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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/03/2018 Planning Committee minutes C� MINUTES PLANNING COMMITTEE January 3, 2018 A meeting of the Planning Committee of the County of Kaua`i, State of Hawaii, was called to order by Mason K. Chock, Chair, at the Council Chambers, 4396 Rice Street, Suite 201, Lihu`e, Kaua`i, on Wednesday, January 3, 2018, at 11:37 a.m., after which the following Members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Arthur Brun Honorable Ross Kagawa Honorable Arryl Kaneshiro Honorable Derek S.K. Kawakami Honorable Mel Rapozo Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura Honorable Mason K. Chock Minutes of the November 29-30, 2017 Special Planning Committee Meeting. Upon motion duly made by Councilmember Kagawa, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro, and unanimously carried, the Minutes of the November 29-30, 2017 Special Planning Committee Meeting was approved. The Committee proceeded on its agenda item as follows: Bill No. 2627, Draft 3 A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 10, KAUAI COUNTY CODE 1987, AS AMENDED, BY ADDING A NEW ARTICLE 5B, RELATING TO THE LIHU`E PLANNING DISTRICT (County of Kauai, Applicant) (This item was Deferred to the February 28, 2018 Committee Meeting.) Committee Chair Chock: Members, before we take a motion on this request for a deferral, if I can just recall, what had happened was that we set a date for the first of the year in order to hear this Bill again. We sent the Bill over to the Planning Commission, so it is still there at the Planning Commission and I believe it just went through public hearing, so it will be heard on the 9th of January, so I do not anticipate it coming back to us until February. Is there any questions about this before we make this request? PL COMMITTEE MEETING 2 JANUARY 3, 2018 Councilmember Yukimura: There is someone who wants to speak from the public. Committee Chair Chock: Sure. Councilmember Kagawa: I had a concern from the public that saw this item in the paper, so they thought it was moving, but one of the concerns that I got, which was regarding just Lihu`e, and the comment that I received was, "Hey, great. This is a solution. It sounds good and feels good; however, make sure that if the County does go forward with something like this, make sure you address the parking. Parking should be for the resident to handle. It is their responsibility. Do not approve these additional units if they have no plan for parking in their property, because if they are going to use the streets as parking, where is it going to end? If everybody is going to start adding, there will be insufficient parking on the County right-of-ways. Then what? You are going to destroy the whole residential area because you have not thought out all of the consequences." I think going forward, that is one issue that I hope the Planning Department will bring up to the Planning Commission, which is, "What is going to be our policy on adding units and addressing parking?" Already without the Additional Rental Unit (ARU) Bill, there are significant problems of parking. You have residences that have numerous families, numerous vehicles, and two (2) parking stalls. These people are parking on the street...I am not saying it is a bad thing, but I am saying that this Bill proposes to open the door of adding more, but how are we going to address the parking? Let me be clear that I will oppose any plan going forward that does not address parking, because it is going to snowball on us. We are going to be curing one thing, which is affordable housing, but we will create more problems and we will not be able to stop the problem, because we have already opened the door without thinking the whole thing through. Anyway, that is my concern and I hope that we will address parking as a major issue going forward. Thank you. Committee Chair Chock: Thank you. Any further questions or discussion? Councilmember Kawakami. Councilmember Kawakami: I agree with the parking situation. It has created a public safety issue in a lot of the neighborhoods as far as emergency first responders being able to respond. So that is a good point that I had not even thought about, but when you take a look at the presentation that was just made to the Finance and Ways and Means Committee in O`ahu, we are one of very few states that have seen a decline in population and that means there are more people moving away than moving in, which for some people is a great thing, but from a revenue standpoint, that means there is less of us to carry to burden of the services that this County provides. That is something that we have to take into effect, too. When you take a look at the backlog as far as affordable housing needs that we have as a County, we are backlogged so far behind that it is just up there with roads and bridge repairs. I PL COMMITTEE MEETING 3 JANUARY 3, 2018 think that our affordable housing issue is many pieces of puzzle that have to come together and I really think that this ARU Bill, when thoughtfully put through, can be a part of that solution, so I really appreciate the extra time and effort that this is going to take. We also have to be cognizant that we are dealing with the General Plan, so some of these proposals conflict with some of the proposals being set forth in the General Plan as well as we move along that. Thank you for the work. I know that this has been a long process, but it requires a long process because this thing has tremendous impacts on both sides. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee Chair Chock: Thank you. Any further discussion before I call for public testimony? If not, I will suspend the rules. There being no objections, the rules were suspended. CODIE K. TABALBA, Council Services Assistant I: Anne Punohu. ANNE PUNOHU: Aloha kakou. I have not been here for a long time. Happy New Year. I thought I would start your day out right by letting you talk to me right off the bat. I like the Bill, Councilmember Chock, and I appreciate what you say, and what you say, too, Councilmember Kagawa, and you are absolutely correct that if this Bill is done wrong, it is going to hurt more than help; however, it is a very, very good premise and we need it. My concerns are a little different. I am thinking more along the odd terminology in the beginning that says "a ten-minute walk." I can tell you that I am going to be fifty-something and it takes me a lot longer than ten (10) minutes to walk anywhere between Lihu`e, Hanamd'ulu, and Puhi. I am a little concerned about a time limit block put on where we put housing. Another one of my bigger concerns is the term "affordable," which is not affordable. I have said this many times for many bills that please make sure that when you call these affordable and that it really is, and in my opinion, that is between thirty percent (30%) and fifty percent (50%) of somebody's income, not perhaps the State's income, which is very high, because we have billionaires living in our State, but things that actual workers can pay and the reason why is because Lihu`e and Puhi are now the center of most of the jobs, other than hotels on Kauai. They have all of the "Big Box" stores and all of the restaurants that people eat in; second only to Kapa`a, which has the largest population. However, a lot of our population in Kapa`a are traveling to Lihu`e for work and also in KSloa and all of these other areas. If we want to reduce traffic, especially in Kapa`a, we need to make sure that people have lovely apartments to live in that are for workers, not for rich people coming from the mainland or people that can afford a lot of money a month. We want to make these rental units affordable for someone that is earning an average wage on Kauai, which is not that high ,which means we cannot look at some astronomical so-called "affordable" label for these units. I also want to make sure that people who have illegal units right now that are trying to rent them to people can make them legal, but it is not so much red tape that they give up and continue to be illegal, which is exactly what people will do. These PL COMMITTEE MEETING 4 JANUARY 3, 2018 are some of my concerns. Because I am going back to school, this is my only chance to come here until May and the only other way I have to express my opinion is through E-mail, but I just wanted to come here today and personally state how I felt. Mahalo. Thank you. Committee Chair Chock: Would anyone else like to testify? If there is no more discussion, Members, I would like to entertain a motion to defer. There being no further testimony, the meeting was called back to order, and proceeded as follows: Councilmember Yukimura moved to defer Bill No. 2627, Draft 3, to the February 28, 2017 Committee Meeting, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro, and unanimously carried. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:46 a.m. Respectfully submitted,a Codie K. Tabalba Council Services Assistant I APPROVED at the Committee Meeting held on January 31, 2018: MASON K. CHOCK Chair, PL Committee