Implementation section, we articulated the role of key agencies in implementing the General Plan. That summarizes the changes in supplemental 2, are there any questions? Chair Keawe: Any questions from the Commissioners? Marie, these are done mainly for clarification or to give more information for specific issues? Ms. Williams: Both, that is correct. Ms. Ahuna: Will these be placed inside? How will they be placed in here, as an addendum? Ms. Williams: They will be integrated into the text of the draft. What will happen is upon this Commission's approval of the draft along with any recommended changes, the result will be what is called the Planning Commission draft and that is what will be taken to our County Council and go through their process so all of these changes will be integrated into the plan. 11 Ms. Ahuna: Mr. Dahilig, once all the departmental drafts are drafted in a sense because there have been several additions will we receive a full draft with all the changes implemented before approval? Mr. Dahilig: We have been struggling with that issue whether we generate new draft versions of the actual plan versus create items in a matrix. This was a discussion that we had. We have also had this discussion with a couple of the council members at a meeting we had last week. What tends to be the tension is if we do it in ramseyer format the page numbering gets thrown off. So as you start inserting text and taking text out the reference points tend to get changed so that when you are looking at whether something was or was not changed the page number changes. This is something that we experienced as part of the South Kauai and Lihue Plan drafts when we were initially going with the ramseyer format and changes. What we ended up using is a matrix format to have it referenced back to the original draft. My impression is that seemed to have worked better in terms of making sure everybody is on the same page where the changes are so we are not constantly adjusting things through ramseyer. At this juncture I am comfortable with whatever the Commission would want us to move forward with as a form of the draft. If the Commission's desire is to want to go back to a ramseyer approach on this we can certainly accommodate that moving forward based off of this process that seemed to have been the comfort level of the Council when we went through the 2 community plan drafts back in 2015. But at the end of the day we want to make sure that the Commissioners are on the same page and that the public is on the same page as to what the changes are and can easily make the reference changes. So we are amenable to either form, either by ramseyer or by providing a document. I will say though that from a turnaround time standpoint the production of each one of those books costs about $150 dollar a piece so we probably would in effect transmit digital pdf. copies of the items in ramseyer until what and if something is passed by the Commission, then we would reprint them as what is called the Commission draft. That Commission draft would be enrolled as part of the bill that goes over to the County Council. Again we are open to suggestions Commissioner whether you want to continue with this format or you want to go to a Ramseyer format. Ms. Ahuna: I am just trying to find the easiest way to go back and forth and read the additions. I understand the funding because the print of this costly but also if there is a way we can give the additions or the revisions in a sense of chapters that are all put on 1 so we can insert within the section. Can we possibly table this for a discussion within an executive session or something to discuss how this could be in a less costly way, visually easier to review additions and revisions? Chair Keawe: I don't think it can be put into an executive session it would be in open session. Ms. Ahuna: I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best way but how can we go about that Jodi, looking at different opportunities? Ms. Streufert: Is it possible, like in Word you have "track changes", is there some way we could do the track changes or does that format allow for that kind of thing so we can see? I agree with Commissioner Ahuna that it is a little difficult because I have the 2000 plan and the 2015 plan and I have all these changes and sometimes it does get a little confusing because there is change 12 1 then change 2. So if there is some way to track changes so that we can go into it and plug in what the changes are. Mr. Dahilig: That is what we would do is use the track changes and as we embarked in the process back in 2015 we noticed when you do the track changes it pushes the text down into other pages so the page references get changed because you are seeing a paragraph and then you are seeing a new paragraph. I get that the comparison between the text is important to make a decision so if you would like to go down that path I think the only caution I would say is that the reference points may become an issue. Ms. Ahuna: Or maybe just in an electronic format at least so we can see the track changes. Ms. Streufert: Electronically would be great. Chair Keawe: What is the pleasure of the Commission, do we want to change it from this format to the suggested format? Ms. Streufert: If it goes into an electronic format I think it is easier to do track changes. Right now with a paper copy it is very difficult to do that and very costly and I am not into adding cost to this thing but I am