Aloha and good morning. Welcome to the 21st session of the Policy Committee on Planning, Land, Use and Development. Today is Wednesday, October 2, 2024. I'm calling this committee meeting to order at 9.02 AM. Present here for committee are Council members Cindy Evans, Jennifer Coguata, Matt Canaley-Ekrain-Fother, Heather Kimball, Holaca Inaba, Michelle Galimba. Okay, council members, Rebecca Villegas and Sue Lee Loy are on route and we'll be joining us shortly. Before we move on to business for today, Mr. Clerk, if you could please open it up to public testimony. Thank you. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Just noting that we do have a number of testifiers here in the Heelow Chamber in via Zoom. I do know that we have a couple of testifiers in Kona. So Scott, if you'd like to start us off with your two testifiers, and then we can come back here to Helo so that we can round it all around. Thank you, Rade. We have John Casey in opposition of Bill 121 this morning to be followed by Gordon Lindquist also in opposition of Bill 121. John, go ahead and state your name for the record and proceed. You'll have three minutes. Good. Aloha. My name is John Casey. I am a resident south of here, but first off, I it's my fourth visitor. I want to shout out a thanks for Scott, who man's the door with such great dignity and positivity. Pure Aloha man. First I give. So loha again, I have been spending my tourism dollars here on the Hawaiian Islands actually for 48 years if that first came with my parents when I was 18 years old. A full time resident, South Captain Cook. We have a small lot we purchased in Cone of Paradise. In the last couple of years, I've invested $600,000 in upgrading the property to code which is what the county would like us to do. It's been 40,000 alone just on the septic system. And I tried to do pure Hawaiian families the whole way and have made some amazing friends to dwell over a year. But we've been supporting them. And now I just received my tax bill. And it has risen to $7,600. So staggering to say the least working off of retirement. Social security, things like that. We have one bedroom Airbnb. We charge $119 to use. We've had over 200 people. Love us as we love the area and we share that with all the people around. For me just for that tax bill alone, that's 64 days or nights I have to rent my property just to pay for that bill, not including the $400 50 monthly fee for electric. The gas food, crazy prices. I don't know how anybody can afford to live here much less myself, locals, and so on. It's staggering. And I definitely want to highlight that we can't tax our way out of a situation. We've got to think differently and unique and so on. So to me today's a new day, I've been here multiple times, but it is a new day. It feels like a new day, been here multiple times, but it is a new day. It feels like a new day. I'm breathing a new day. I'm hoping for a new listening, a new space that shows up today in a way that wasn't there before. So as far as hotels I travel for a living on business, well as in sales, well over 10 years of my life in a hotel room, I started looking up on where the income comes from, hope for Hawaii and a quarter of it comes from the economy of tourism. So between May and July, just here on the, our island, there are 461,000 visitors which brought in $819 million based on your site. I would say based on that, a minimum third. There it is. Okay, third of the people staying here are Airbnb's. And you take away that. That's $273 million this court quarter. We pretend Airbnb's are bad or dangerous or taking away, but in actuality their value is $80 to $100 billion in valuation, more than the Marriott, more than the Mahayat, more than the Hilton. VBRO was just purchased by Expedia. Marriott offers me more bonus points if I book condos and rooms with them. I can book the Outrigger on Airbnb because people go there to book from industry because the industry, they're freaking out. It's not the same old deal. It's like Uber. Thank you Gordon. Your time is thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. That was John. Excuse me. Yep. Go ahead and go ahead and state your name for the reference. See Gordon, Linquist, Kaya Lua, I guess I've been here more than four times. And the questions keep going around in my mind. When I see the agenda come up and I see that this here once again, you want to have this heard today and there's the proponents of the bill actually want it passed on first reading. And so the question I have and hopefully you'll answer this when you're discussing today. Why did you pass an ordinance to get an economic impact study done, which in all accounts, according to what I've heard, won't be done into early next year. And everyone but one of you, I believe, voted for that. And yet you want to proceed today to pass this bill as has been amended in a few good areas, but it's still a very flawed bill and it's still a bill that will cause economic disaster to this island because of some of the portions of the bill that still remain. Now, either you do something and show integrity and delay this bill until after the economic impact report and study comes out to show you the exact and true impact this will have on people like me, my wife, people that we employed to clean our places, people that we employed to do our landscaping. And the guests that come and spend lots of money on excursions and restaurants because they can afford to stay in a home that's reasonably priced, priced at least half, if not less than half, of the cheapest hotel in Kona. So those guests won't be coming, I propose. And the end, excuse me, the economic impact study will tell you this. I urge you to delay this. Otherwise voting for this economic impact study would just deploy to get you past the August election. I hope that's not true. I hope you show integrity today and delay this bill until you actually have some information in front of you in which to base any future amendments on. Thank you. Thank you. Go over here, Tess. Thank you so much to our testifiers. Chair, our next testifier will go out to our Kohollis site to have our next testifier. Jessica, if you here, Tess. Thank you so much to our testifiers. Chair and next testifier will go out to our Kohala site to have our next testifier, Jessica, if you could. Thank you. Our only testifier today is Hope Aloha Rani Sermalge commenting on Bill 134 representing herself and the Kingdom of the Inuang Islands government. Hope you'll have three minutes. When you begin, please restate your name to the record. Hello, counsel, up here in beautiful, Polhalla, Bill 134, draft two. Oh, kudos to that last man who just spoke. If you don't have the impact study, how can you vote on this? Come on. This immense chapter 25 Bill 134 draft to adds a provision requiring the planning director Zen No, who was mentioned many times last night at our Kohala General Plan Hui meeting of the Hawaii County Code on 1983 related to amendments initiated by property owners and other persons. This adds a provision requiring the plan director Zendo to submit a subject area building entitlement report to the Aclifical Planning Commission and the County Council for each change of zoning district application, the report would identify permits, approvals, and other lawful entitlements. I wonder what those are, lawful entitlements. Allowing for the construction of a building and or buildings on any parcel of land with went in a quarter mile radius of the parcel for which the change of the zoning direction is district is sought. What is the date resendant to do this number one? Number two, this is Councilman Aghara and Cindy doing this one. And there is a motion by this councilperson, and a second by Cindy, to recommend passage of this bill. There's no dates. When is Zendol going to have this done to give to the Planning Commission? And our meeting last night, you guys, council was the most well attended I've seen since I've moved up here three years ago. People are speaking out and they want to be heard. The general plan to me is a waste of tax dollars, but I've been working on this with even old John Olson when I lived in Poonahon, you guys, Matthew and Ashley, let's get her done. Do right by the people. Ho-oh-pono-pono, because the kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands government is here, and we're not going anywhere. In Jesus holy name, thanks guys. Please make it right. Ho-oh-pono-pono. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you so much for our testifier. Chair, your next two testifiers are here in the Heelow Chamber. Robert Golden, to be followed by Mark Sidmore, both testifying on Bill 121. Robert, once you begin, you can just hit that green button at the base of the mic. And if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes. Aloha. Hello, it's great to be here on this beautiful day. It's a real privilege. I always enjoy coming to Council, rather than speaking on this Zoom connection from Baja. It's very personal. And also, I just want to say today's my birthday. So for me, it's a present to come here to share that with you. I'm here to speak about Bill 121. Gordon from Kylooh Conor really spoke my key point. I don't understand why we're having this conversation now. I'm looking forward to reading the economic report and then having a conversation about Bill 121. So I don't understand why we're going forward with that. I do, so that's point 1.2, is after the economic study is done, I really would appreciate what Heather and Ashley did in the beginning when they brought up this bill, they had Zoom sessions. is after the economic study is done, I really would appreciate what Heather and Assy did in the beginning when they brought up this bill, they had Zoom sessions with interested parties about this bill, and there was communication, and it was back and forth. But that has not happened since those initial Zoom meetings we had, and I hope they will resume. Because when I looked at Bill 121 this morning, I had to stop reading after 30 pages long, it was details, much of it over my head, and that separates, I believe, the people from the government. And we want to bring them together, and that happened on that Zoom call. I, just a few more points because I have submitted a written testimony. I hope, beg and plur, that the council will support every effort to raise the business climate here in Hawaii and what you can do on the county level. As you know, Hawaii's ranked very low down on business climate here in the highway of bringing in businesses and Reading 121 it was a further example of that. I don't quite understand why it's important to say where you can have a guest stay Where you cannot leave it up to the individual person as long as in that breaking you know being a nuisance to their neighbors As long as they're collecting people are filing taxes, that's the important point. I find the level of control overreach from the county regarding the short term vacation rental's outstanding. And I just hope you would simplify this and make it easier for people to do good work and when they're not doing good work, hold them accountable for that. You know, people if they're not paying taxes. 30 seconds. Should be held accountable. So please, table this bill, let's resume at the Economic Report and continue with conversations with the people in the county and build this community up. Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next testifier is Mark Sidmore, testifying on Bill 121 and then we can transition to Alex Folsom via Zoom. Mark, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes. Hi, I'm Mark Sidmore. I live in Pahoa, and I'm pretty much here to talk about the amendment to allow contiguous lots to satisfy the requirement of being hosted vacation rentals. Our lots are 9,000 square feet. We cannot get mixed use insurance. A lot of people through the islands and the world can just get a rider on their policy to cover their vacation rentals. We don't have that option. That's called mixed use where you live and front of business on the same parcel. We can get very expensive commercial insurance or our homeowner's insurance through HPIA. But I know this council has already asked the state to extend HPIA to commercial and mixed use, and that fell on deaf ears. So the only way that we can comply with 121 is to allow our neighboring lots, because many of us buy two, three lots, because they're so small just to get something done, even though they're ag. I have three lots, one is vacant. I live on one and the other is a vacation rental and still too small to do any agricultural per seed on other than maybe bees. I do echo the sentiments of the economic study and I really sincerely hope that in that study it dresses the insurance issues because I know that there are other places around the island with the fire danger or the erosion to the ocean where insurance isn't being written and that's not even in lava zones one and two. So this does apply island-wide, although specifically in lava zone one and two is what I know about and we won't be able to ensure if we consolidate our lots. So I've already consolidated the vacant lot with one of the lots so that we can solidate our lots. So I've already consolidated the vacant lot with one of the lots so that we can adhere to the parking regulations. But vacant lot doesn't get insurance, so it hasn't been an issue. So that's all I really have to say. I am in support of the spirit of 121, although there's still quite a few hidden traps in there one about the parking, where it's been discussed in council that it'll be up to Mr. Kern, how many parking spaces are needed. Like, we have a five bedroom vacation rental. Most of it is extended families where different family members live around the country and they'll come together. They have one or two cars, where it's still written written in one 21 that you need a parking space for bedroom Which would require six parking spaces which Way to 30 seconds please we've never had six cars the most we've ever had with three cars And that's for five bedrooms and usually three different families will come together with the kids and the grandkids and stuff like that Which hotels are just you know? They're priced out We're not people with means and the people who come to Pune are not people with means and stuff like that. Which hotels are just, you know, they're priced out. We're not people with means and the people who come to Pune are not people with means. They're just people who want to spend time at their family and enjoy our islands. And we have no hotels over there. So that vacation destination area is really a good idea and that's very workable. But we need to be able to comply with 121 through the continuous law. Thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you. Chair, at this time we'll transition to Zoom. Your first testifier being Alex Folsom to be followed by Eric Clawner. Alex, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you have three minutes. Mala, chair, council members. My name is Alex April and I'm a senior policy manager at Airbnb. Mallow for the opportunity to comment today on Bill 121 related to transient accommodation rentals and hosting platforms. Airbnb appreciates the effort of Hawaii County Council and the