with the planning committee meeting of august thirtieth two thousand and sixteen please come to order it is now nine zero zero two my name is don couch i'm the chairman of the committee first things first let's turn off all  noise making devices cell phones on stun please ok joining us today is the committee vice chair robert carol it was morning council member gladys mr white council chair white will become unit a few minutes as well neither of our non voting members are here from the administration we have will spend to director of planning department good morning and aaron w e planner of the small town planner i guess good morning and we have deputy corporation counsel michael hopper and morning and legislative attorney greg our no ok good morning and from the moment i district office we have el al blog good morning members we have one item on the agenda did a its p c thirty three country town design guidelines for the kalani cool area first run open public testimony and anybody testifying in the chamber please sign up at the desk outside the chamber door if testifying from the remote sites please sign up with the district office staff testimony will be limited to the item listed on the agenda today and pursuant to the rules of counsel you will be allowed three minutes to testify and one minute to conclude will be using the lighting system the green light will be on for three minutes then the yellow light will be on for one minute asking you to start wrapping up your comments and then the red light will be on and we would like you to stop your comments because that's four minutes when testifying please state your name and any organization you may be representing members without objection will open public testimony no objections ok first and only person signed up to testify in the chambers is rosemary robbins and while she's going down want to welcome member victory no who were just wonderful and helping me to get to where i needed to call didn't make the calls they're identified on the phone did not get any response so let's  how this is going to go the first thing and only thing that we have on our agenda this morning is the county communication number fifteen to fifty three  and its purpose is to be able to adopt county country excuse me town and just i'm guidelines for the michael any call the area i drove down from the of this morning and there was a double rainbow did you see that morning the agenda identifies county communication fifteen dash two five three so i got ahold of it yesterday on the seventh floor  it's a communication and from a director of planning ok and it says in here that even though in one nine hundred ninety two there were never circulated names for the signatories for this to have had a go to begin with so over a quarter century ago and they just now have come up with this this is dated year and twenty fifteen and september i got a consultants spencer mason architects war and amaury engineering incorporated so i tried yesterday to get a hold of the minutes of the meetings or any of that that would have been re ant and i called over to director's telephone and talked with a couple of ladies both of hung up and g information not a good deal so in talking about this resolution today it does identify that since one thousand nine hundred two nobody has picked up on this and they would like that to go through in a  hurry i did go through those materials yesterday and it talks about a current date for the outfits that are up in cola in this morning's newspaper with one eye and people having been told about what they can and can't do based on decisions that were not from them were facing the same thing so please don't let this go through today without having  members seeing no one here in the chambers other than miss robbins who did testify it was out objections were closed public testimony ok public testimony is closed thank you ladies all right members this is a county communication from planning director requesting that the council adopted by resolution the design guidelines for the money cool the area they were reviewed by the ma planning commission in one thousand nine hundred two but never finalized the department also requested that the five reference maps in volume one exhibit a to the resolution be updated to show the properties that are now zone would be c t which a country town business district in chapter nineteen point one five maui county code according to the planning director there were two sets of updated maps for the committee to choose from the first set shows the b c properties only while the second set shows both the b c t properties as well as properties with other business sone the department also mentioned that they are preparing significant changes to chapter nineteen point one five county code and will later be seeking to mend all of the design guidelines for small towns it's also important to note that pursuant to ordinance number three four one seven and two thousand six the council in council imposed a requirement that design guidelines and standards be adopted by resolution of the council prior to two thousand and six design guidelines were adopted as rules by the respective planning commissions the code and in fact when the guideline to reviewed by the planning commission since one thousand nine hundred two required one review and comment by the urban design review board and to review by the commission at an advertised public meeting in the current country town and public hearing in the community plan district current law maui county code section one thousand point five one zero point one between the requirements in one thousand nine hundred two and today is that the design guidelines were previously adopted by rules and now a council resolution is required members i would first at first like to ask the department to explain based upon their review of the records the steps undertaken by the urban design review board and the planning commission to review the design guidelines i would like to confirm that the requirements for review and comment by the urban design review board and a planning commission public meeting upcountry and a public hearing before the planning commission were all satisfied i would then like to confirm with a different corporation counsel that the review process used in one nine hundred ninety two meets the requirements of the current code and that there are no all the business owners that we've encountered that at least that i'm aware of how sought to comply with these everybody has a vested interest in in keeping their country towns you know in that character so the this was something that gosh i forget when we discovered that it was never it was never formally adopted it was several years ago so we're just seeking to correct that omission and have them formally adopted by council my understanding  the deputy director was in charge of this project and my understanding is these absolutely were reviewed by the urban design review board at that time as well as the planning commission and we're working on confirming those exact dates for you i wrote i wrote a letter on june fourteenth twenty sixteen with questions relating to the amount of time that passed since the guidelines were reviewed by the planning commission and the proposal to include the reference maps my understanding is that you don't see a problem with the adopting the guidelines now or including the maps even though that they're not the same maps is that the u d r be in the planning commission reviewed can you  expand upon that please