looking at time efficiencies for all of us. Ms. Higuchi-Sayegusa: Perhaps you could keep both for the public to also have the opportunity to review any proposed changes and I am not sure everybody has access to the computer to view track changes and I don't know if it will change per computer. Ms. Ahuna: This here is a good reference to page sequencing but the track changes would at least give us a visual understanding. It is visually easier to the eye if we could have both formats. Chair Keawe: Is that a possibility? Mr. Dahilig: Yes. What we will do, again, if the Commission would like to take the supplemental 2 recommendations into track changes as well as we will incorporate track changes from 3 and we will take both and put them in a digital version of the document. And just to lay the attorney's concern we can actually do it in a pdf. format as well so we can do a virtual publish on it and provide the matrix at the same time so that if people would like to make a reference point back. The only caution again is that these page numbers will change and so just be aware that the matrix…we will do our best to make sure the matrix reflects the new numbers but the original text that maybe the public is concerned with on page 2-18, 2-18 may no longer be 2-18. We will do our best to do both but that is perfectly fine. Chair Keawe: Marie, you are one who is actually got to do it so we would like to hear from you. Ms. Williams: My only concern is that the actual Word document of the plan is extremely large; it has crashed several of our computers. I think that what we will have to do is create a clean 13 version where it is only Word, the text, and none of the fancy formatting and colors and images. I think that would be more doable on our side. Chair Keawe: As long as it is workable and the text is what we want, we can do without the colors so does that work for you? Ms. Williams: Yes. Chair Keawe: Commissioners are we in agreement? (Unanimous) Let's go ahead and do that. Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair, if there are other questions concerning supplemental 2, and my apologies, what I pointed out to the Commission on paper was 3, 2 is on your laptop, 3 is what was handed out. The sexy version of 3 is the one in color. Ms. Williams: Moving on to supplemental No. 3 and exhibit 1. I believe the members of the public and the Commission has a copy of 2 handouts, one is our revised organization or framework of the General Plan and then we illustrate the subsector objectives and also show the policy icons as well. Why we did this is if you recall in the presentations we've done previously when we have explained the framework of the plan, what we have done differently in this draft is we have attempted to streamline the policy direction in a way that is user friendly and that anyone off the street could grasp. What those cross sectoral policies did is that they guided and informed the development of the sector of the actions within our 10 sectors and with our land use section as well. What we have heard from both the Commission and the public is that the bridge between the policies and the actions, there is a gap there, and so to explain how the policies actually inform and guide the development of the actions we are now adding in that intermediate step with the objectives. What they are is they represent a brief statement that explains how the policy directed the development of the actions specific to that one topic in the subsection. All 41 objectives are listed in the matrix and we show alignment with the polices through the policy icons. Mr. Dahilig: Marie why don't you go through all 41 of them just to give a flavor of the rhythm. Staff Planner Marie Williams read the list of 41 objectives into the record. (On file) Mr. Dahilig: I am going to give Marie's voice a break for a second and kind of explain how this ties into the inverse triangle that you've seen. A lot of people have been asking how does the 20 policies that have been put forward by the document drive the actions and I think that has been the gap question that Marie mentioned earlier. How does this drive the actions? What we are also getting some feedback on was how does this build upon the 2000 General Plan and if you look at the structure of the 2000 General Plan, the 2000 General Plan structure is actually somewhat similar to what you are seeing with this change now where you have the goals, then you have the policy, and then you have a discussion on what the policy is what it is. What we have heard through the discussion over the past couple of years, there are those issues that relate to things by sector and there are those issues that relate to things by policy and that is the enigma our department has been trying to either unravel or intertwine in some type of logical manner. As you are seeing through the draft the document is dense and our objective is to not create 14 situations where you are just writing things away, we need to figure out how to most efficiently communicate where the policy goals of the public are with the cross sector needs and leave that to a point that gives guide posts for action because we have also heard the public say we need action. What the cross sector policies do in this format is meant to drive the discussion of what is the sector objective, the subsector objective? So you will see the sector on the left is the watershed for example, then there are subsectors, upper watershed, fresh water