progress made to create a sustainable short-term rental program. The Council recently passed a resolution requesting an economic impact study on short-term rentals and their effects on the island's economy. We strongly urge the council to complete the important study to better understand the potential negative impacts of Bill 121 before moving further to enact further legislation. In its current form, Bill 121 creates onerous registration requirements and confusion for residents who currently host but are unsure if they if they will be able to in the future. The measures economic consequences could be severe and have a lasting adverse impact on the livelihoods for generations of residents who rely on tourism. We urge you all to simplify the rules, license requirements and the registration process and to create clear guidelines for those who can host. As mentioned, we strongly encourage the County of Hawaii to follow through on the resolution to conduct an economic impact study on short-term rentals and their effects on the Hawaii County economy before moving forward with Bill 121. We're committed to work with lawmakers on fair rules that address local concerns while also protecting the economic benefits of home sharing for homeowners and local communities that rely on tourism. Mahalo. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next testifier is Eric Kloninger, testifying on Bill 121 before we transition back to Kona. Eric, when you begin, you'll have three minutes if you could just reintroduce yourself. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Eric Clawninger. I'm a principal of Clawninger and SINS consulting, a Honolulu-based consulting firm specializing in research and analysis of Hawaii's lodging market. My firm was retained by TravelTech, a trade association representing travel agencies, travel management companies, and short-term rental platforms, to analyze the fiscal and economic impacts of spending by visitors to Hawaii Island who stay in short-term rentals. Visitors staying in short-term rentals on Hawaii Island represent a substantial share of the island's visitor market. Our analysis of data provided by the State of Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, and that visitor staying in short-term rentals represented over 40% of the island's total visitor days in 2023. In addition, in 2023, visitors staying in short-term rentals on Hawaii Island generated the following, $1.3 billion in visitor spending, $24.8 million in Hawaii County, EAT, and GET. Debat has calculated economic multipliers associated with various types of economic activity. Part of every dollar, a visitor spends, generates additional economic activity in the local economy, such as payments to suppliers, wages paid to employees, and wages paid to suppliers, employees, et cetera. When the deep-ed economic multipliers for visitors spending are applied, the $1.3 billion in spending by visitors staying in short-term rentals on Hawaii Island last year, translated to $2.4 billion in total economic output, $670 million in earnings, and 14,000 jobs. As Hawaii County policymakers consider new provisions for short-term rentals on the island, I urge them to consider the fiscal and economic impacts that will result from reducing the number of short-term rentals in the county. Thank you for your time today. Thank you so much for your testimony, Scott, if we could take your next testifier in Kona. Thanks, Ray. Our next testifier here in Kona is Joe Schleckenberger in opposition of Hill 21. Joe, go ahead and state your name for the record for a seat. You have three minutes. This is Joe Schneckenberger from Kona. And the short version is that there is no rational reason for going forward with this before we get the economic impact study. The longer version is it seems like deja vu all over again. As you've heard from other people we've come back again and again and this bill was first floated several years ago and consistently it has been more than nine to one against the bill, and yet the bill continues to move forward. So if there's no rational reason to go forward before we have the economic impact study, one wonders what is the reason. The council should be spending its time figuring out the green waste problems, fixing the roads, fixing the beach parks, and fixing the public restrooms rather than focusing on this bill, which the public of the county are against more than nine to one. So is there some reason we would like to hear what that reason is when you do discuss it? Perhaps some of the counselors that are not aware of what the reason is might bring up the question so that we can get the answer. Why is this bill being pushed forward when the citizens of the county are against the bill more than 9 to 1? And an impact study is going forward and there is no rational reason to even consider this bill until the impact study is complete. So perhaps there is some other reason that we of the county do not know about. It seems logically that there might be some force, some money behind the scenes that is pushing this bill to go forward, since otherwise, it would wait rationally until the economic impact study is completed. Or perhaps it would wait rationally be stopped completely since again and again, it has been 9 to 1 against the bill. From the very beginning when it was voted and put on the internet, it was like 95% against only 5% for the bill. And as we've heard testimony again and again, it has always been against the bill far more than for the bill. But still the bill trudges forward. There's something behind the scenes that is pushing this that the citizens of Hawaii are not aware of. Perhaps some of the counselors would come forward and say why they're pushing this bill when everyone or almost everyone in Hawaii is against it and again it makes no rational sense to go forward before the economic impact study is complete. I encourage you to table this bill or kill it completely. Again, thank you very much. Thank you, Joe, for your testimony. That concludes Test 1 here in Kona. Thank you so much, Kona. Chair, your next testifiers concludes Testman here in Kona. Thank you so much Kona. Chair, your next testifiers are here in the Heelow Chamber. Alex Kratzel, testifying on Bill 121122 and 212 to be followed by Joshua Mahaluk. Alex, or sorry, Axel, when you begin, you'll have three minutes per agenda item. If you transition between us, let us between them let them know let me know so that we can reset your time if not you have three minutes total. Green green button was it already on? I'm good. Okay. Hi. Good morning. My name is Axel. I'm a farmer and I run a bed and breakfast up on Kaviki Road. And I was actually recently awarded the special permit for the bed and breakfast. And I wanted to comment first on one 22. and I was actually recently awarded the special permit for the bed and breakfast, and I wanted to comment first on 122. What I wanted to bring up to the county council today was the fact that it looks like you guys are lumping a lot of different lodging categories all into one place. And that might actually not be good for the hospitality industry. So really a vacation rental And that might actually not be good for the hospitality industry. So really a vacation rental is completely different from say a hosted rental or somebody who's just hosting people in their home, or on their property, what it would live. That again is completely different from a bed and breakfast. That's where finding out because we're going down this path of, you know, we got this special permit. With the special permit, running a bed breakfast is a whole different operation. Air being B