well mr chair the code doesn't have a date well currently the requirement is that the urban designer view board in the planning commission review as well prior to council approval and at the time review planning commission review and then council adoption the code doesn't specify a period of time between the planning commission review and the council review it is fully within the council's authority if it would like based on the time passed to request that the planning commission provide it's your view and comments that that's an option if the council believes that that review in the past was was adequate at this time and that the guidelines are adequate it does have the ability to pass the guidelines by resolution it could amend the guidelines or add to them as well at this point and i think that's where the maps would would comment if the council wants to make amendments to these maps which i understand were  are basically reference maps and not actually regulatory maps and perhaps the department can confirm that that that's not a problem i mean the council does amend ordinances frequently when it when it gets them from the planning commission prior to adoption and it has the ability to do that with these which are adopted by or by resolution if it would like again this is at the council's option but i would not a strictly legal failing in based ok just want to confirm that everything because there's there is no requirement in the code that we do it that they would have had to do the signatures right away in one thousand nine hundred two and since the code changed in two thousand and six now that we have to do a resolution the guidelines have been changed to the county is already using those guidelines and and people who are doing any kind of building in those districts are using those guidelines and nothing has changed between now and then except for the maps because if you look at some of the old businesses they're not there anymore but other businesses are in their place is that correct mr spencer mr hopper that's correct ok yes mr victory no you know and thank you major changes these are really was the guidelines you folks use however is it prudent because we've made other changes in other districts as far as the way we conduct changes in  to make sure that and again i hate to see go back to the planning commission but to have them we view to me should that these guidelines that you're presently and the changes that have occurred are appropriate i don't know the status off keeping i got that but i just think that maybe maybe we ought to have a review by them so that they'll be no conflict they'll be no challenge if someone can say well it took you nearly thirty some odd years of twenty some odd years almost already going to close to thirty to get this finally signed off on in the meantime i challenge any court because it may be illegal i don't publicly answer that legal issue but that's my question why did not have zero and again i know the planning commission is busy i realize that they don't they have just not been an absolutely nothing on their to me the design guidelines because there's there are and there's no change to the text in any way in fact we have discussed a series of text changes that probably should be made moving forward but as chair couch explained we want to bring those forward in a really methodical manner and follow the appropriate process and things but because these have been in place and as you know i administered these they really essentially now in these districts and have been since i started and since frankly these went to the planning commission these have been used exactly as they are written now and as we brought them to you the only in the only new piece being the maps the maps today aren't accurate in that the businesses have changed and there wasn't geographic information systems at the time so there are a couple of properties that are identified as country town business in the that actually aren't a country town business there either be one or be two so that is cleared up in the new revised maps just to indicate you know a couple of these were in accurately identified that's really the only change right now in terms of an operational perspective it assists staff to formalize these now because otherwise we essentially have no design guidelines for  and that the smaller subdistricts within them so you'd be relying solely on staff discretion without the design guidelines to identify what's appropriate for those districts as a refers to in one nine hundred fifteen having these as  possibility of challenges because we've waited so many years and somebody think hey you know how i got a problem but i will you waited twenty some odd years to get to me i'm asking that question a particular  e this topic if we're going to get into specific potential legal challenges i think that's something i would need to discuss in executive session with the with the committee well i'm talking broad stroke do you believe that could be a problem  now that quote the cat's out of the bag could that be a problem and that's that's all i'm asking again i still think that's trying to evaluate even in the broad broad sense of yantra legal claim against the county and my assessment of that claim i don't want to make that on on the record at at this point i mean there's generally speaking there's always a possibility of a claim in every case and you know that whether it would be successful or not i think i would want to evaluate that in executive session and and dumb and then the other question is you found in the years ago how many years ago did you find him to dispense appreciate that thank you jeff go ahead mr spence i think the intent is a at some point you know these these are dated one thousand nine hundred two and i think all of our country town design guidelines deserve attention and updating until hopefully it doesn't take as long as as these have to get to you but in the meantime this gives us some authority in which to act as erin said she said and then it's not just the the discretionary opinion of staff we like to in stuff like this we would like to eliminate some of our discretion and actually have guidelines we can fall back on and say oh no mr business owner you really do have to follow these the as i business country town i don't have to follow these all right yeah true but you're also in the us a man so i mean so you know there there are times when people question whether they have to follow them or not and the more authority that we have with adopted guidelines you know the better as noted there are some businesses from some properties that are not zoned business country town they formally don't have to follow these guidelines but we certainly encourage all property owners in our country towns to do so at some point we would like to see even those b one b two businesses b business country town was a little bit busy at the time members anybody else have any questions or comments white happy to see that we're addressing this i think it's very important that we adopt them i want to get that done and of course i'm more interested in the  fourth changes that you're going to propose because i'm sure that those have been well worked on and you're ready to propose something that will be helpful and make correct if there are any problems with these guidelines i'm sure that's where you're going and so for me i'd like to make it informal get it done so that you have a legal basis for what you're doing and it is what you're doing so i think it's important that