resources, coastal, and threatened and endangered species. What drives the actions based off the polices, that is the question we are trying to answer here in a way that is clear for communication, everybody understands, and builds upon the 2000 General Plan. If you look at the 2000 General Plan a lot of the language that you are seeing in the sector objective is similar to some of the language you will see in the sector areas in the 2000 General Plan as it relates to each of these areas. The language may or may not be the same but in many cases we looked at, in drafting the sector objective statement, we looked at the 2000 General Plan first to see if there was either a validation of that statement and an ability to build upon that or are we moving in a direction different than the 2000 General Plan. What you will see is in many cases the 2000 General Plan statements are very valid today. Some of the criticism we got was that there wasn't any implementation of those statements or those objectives in the 2000 General Plan. So we hope this bridges the missing piece of how to implement those objectives from 2000 while at the same time draw it back to the evolving collective community goals as well as the collective community vision that leads to the policies. I think the inverse triangle helps explain that as clear as we can but this is our way to try to address that missing gap between why are these actions statements drafted in this way? Ms. Williams: All the changes we have been presenting to you from the very start of this project, we did want to improve the user friendliness of the General Plan. Somebody did ask me who is the audience of this plan and there is a large range of people that use this plan and who want to understand it. Everything we have done and how we have developed the framework and written the plan, the language we have used, they have been attempts to improve upon the user friendliness of the 2000 General Plan and we hope this will be another positive step towards that. Chair Keawe: Any questions for the planner? Ms. Streufert: I recognize that there is a lot of work that went into this and there is a lot of contention on almost all of this so the fact that you came up with a document that looks as good as this but takes into account as many of the different issues that have been brought up in a pleasant manner I think is kudos to the Planning Department and to the staff that you have, Mike. Thank you very much for having that staff. Chair Keawe: Any other comments? I would like to add the same sentiments. There is a lot of work that has gone into this over the last 18 months and the reactions and reaching out to the public and trying to get specific items that could be changed that fit into the overall plan. So again we all thank you and your staff for the efforts you have done so far. We are not done yet, we have more to do, and we all recognize that but again, thank you for what you have done up to this point. 15 Mr. Dahilig: If there are no further questions Commissioners, our intention here today is to propose this as supplemental 3. You will probably get 1 more supplemental from us before the next meeting which is March 28th where we can talk more about these items and receive feedback whether this meets some of the public concern that has been coming in on this particular issue of bridging the policies to the actions. At this point we would not recommend that Commission move forward on any action on this. We will go ahead and make the forms of the draft available both in a ramseyer style format as well as a matrix so there is referencing that can occur and we will work on that to be released before the 28th. Other than that Mr. Chair, we can move forward with testimony. Anne Walton followed by Cynthia Lazarus followed by Arlan Minor Ho. Ms. Anne Walton: Good morning Mr. Chair and Commissioners, my name is Anne Walton. I am going to give you an abbreviated version of my written testimony which you may have in front of you. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Ms. Walton if you could also submit the comments for Ms. Shabert as well. Cynthia Lazarus followed by Arlan Minor Ho followed by Carl Imparatro. Ms. Cynthia Lazarus: Good morning and aloha everyone, Planning Commission Chair, Commissioners, members of the Planning Department and members of the community. My name is Cynthia Lazarus and I am developing a small community local food production farm with my family in Anahola. I have been collaborating with Sharon Goodwin as part of the Kauai Community Coalition regarding watersheds recommendations we feel need inclusion in the General Plan. Sharon has testified previously on watersheds as part of our coalition and I am honored to be here today because Sharon is off island taking care of a family matter. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Carl Imparato followed by Felicia Cowden followed by Greg Crowe. Mr. Carl Imparato: Aloha Commissioners my name is Carl Imparato and I am speaking on behalf of the Hanalei to Haena Community Association and the Tourism Workgroup of the Kauai Community Coalition. (Written testimony on file) Mr. Dahilig: Felicia Cowden. Ms. Felicia Cowden: Aloha, I am Felicia Cowden. I don't have a comprehensive piece. I just went through the hard work you guys did and pulled out a few benchmarks that stuck out to me. One is on section 2, page 89, about the food production area. I know that there is a cross reference over to the Housing with farmworker housing but neither place really does justice to it. I think in that 2-89 we need to include semi-permanent housing for farmworkers. You really can't do diversified ag. effectively if you can't live near those fields and especially when you realize if somebody just rents a place for $2,000 dollars a month they have to have a fulltime and beyond 2 jobs they can't farm any longer. So housing, I would like to see it in there on 2, page 89. Lowland forestry, I just want to say good job everybody. I am really glad that that was 16 added and strengthened in there because lowland forestry is important. I want to also acknowledge the Agro-business Development Corporation has been reaching out to these small scale farmers and so bringing them into the conversation on housing possibilities. In the water management part where it removed 5 of them, I think that has been spoken to already but it was really unclear to me. It seemed like it was removed and maybe it shouldn't have been or a better description of what happened. Some things seem to be slipping through the cracks, one is on the South Shore Development Plan, this Mahaulepu Dairy issue is really a screaming issue and so it seems like that does belong in the General Plan. I am not sure why it's not there. I'm probably going to get heat for this comment right now but on the Hokua Place, when we are looking at sea level rise infill in a place like Kapa'a doesn't make as much sense to me because it is going to under water. Hokua Place, that is above, right? We are saying we want to have houses and we need to be above the water line. I just remember when we put the middle school up there part of the whole reason we stuck it where it was is because that was going to be a neighborhood and it was going to be lower cost housing, nothing is affordable but lower cost so we figured that would be next to a bunch of families. I am neutral at best. I think we have to look at all pieces there. On Heritage Resources it still sounds like it presumes an ancient past and I feel like we need to find a way to reframe the wording like we are perpetuating our Hawaiian host culture. It shouldn't be a thing of the past; it isn't a thing of the past. Jean Souza's testimony, use or lose it, I like it and I support having measurable benchmarks, thank you. Chair Keawe: We will take another short break. Let's reconvene at 11:15 a.m. Commission recessed the meeting at 11:02 a.m. The meeting was called back to order at 11:13 a.m. Mr. Dahilig: Greg Crowe followed by Sandra Herndon followed by JoAnne Yukimura. Mr. Greg Crowe: Aloha Commissioners, Planning Department, and communit y. My name is Greg Crowe and I submitted some written testimony at the last hearing addressing affordable housing in general and in particular suggested a new option be included and even incentivized in the housing options, namely tiny houses in ag. based communities. Or the current catch phrase of eco-villages, quite appropriate to Kauai. Eco-village/tiny house units can be developed at less than 1/10th of the current County benchmark of affordable housing which is at $450,000 dollars. We could have 10 times as many tiny housing units for the same cost of 1 standard affordable unit or even compared to the affordable rental option mentioned earlier today and previous testimony of about $2,500 dollars per month. That may be affordable to more people than a $450,000 dollar house but it is still way beyond the means of many in our community. Tiny houses and eco-villages can and are being done elsewhere at $500 to $1,000 per month total cost. That includes food and utilities which can be done in a rural environment. Those are also essential components of the total cost of affordable living not just affordable housing in isolation. A systems approach is needed including all the interacting components and also adding long term life cycle analysis otherwise we risk recreating unintended bad outcomes to spite our good 17 goals. For example, since the 2000 General Plan where affordable housing was a top priority Kauai now has less affordable housing units than it did in 2000. Today I would like to address a more general point and paradigm shift, a systems approach, to the General Plan and life cycle analysis but with the purpose to harmonize and balance what otherwise can be conflicting visions, goals, and policy statements. Unresolved conflicts lead to stalemates and lack of effective coordinated actions that could achieve the goals of the General Plan. One method I suggest and request to help create a General Plan with a much greater likelihood of achieving our community goals is a summit and workshop or multiple workshops as the Commissioners may determine are necessary and appropriate, including a systems approach and life cycle analysis on each of the major goals and sectors. They all interact, we are not going to make progress without looking at them as a united whole that is coordinated. That is just 1 example of the many potential unresolved conflicts in the current General Plan draft. There is a focus on urban growth but there is also a goal to preserve rural character and lifestyle. Urban areas are certainly part of future growth but rural villages have always been the basis of sustainability and affordability as well as rural character and lifestyle. Incentivizing some affordable ag. based rural village development to balance and support the sustainability of urban growth should be integrated