is not our primary channel. We go through the hotel channels, you know, pricelinehotels.com. And we, you know, the industry terminology is actually keys, how many keys you have. When you're talking about vacation rental, you're not talking about keys, you're talking about an independent home that's being rented its entirety. So I think it's not a good idea to remove the process that works very well, which is a special permit process for bed and breakfast, which actually allows an entry level to guys like me who might not have the money to go all the way into, above five keys, you go into ADA requirements and commercial code, below five keys, you can still operate professionally, but you can use a residential code. So, I mean, that process in place and should really stay there because it does distinguish between hosts that are willing to go the extra mile. We know our tax bill goes up and all that. And so I'm bringing all this up right now under 122 because I also want to speak about 121, which I'm not in opposition to, but I just want to make comments because I think this story about 122 reflects on 121 as well. Mainly, I will say this so I can go on record with the general public that the process we went through for the special permit was great. The planning office was great to work with. I mean, it was really a positive experience for us. And we're working in collaboration with them now to make sure that everything we're doing is up to code. We're under a bit more scrutiny. So really, I think you should not remove something that works well. It's not overwhelming the planning department. They don't really have a lot of applications because it does take a lot of work and it is expensive because you have to hire a consultant to go through all the paperwork. But it's a barrier of entry that's legitimate if somebody's really serious about hosting properly and being a hotelier as opposed to just a homeowner host. So that ends my testimony in 122. I'm going to go to 121 which is that 121 should really try to take into account and build a sandbox for that market segment that represents hosted rentals. It's different from the vacation rental people live on the property and you know I know how hard it is to make ends meet here in Hawaii. There's just, we're not Honolulu. We can't go downtown and get a six-figure salary here on the island. So, as you, I don't know enough about the details in 121 to get really go in there. And I know it doesn't affect me. But there is a market segment representing hosts is generally Airbnb. And you guys got to create a sandbox that really lowers the bear of entry for those folks to be able to operate without the burdens that we have as a bed and breakfast. The bed and breakfast has expensive insurance requirements. We're mixed use. So we have to get into a whole different insurance category and our business overhead is way, way higher, which also means that we have to be more serious about how we run the business. The people that are trying to survive on the island with a hosted rental ought to be given a little bit more of a playing field. And there is also an opportunity for Bill 121 to really push the agricultural and conservation sector in Hawaii. You know, with the new ruling coming from the Supreme Court in Hawaii, you can actually use Bill 121 to really encourage people to do farming while they're also hosting so you can define a farm state category. So I speak on that as a farmer, because that would be great for the island to have farmers being able to easily get into a farm state market and support the agricultural activities. We also do agriculture and our large supports are farm. 30 seconds. And then the last one is the 212 which As a farmer obviously encourage You know, we we need to be able to you know the cost of building has gone up and You know, we also have requirements or you know, we want need to build a better barn for our goats We have a number of requirements like that. So I really urge you guys to, I mean, I'm speaking out in support of Bill as Q12, right? Yeah, and in support of the Q12, which I think is great and will really benefit farmers. I'm surprised there's not more people here speaking up on that, but I think that's a great opportunity for us in Hawaii. So thanks for listening. I hope I kind of made it clear on the hospitality industry. Part of it. Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next testifier is Joshua Mehele testifying on bill 121 and 122 to be followed by David Louis. Joshua, when you begin, you'll have three minutes per agenda item if you transition. If not, you'll have three minutes per agenda item. If you transition, if not, you'll have three minutes total. Just reintroduce yourself as you begin, please. Aloha. My name is Joshua Mahalek, and I run an unhosted vacation rental here in Puna, specifically up in Mountain View. My first thing about Bill 121 is that, you know, I understand the desire to register hosted. I think it's a good idea. I think that if they're going to be in the same business as I am, that they should be required to follow the same laws that I'm following as an unhosted. My complaint would be that the unhosted are now being kind of prejudiced as, you know, you think that homes are not available for people, but the reality is is we have an unhosted one because we didn't wanna have people on our property. We wanted to have them away from us where we could have our own privacy on our own land and we own six acres if we put our house on one lot and the vacation rental and the other lot. Now it's considered unhosted. The property that we have as our rental is down the street from us. We're right there. They can get a hold of us anytime. I can be there in a short period of time and to exponentially make my fees three times what they are now and more than double what a hosted rental does. It just seems prejudice unfair. I believe it's an attempt to kind of punish people who are living off island and have vacation rentals here and I understand that desire but that's not always the case. And if that's who you're targeting then you should target them more specifically and not everybody who's on hosted because it doesn't necessarily fall under the same parameters. We pay all our taxes, the taxes, you know, go up every year, the fees have gone up every year, and it's getting to the point where it's, you know, you guys made more, or the county made more off of my taxes last year than I made off of the home as a rental, by several thousands of dollars. And in an attempt to remedy that, I tried to push those taxes onto the renter, which is who's supposed to be paying those taxes. And the reality is, as we get getting bookings, because the fees were so exponential that it went up from, you know, $700 to what they originally thought they were paying. So I've had to remove that and take those taxes and pull them out of my profits, which is not fair to me either. Thank you for that one. I would also like to speak on 122, although I do not own an Airbnb or I'm sorry a bed and breakfast. I do feel that they are a different kind of business. A lot of those businesses are agricultural farms that are doing farm stays and using this money to supplement their workforce as well as their income. And I think that they should be allowed to do that and fall under different parameters and looked at as a different business if these are being forced to be looked at as short-term rentals, I think they're going to lose a lot of their vitality and they're going to end up, those businesses may end up in trouble whereas as a bed and breakfast officially they've got a lot more options as to what they can offer. I know that I did not say that I was going to speak on to 12. I didn't know it was on the mark on the thing. I just want to say that I'm totally for it. I think that agricultural areas need to be able to have these green houses and not have to jump through a bunch of hoops to keep them and work them. Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair will transition back to Zoom at this time for David Louis and work them. Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair will transition back to Zoom at this time for David Louis testifying on Bill 121 to be followed by Janice Palmer-Glenney. David, once you begin, you'll have three minutes if you could just reintroduce yourself, please. Good morning. My name is David Louis. I've testified before. I'm the former Attorney General. I, for the state of Hawaii, I served under Neil Abercrombie. I understand that this bill has a certain amount of momentum at the council, but I urge you to hold the bill and to pause and be concerned about the problems and consequences that are going to arise from this. Litigation and damages are the primary things. I'm here to talk about the legal issues. My client is Airbnb. There are major constitutional issues that arise from this legislation. The major thing is that this legislation changes the definition of what are transient accommodation rentals, and suddenly makes rentals between 30 and 179 days illegal, inappropriate, and subject to fines. This discriminates against people and infringes upon the vested property rights of property owners who have been doing legal, lawful, appropriate activities and renting their homes out. There is substantial case law. The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals has ruled that these types of legislation violate the Hawaii Constitution, the United States District Court in Hawaii, Judge Watson, has previously ruled that short-term rental legislation along these lines is also unconstitutional and constitutes a taking. The fact that the state legislature changed HRS 46-4 does not change the equation at all because these are constitutional rights that are being infringed. You get into problems of unjust takings, which is under the Fifth Amendment, and that arises out of the Constitution. It makes the county liable for just compensation. So it's going to give rise to litigation, which will engender attorney's fees and it will give rise to damages against the county for unjust taking. So I urge you to hold this bill. There is also an equal protection problem. There are many constitutional dimensions here because now you're discriminating against out of state owners Who are 30 seconds behind what the host? So that's a problem. There's a doctrine called the zoning a stop-all doctrine Which says you can't change things suddenly to the detriment of people who rely upon it So I urge you to hold this bill There's going to be major constitutional litigation if you pass this. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next testifier is Janice Paul McGlennie, and then we can transition back to a testifier in Colno. But Janice will be testifying on bills one, two, one, two, two, one, three, four, one, eight, one, and-212. Janice, you'll have three minutes per agenda item if you transition. If not, you'll have three minutes total. Just let us know. And if you could just reintroduce yourself as you begin, please. Just wait. Aloha. Good morning, council members. My name is Janice Palma Glenny. And I live in Kailu, Kona. First I'm going to speak to go to one to I don't know whether to laugh I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I first read about bill to one to sorry to representative Kirkowitz who introduced it but it makes me wonder if she isn't trying to add to the insanity that is already a lack of safe permitted residences but just by the pretence that many people who build unpermaned structures for up to $25,000 on going to turn them into dwellings. Dwellings that are unsupported by the public infrastructure required to maintain balance and safety in our communities. Bill 212 seems like untimely and poorly conceivable legislation that begs for non-compliance. I ask council members to give this bill a thumbs down and instead focus on ways to encourage and help the county to comply with concurrency standards demanded by the likes of the Cona Community Development Plan so that we can achieve the higher goals of creating more livable homes and communities for our island people. I'm transitioning to bill 121 to start. I'd like to say that there are many parts of this bill that are worthwhile and protective of our communities. However, the allowance of operator hosting rather than strictly owner hosted is a huge flaw of Bill 121. An economic impact study is impossible to do properly and meaningfully because there's no consensus, no less worthwhile parameters to quantify the benefits to neighborhoods in the public, not encumbered by tourism and commercial activity. Is that piece worth $1,000, $100,000 or a million? But for sure, the real estate community and corporations like Airbnb are all for throwing their weight and money behind a study which will prove nothing. Residents don't already know, which is that they don't want or need more STBRs. And instead, they need more affordable housing. With the state Supreme Court ruling regarding STBRs on AgLAM, I'm assuming that further discussions about the bills need to be revisited. Though ostensibly related to only AgLAMs, the ruling should be front and center on all discussions about the BBRs before we move forward. As far as the amendment brought forward by Representative Kirkowitz regarding vacation area overlays, the timing of bringing this to the public isn't in keeping with goals of transparency and public inclusion. The public would hit the roof, knowing that a significant amendment to build 121 was but forward so late in the process. An amendment that could create frank blanket allowance of vacation rentals and neighborhoods where they're already in nuisance. In keeping with government openness and as it's suggested by council representative evidence at the last hearing, this body must bring the idea of vacation area overlays forward as separate standalone legislation. Otherwise, it's potentially devastating effects could become an unwielding part of already extremely complex legislation without proper purview by the public and a council perhaps tired of discussing and tweaking these bills as necessary to make them relevant and enforceable. Also, despite the time Chair Kimble has taken to explain the proposed bills, my next fence is that we're allowing more or not less as TBRs. And the goal of limiting them in the future is in clearly represented in the drafts of these bills. This is despite the widespread, even worldwide agreement that for a li, VSTVRs is wreaking havoc on local housing availability and costs. Ultimately, for the benefit of tourists and off-eiling investors, the public wants and deserves to be clearly where the bill directly addressed a winding down of the commercial activity in a meaningful timely manner. Mahalo for your hard work on these bills, for taking the vacation overlay discussion and met an out of bill 121 for skipping a useless economic study and for making clear 30 seconds on this one piece legislation is to create fairness for the people who live on this island not just for those who use our local housing as their cash cow And last Bill 181. It's hard to express my frustration and even despondency about the 2045 general plan process. Because of not wanting to waste more precious hours of my short life trying to use a platform that's