we have standing for those and then anxiously await maybe i'll still be around by the time those proposed changes come and if not i still can come and participate right on thank you thank you ms price and miss cochran think it's fair and thank you department for bringing this forward after all this time but there were certain areas that a feeling so first off we need to accept this officially in order for you to make changes as your same way the methodical changes that you folks are looking to do we have to first accept it is and then you can make changes to it i would say you don't have to accept it right now as it is i mean we could wait till we go through the whole revision process and bring it forward again but that's going to be a couple years of a way  we would rather have would rather have something for a staff to hang their hats on right now and then because these these go a long way towards the a car what we're trying to accomplish anyway delaying it would just take that much more time staff would be using their discretion  where we would much rather have these to fall back on officially ok i understand that there's just some key things though that i know we've done within my term here in the lad you know accepting to do up relating which i don't see how people would be accepting of that nowadays and the lighting types i'm wondering because we did in these now into our street lighting and  there is a bullet point in that section that says lamps of energy efficient design recommended so perhaps just that simple general verbiage will include l e d s as the different types of ladies that we have  implemented and then the landscaping plan there's a lot are really horrible invasive in there which today we are fighting tooth and nail to get rid of them such as the strawberry guava that work in tulip the for most of course so i mean a list of things in this existing document that a fink would deem some changes now but you know so these are just things that jumped out at me out of the two hundred thirty three pages are browsed through and also on page twenty six second to last bullet point and i was just up and i noticed the reverse into from purple on the super red and i go wow that's really dangerous because i was trying to navigate out going whoa and it does have a recommendation there back from twenty four years ago to change that to make a diagonal and that has not occurred so i mean there's things in here that have recommendations that i think should have an ought to be already implemented in that aspect  because it's a safety issue sure traffic concern so that's my point chair just browsing through this document so hopefully i mean if we are to accept that great but i just see glaring things that i would like that these guidelines need to be changed with things like the parking at the super at they've been there so and probably before i was born and you know when i species so just so you know we are double checking the same thing with the up lighting we went through that in the hyena even though it's not a country town business district but they had those open glass fixtures before and we had to change them to a down  lighting downward shield and we just worked back and forth with the with mico and the culture resource commission at the time to identify the appropriate fixture so if there is ever a conflict will work through it and thank you very myself i complain because people park on the side of the road instead of in the parking lot and it's hard enough you go back and help but then you got people to park outside a parking lot on the side of route and then they were parking across the road the fire hydrant cleared out and now there are installed no parking signs in that area outside of the parking lot but people continue to park there because they have for centuries in the not about to stop it and we have to have a full time policeman there to make sure that they get ticketed and get them out of there but it is something that you know it's not been ignored it's been the subject of a lot of community conversation but people seem to like the way it is it's one of those icons in the community and this past week and of course the road was closed to any service because there's some construction going on and the whole community was a bit in arms because when you can't get to anymore or is that just an error i just want to double check because that's the only differences i saw in all the maps mr chairman the maps that are in these nine hundred ninety two guidelines they identified the business properties they did not identify businesses own properties necessarily ok so if you recall i think it was like hundred ninety eight the council went through a process of zoning within the urban state urban district all those interims own properties that were identified as business ok so if it had existing zoning on it we didn't touch it only if it was interim and it was identified in the community plan as business we proposed zoning business country town for those properties in this particular case ace i think was already zoned business the cafe and where the mr parker is appraisal business used to be anyway right those were identified on the community plan so we went ahead and zoned them and that's why it's identified as business on the more updated plan dated amount of business across the street is not its own business  and i'd have to look into the specifics of that i'm not sure why ok and i know the know how long it's been there for every was a gas station apparently according to the ninety two all right members  if you don't have any more questions i don't see any issue with sending this out because unless mr cochrane you have some concerns that but they're talking they're talking that they take care of the invasive species and the up lighting the other ordinances so they're good with that rain and thank you for the acknowledgment on that  hear they are well aware of the concerns that i that i brought out so i'm i'm ok at this wonderful right so in a couple years there's a major change is going to be in one thousand and fifteen is that correct or all the guidelines proposed resolution entitled adopting country town design guidelines for the kalani area incorporating the updated maps and we will discuss which ones in to exhibit a to the proposed resolution in file maps at the beginning of the communication one that has just the b c t zoning and another set that has a b c t zoning as well as other business owning is the church recommendation to use the second set to show just what other business relationships are around unless anybody has any objection to that ok and there was some concern testimony about you know public input public input was had when this was created a long time ago several meetings it was confirmed by the department and nothing has changed since then and there are new changes coming about and there will have ample public meeting public hearings both at the commission level at the prior to that you'd be level in a few other levels so i'm fine with passing this out right now and would requested everybody consider that when their deliberations are in their thoughts so any other comments i want to thank the department for finally getting this to us right now that being said thank you members this is as he said it was a housekeeping matter and i wasn't sure if we're going to have long discussions on the guidelines or not so i only had this one item so as this is very unusual that we're ending this planning committee meeting before ten o'clock this meeting is a