into the General Plan. We can't increase our island's sustainability and food security without more affordable farm housing and farms need rural villages. I will submit more written testimony in the next few days with the details on this, thank you for your time and dedication to this monumental task of creating a new plan for our future. Thank you very much. Mr. Dahilig: Sandra Herndon. Ms. Sandra Herndon: Sandra Herndon for the record. I just want to say thank you so much Commissioner and Commission members for taking this project on and taking such a serious attitude about it. Education is an amazing thing; it really allows you to have a greater idea. Once you start learning about one thing it just opens up a whole arena of different ideas and as the previous speaker mentioned these are all interrelated. What I would like to say is that in regard to Hokua Place development we really need affordable housing and we need to be creative in the way that we do it. I think that the developer mentioned that 30 percent of the houses in that development were going to be affordable. Well I am not sure what affordable means by his standard but that also means that 70 percent are going to be outside that range. I would like to suggest, and this is another way of educating, how it might be possible to link the ultimate cost of the home to the average income for the income of the average worker. There is a big divide between being able to afford a home and working 2 or 3 jobs just to keep the rent paid. The other thing that concerns me about that development is that the County's infrastructure already is overburdened and so if we could educate ourselves to find a way to make sure that the infrastructure is ready before these new homes are built. And I am talking about the wastewater system and those aspects that are related in number 20. Also on the shared spaces and historic places, number 25 and 30, access to the Ala Loa Trail which is another opportunity for education not just for the people on this Commission but also the real estate industry in general. I have more offer you and so I will do that by written testimony, thank you. Chair Keawe: We look forward to receiving your written testimony, thank you. 18 Mr. Dahilig: JoAnn Yukimura followed by Joanne Allen. Ms. JoAnn Yukimura: Chair Keawe and members of the Planning Commission, thank you for this opportunity to testify. I want to thank the Planning Department staff for the changes that have been made in the Director's report, supplemental 2. I can't testify on 3, I haven't been able to really digest it but I have seen some improvement and seen that some of the comments from the public have been considered. I also want to thank you, the Planning Commission, as well as the Planning Department for extending the time for discussion and debate on the drafts of the Kauai General Plan update. The new General Plan being birthed is the most important planning document in the County. It is meant to guide the growth and development of our island for the next 20 years. What it does or does not do will have far reaching impacts on Kauai's economy, environment, and consequently on the lives of all who live here. Please do not rush to move this document to the County Council; you are the Planning Commission responsible for planning of this island. Do not pass on this most important document until it is well written and easy to understand, has vetted and integrated the complex issues facing our County and provides clear and well-grounded and long range guidance through its policies and measureable end goals. I have here the Oahu General Plan update process which I will pass out. You will see that they gave themselves 6 years and both the public and the Planning Department a lot of time to vet the issues. I don't believe that 6 years is necessary for our General Plan but it certainly demonstrates, the Oahu plan does, that an additional 6 to 12 months on the Kauai General Plan would not be unreasonable especially given the magnitude and importance of the task. I want to point out one example of how by not clearly integrating policies and identifying important follow-up actions the plan is not ready to go forward. We all agree that growth management must be a core policy area of our General Plan so section 1.3 says "manage growth to preserve rural character." We all agree. The question is how? And all these beautiful objectives that Marie read, that is the same question. We have nice objectives but how do we get there? And if the plan does not address that it is not ready to go forward. On this particular policy, "managing growth to preserve rural quality," the plan says that we should prohibit development not adjacent to towns. This is inadequate as a policy to guide growth because building something adjacent to something, adjacent to something, adjacent to something, can turn into sprawl very quickly and spread growth into areas not suitable or preferable for growth. I don't have this written testimony ready since I just finished it at 2:00 a.m. this morning but I will submit it. I just want to say that if you don't have growth management boundaries defined then you can't keep growth within the boundaries and I do not see specific implementations of growth management boundaries in the plan. This is just an example. The plan is replete with incomplete actions or ambiguities that need to be cleared up to give clear direction, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Joanne