been inaccessible to even the most tech savvy members of the public, I took the most extraordinary tack of not commenting on the final draft. That despite its importance to me because of the positive or ill effects this plan will have on the island I love and committed to protecting and call home. Go 181 is intended to prevent an unelected official or planners from you know, laterally deciding the fate of our community's future development, quality of life and the protection or not of cultural and natural resources. At this point, I'm not sure if this or any bill can stop the worst from happening, but without this bill, the worst could be expected. The recent general plan process has felt like a glitchy, uninclusive top-down experience, which I and many other members of the public have relayed time and again to planners. To planners who have put their heart and soul into the project, I feel bad saying that the results of the process have been more than frustrating and frankly undemocratic. None of us has time to take part in dog and pony shows, which is how the last round of so-called workshops felt. So without the ability of the public to meaningfully chime in through their elected council representatives with substantive changes before approval of the final draft, that's the point of having council meetings or for the public to take part in the process that could, in all honestly, on honesty, decided by one appointed official. The administration can't say they've given extensions, keep saying they've given extensions of public input and that the plan will be based on that feedback. But who would know except the members of the public who've noticed that their comments are missing from the final GP draft. From the get go, this administration has created an atmosphere where their lamuse agenda feels out of step with the public's needs and visions. The administration's support for the recent Conex Revista's project, extension for the backstab. For the sake of democracy and transparency, the body must air on the side of caution by allowing more rather than less public input. And for the Council to facilitate maximum community influence over the development map of their future. a lot of people are not able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be able to afford to be changes to the draft being allowed by elected council members before final approval of the plan bill 181 will help make that happen, but only if you give it and the concept of public inclusion and democratic process your full support. Thank you Kona for their next testifier. Thank you, Raleigh. Our last testifier here is Joshua Montgomery, and opposition of Bill 121. Go ahead, stay your name for the record. Welcome. My name's Joshua Montgomery. I'm a resident of Kalu, Kona. We've been having a discussion about this bill now for nearly two years. And I think that everybody's getting quite fatigued. The decision in the Rose Hill petition yesterday, last week really highlights and proves our point that we've been making since the get-go, which is that this bill is an effective ban on post-advocation rentals on Ag Grant, complete ban. The people who passed bill 108. They were told when they came to testify that they would be grandfathered in that they'd be able to get a permit. Right. That this wasn't a threat to their livelihood that at any time for any reason, if they were already operating, they could go out and and get the appropriate paperwork from the county and continue to operate. And it turns out that they were lied to. That wasn't true. If you were on Ag Land during Bill 108 you were operating that bill shut you down. This bill will do the exact same thing. No matter what language is put into the bill about being allowed to operate on Ag, it really comes down to whether or not the planning department is willing to issue those permits. And just like Bill 108, if Bill 121 passes, the planning director, either this one, who may say, oh, I'll issue them, or the next one who may be opposed to it, will refuse to issue those permits because their interpretation of state law. And so Bill 121 is an effective ban. And so that kind of raises the question. If you're living on 7,000 square feet of Ag land on a lot that probably never should have been zoned Ag Then you depend on this this industry for your income. What are you going to do? Right? If you run a small farm, I like we do that's supported by vacation rental income, but still is an active farm and still produces, you know, high quality coffees, what are you supposed to do? Right? And the other question comes down to, what are you making those sacrifices for? Right? You're shut down. You can't operate anymore. Great, you lose your livelihood. Many people will lose their homes. They will lose their homes. The people who are up here crying about this and talking about this and have been talking about it for quite some time have all told you they're going to be hurt, they're going to be damaged, they're going to lose their homes. For what? For community character, community character, right? The same language that was used to preserve the community character of white neighborhoods when blacks wanted to live in, move in, that's used to exclude poor communities and poor families from rich neighborhoods, community character. We want to preserve our community character. So you're going to lose your home. You're going to lose your farm. You're going to lose your livelihood. It's time to put this build a bed. You got your bill 123. People can build 80 years. Great. We can have infill development. We can develop new housing. This bill doesn't have anything to do with housing. It's time to put it to bet. It's time for the adults on the council to look at Heather Campbell and say no more. We're done. We're tired of hearing about it. Let's finish this. Let's vote it down. Let's be done with it. Mahalo. Thank you for your test, Ma. Thank you so much. Chair, your next testifier is here in the Heelow Chamber. I'm a Dale Markov, testifying on Bill 212. And then we'll transition to Heather Coroote on Zoom. Amadeo, when you begin, you'll have three minutes if you could just reintroduce yourself. Hi there, Council. Thanks for the opportunity to testify. My name is Amadeo Markov. I'm the president of Main Street, Pahoa, which is like our local Chamber of Commerce. I'm here to testify on behalf of the support of 2-12. I've been here so many times and talked about the economic impacts of the Kilauea eruption to Puna and lower Puna specifically in Pahoa town. We're still in crisis. Nothing's really changed. We lost all of our vacation rentals in Capojo and we lost much of our agricultural land. Anything that the council can do to help replace the lost vacation rentals and to help stimulate agriculture in lower Puna, they should put on the forefront of their agenda. I'm, you know, I only signed up for 212. It's so important to promote greenhouses in Lower Puna because we lost our soil. I mean I don't know if you guys have driven out there lately but it's mostly lava now. So if you want to stimulate agriculture in Lower Puna you need greenhouse farming and so I just urge you to pass this one. Also, obviously, we have really high Alice numbers, and we're one of the, our socioeconomic strata or cast down in lower Pune is significantly lower than the rest of the island. And so I can't speak to vacation rentals in Kona, but I can't speak to them in Puna. We need them. We need them desperately. We need to make it so that farmers can support their livelihood and the future of agriculture as much as people don't want to admit it or own it, is tied to tourism. And without that value added product that we can sell to residents and visitors, we really don't have an agricultural industry. The state's GDP is less than 1% for agriculture. It's 21% for tourism. Until you can tie tourism to ag, you don't have a sustainable industry. That's my testimony. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair will transition back to Zoom for our next testifier. Heather Karody testifying on Bill 121 to be followed by Mark Wong. Heather, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes. All right. Aloha and good morning. My name is Heather Karady, and I'm a 15-year resident of Captain Cook. Our family likes so many others in South Cona own live on and operate a small farm and tar as a way to make ends meet while also contributing to the local economy and the island's food sovereignty through commercial farming. I strongly and respectfully request the committee thoughtfully deliberates today. Diggs deep to understand the impact of decisions on farms and farmers and makes choices that support local farmers, agriculture and agricultural tourism, where farmers are living and working on a farm as well as hosting vacation rentals there. I'm very concerned about the financial impact of Bill 121 on farmers. Please do not underestimate how the supplemental income is critical for farmers to make ends meet and survive. Limiting or taking away the ability to augment farmers income with a tar would be devastating to many many farmers on the island. Pretty much they'd have to either get a job away from the farm, which would become a barrier to them farming or be forced to sell. And because of today's property values, most likely another farmer would not be able to purchase the farm, and it would go to someone with money and most likely no intention of forming. So this may seem extreme, but this is actually how critical it is and how impactful your decisions are on farms and farmers for this bill. You're making huge decisions today and in the upcoming months about the livelihood of farmers and their ability to make ends meet. My question is about whether this bill can be modified and expanded to ensure and incentivize local architecture and agricultural tourism for our owners. Can you put a burden of proof on farmers to show significant agricultural production if they want to operate a tar? And how can this bill protect and grow a critical part of our economy? One that is in desperate need of support, which is also called out explicitly in the CDPs and the general plan. I'm hoping to see the committee thoughtfully consider the impact of bill 121 on local agriculture and proposed solutions that will benefit farms and farmers, which are so vital to our island's values and needs. Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next testifier is Mark Wong testifying on Bill 121 to be followed by Chuck Flaherty. Mark, when you begin, you'll have three minutes if you could just reintroduce yourself. Hi, my name is Mark Wong. I'm a resident here in Oklahoma. I'm here today to oppose Bill 121, which presents excessive and unfair restrictions on transient accommodation rentals, particularly impacting small business owners, property operators and local communities. While the intent to regulate is clear, the bill takes on an overly restrictive approach that will have severe economic consequences. First, the steep registration fees such as the initial fees and burdensome annual renewal costs and fairly target small-scale property owners who depend on these rentals. The fee is applied the same way to a 300-square-feet studio bedroom as,000 square feet house in on a six acre or 10 acre estate. In today's economic environment, transient rentals provide much needed financial relief for many families, especially those in rural areas penalizing these operators through high fees and excessive administrative hurdles will eliminate this crucial source of income. Additionally, I take issues with prohibition of operator-hosted rentals in ag zoning. Many of our local ag communities rely on transient accommodations to generate supplemental income while maintaining their farms. They oftentimes hire an operator to live on the farm part time, well, sorry, live on the farm full-time and act as a manager for the transient accommodation rental with the Bill 121. It's not allowed anymore. Preventing operator hosting rentals in those zones places, undo strings on farmers and landowners who are already facing economic challenges. These rentals are often run responsibly and provide guestless unique stays that support our local back tourism industry. By restricting these accommodations, Bill 121.0 not only harms small operators, but also stifles innovation and growth in our agriculture economy. Moreover, limiting these rental opportunities reduces the availability of affordable accommodation options for visitors. Our visitor economy depends on diverse and accessible lodging and Bill 121 would narrow those choices by squeezing out ag operators and squeezing out small scale property operators. Making it harder for travelers to find affordable stays. This in turn would drive visitors to more expensive options, reducing their overall spending in our local businesses. 30 seconds, please. 30 seconds. Service providers who rely on tourist dollars. Rather than imposing those draconian restrictions, we should seek a balanced approach. We need regulations that address the concerns around transient accommodations while promoting responsible hosts to education and clear guidelines rather than burden some fees and zoning restrictions with faster compliance without destroying livelihoods or limiting economic opportunities. I would strongly suggest the council to consider waiting for the results of the economic. Thank you so much for your testimony, but we're going to have to move on. Thank you. Chair, your next testifier is Chuck Flirty testifying on bill 121 and 181 to be followed by Chris Adair. Chuck, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes per agenda item. If you transition, if not, you'll have three minutes total. Yes, sir. My name is Chuck Laird. I'm testifying today on behalf of the Senior Club, why Island Group. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. With regard to Bill 121, the one of the things that's really quite remarkable in the testimony that that's being heard is the lack of awareness of the impact on communities. Let's take Nopopo, Dominic Gialekiku, a bay for an example. The community is a very tight knit community, but increasingly because of the increase in the prices of real estate and for various other reasons, it's been very difficult for people to resist the prices that are being offered to them for their home. So there's been this transitioning into this vacation role in that community, which is one of the most sacred in all of the state. And so it's impacting the Ohana, the traditional and customary practices. And so the social and cultural impacts of the occasion of transient accommodation levels and that sort of area just doesn't seem to be in people's awareness. And I just hope that people will look into that. With regard to that, the visitor destination area, after looking at it on Kauai, which appears to be where this idea came from, it seems to be a failed experiment there. The real estate community, and buyers of sellers seem to be confused about where they are and what that impact is. So I have questions about that, but one thing I do wanna say is that it would be really advisable and wonderful for the people, the residents of Hawaii, if there would be at least a interim moratorium on any additional permitting of transient and combination