Allen followed by Wallace Rezentes Jr. Ms. Joanne Allen: Hi, my name is Joanne Allen and I am here in support of Hokua Place. I want to say please give Hokua Place back its urban designation. As we were going through all of the General Plan objectives earlier we were looking through them and Hokua Place supports 33 of these 41 objectives, 33, and I am going to use my 3 minutes to hit as many as I can. Under Watershed Hokua Place provides source water, we have a well. Under Housing we hit almost 19 every single one, we provide affordable housing, we have mixed use, high density, and walkable community. Under Agricultural we have 66 acres that are going to stay in ag. use on that property. Under Transportation, this is a big one, we are building a new County road, we are donating the bypass road, we will have bus stops, we plan to buy bulk bus passes for our residents, bike paths, parks, pool, all there. Under Critical Infrastructure, I want to go straight to the septic wastewater issue, the plant in Kapa'a is under capacity, not over, it has a 1.5 million capacity and it is only at 500,000 and so this is not going to put stress on that. Shared Spaces, we are going to support Kapa'a town. We will be adjacent to it without messing up the beaut y of Kapa'a Town. Building this place won't mess up the historic beauty of Kapa'a Town because it will be adjacent, it will not be infilling in the flood zone there. It is going to be close to the Kappa Sports Park. We have plans to build a pool. Under Shared Spaces, the bike path will be integrated. Under Economy, it hits those, 66 acres that I already mentioned in agriculture, it supports Kapa'a businesses. I already talked about Heritage Resources. Under Energy Sustainability, you know that there is a solar farm in place for agriculture. Finally, I will just restate again, please put Hokua Place back, give it back its urban designation, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Wallace Rezentes Jr. Mr. Wallace Rezentes Jr.: Good morning, for the record I am speaking as an individual today and as a member of the Wailua Homestead community. I have been a member of the Homestead community for about 15 years. I live on Kamalu Road which will obviously be impacted by the Hokua project. I speak today in favor of the project and I realize that there are challenges to that development relative to transportation however we have been speaking for a long time about the need for affordable housing on this island and I believe affordable housing is needed not only in the Lihue Core but in other areas of the island. I ask that you consider leaving Hokua Place in the General Plan for the future of our keiki. I have 3 kids, 26, 24, and 14 year old. I am hoping that at least one of them will be able to afford to live on this beautiful island. Unfortunately to be honest I think 2 of the 3 have about a 10 percent chance of doing that so I implore you to be open minded and considerate of the need for affordable housing, especially for, in this case, the Hokua Place project, thank you. Mr. Dahilig: Mr. Chair those are all the individuals I have signed up to testify. Given our previous recommendation to the Commission we ask that the Commission defer this item to March 28th at which time we will again provide the materials in the form as asked by the Commission. And if there is anything in the interim to please communicate with our office to have us be able to produce either the research or products necessary to help with your deliberations. Chair Keawe: Any discussion from the Commissioners? I will entertain a motion. Mr. Mahoney: Chair, I move to defer this agenda item to March 28, 2017. Ms. Apisa: Second. Chair Keawe: All those in favor. (Unanimous voice vote) Opposed? Motion carried 6:0. 20 NEW BUSINESS (NONE) ANNOUNCEMENTS Topics for Future Meetings Mr. Dahilig: I have distributed the on-deck sheets to all the Commissioners concerning the upcoming permits that are in the pipeline for your information. The following scheduled Planning Commission meeting will be held at 9:00 a.m., or shortly thereafter at the Lihue Civic Center, Moikeha Building, Meeting Room 2A-2B, 4444 Rice Street, Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii 96766 on Tuesday, March 28, 2017. Mr. Dahilig: I would recommend referring this over to the County Attorney for entering into executive session for item (H) and to adjourn at the conclusion of the executive session. EXECUTIVE SESSION Pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes Sections 92-5 (a)(2 and 4), the purpose of this executive session is to consult with the County's legal counsel pertaining to Department Goals for Fiscal Year 2018. Further, to discuss with legal counsel regarding powers, duties, privileges and/or liabilities of the Planning Commission as it relates to the departmental goals for fiscal year 2018. Deputy County Attorney Jodi Higuchi Sayegusa read item (H) Executive Session. Chair Keawe: Can I have a motion to go into executive session and adjourn after. Mr. Mahoney: Chair, move to go into executive session and adjourn at the conclusion of the executive session. Ms. Streufert: Second. Chair Keawe: All those in favor say aye. (Unanimous voice vote) Opposed? Motion carried 6:0. Chair Keawe adjourned the meeting at 1:15 p.m. Respectfully Submitted by: Lani Agoot Commission Support Clerk 21 ( ) Approved as circulated (add date of meeting approval) ( ) Approved as amended. See minutes of meeting.