riddles in residential zone areas. With regard to bill 181, I want to thank Council Member Holika Inabbo, very much for this very well considered bill. It was really wonderful to see the degree to which the council member heard the testimony from the over the past few months and understood the issues that have been, that have been, we've been facing. And this bill and the revisions to it, the amendments that are being proposed, are really, really excellent. And I just wanted to say thank you very much and obviously recommend passage of bill 181. We also were hoping that this 21-day period for public comment after the public workshops be extended to the sale at least 60 days because we're talking about a very complex document and even 60 days is really a lot of time. I mean it's not it's not enough time, really. In addition to that, this whole idea of workshops has been a question. Even the conveyor process, the software that was used, that people have been having trouble with, one of the problems is because the planning department didn't follow the stages of engagement that the consultant itself says need to be done in order for the public to be engaged and to understand. So that was a big flaw in the whole process. But I think Shurets, if you could put Shurets in there instead of workshops, Shurets are when people get together and actually get down into the meat of it and have conversations among each other with the planning department and other stakeholders. And so that's where people can really get on the same page and grind out a very complex document like that. So please support Bill 181 and consider the amendments that we're suggesting. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next testifier is Chris Adair testifying on Bill 121 to be followed by Alexa Boyer. Chris, when you begin, you'll have three minutes if you could just reintroduce yourself, please. Hello, my name is Chris Adair. I am from Caluacona, and I am speaking to you today in opposition of Bill 121. I want to just reiterate the same thing that everybody else who has testified in opposition of Bill 121. I want to just reiterate the same thing that everybody else who has testified in opposition has said. We passed a resolution for an economic impact study. I believe that we should look at the results of that economic impact study before making any significant changes, significant changes that could have a huge impact on our economy. I think that – sorry, just a minute, a second – passing Bill 121 will not solve our housing crisis and it will – while eliminating short-term rentals may seem like a logical step, it's not going to meaningfully increase the availability of any long-term rental units. Many of these homeowners who rent these units do so out of necessity, not because they're just greedy out of state investors. Lot of elderly residents, they rely on this for supplemental income, middle income families, rely on this to make their mortgage payments. And taking this option away is not going to suddenly turn these units into long-term affordable housing for our community. I believe that if we are looking at affordable housing, that's something that we should address. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me and I look forward to tabling this discussion until we see the results of that economic impact study. Mahalo. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next testifier is Alexa Boyer testifying on bill 121 and 122. Alexa, when you begin, you'll have three minutes on each agenda item. If you choose to transition, if not, you'll have three minutes total. Please reintroduce yourself as you begin. Good morning county council members my name's Alexa Boyer and I live on islands and have hosted short-term rentals and Battenbrack Fest in Kona. I wanted to ask the county council this morning to consider modifying the section and bill 121 that limits owners to register only one license per property and allow them to register all their existing short term rentals on their property if that requires more than one license. My understanding is this bill was created to regulate businesses and restrict future registration of new shortterm rentals and was not intended to put existing businesses out of business or have such a negative impact on resident's livelihood on island. I know it's hard to consider all the unique nuances to cover all made to allow existing businesses to stay in business, whether that's on farm add land or having more than one license, but allow them to continue operating. that may not be addressed or at fall outside of the current bill sections. That may allow businesses in many different categories to sustain their business and solve a lot of issues that people are having with the bill. I also wanted to speak on bill 122. I previously spoke to Mr. Jeff Darrell and County Council Member Kimball regarding a menvian section 8 to include protections for all bed and breakfast, including bed and breakfast approved via planning approval and not and do not have a use permit or special use permit issued. I didn't currently see the changes reflected in draft two of the bill. I don't know if there's another draft of the bill that it will be Incorporated into I just wanted to speak Today as a friendly reminder of the importance of this amendment to be made to protect all legal operating bed and breakfast and To be grandfathered and allow them to continue operating no matter how they were approved Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for your testimony. At this time, I want to reach out to an individual in the Zoom Room Rick Porter. Rick, if you'd like to provide testimony at this time, if you could unmute your mic and let us know. Rick Porter. Again, if Rick Porter would like to provide testimony, please unmute your mic. I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and Hello, BJ. Yep, I'm here. Would you like to provide testimony on which agenda item? I'm testifying on bill 121. Okay, at this time, if you'd like, I'll give you three minutes, provide your testimony. Just reintroduce yourself as you begin, please. Yeah, pick it up. Okay. I'm sorry. Hello. This is BJ Kaili May. Sorry. I'm here at a job site. The best I could do. Thank you to the council for letting me testify. I'm testifying regarding bill 1.21. So I am a resident Hawaii born and raised in Gilo, grew up in Waimea. I am a homesteader, a general contractor, and I'm a father of four. My oldest son got married last year, moved away to Idaho, unfortunately, could not afford Hawaii. My next son is getting married next year, was planning to move away, could not afford Hawaii. My wife and I were able to save enough money to buy a piece of simple property renovated and now we have as a vacation rental. I'm kind of in the middle of Bill 121. I understand the idea of stewarding our land and but my family kind of for to keep our kids here if we don't have something like this. This is a great way to diversify economy. It get creative to say to our kids, hey look we can buy a property rent and you might be able to come home and live here someday. Get creative, do something, do the right thing. I see this as an opportunity for my sons and daughters to live here. I've got a daughter who lives at home right now. My first grandson, I don't know if she's gonna move away. Doing everything we can to try and keep our kids here in Hawaii. Hey, be creative. Do something and call this bill the stay at home bill. Anyway, thank you for the opportunity and Aloha. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, noting that we do have one testifier who'd like to testify at the beginning of Bill 121. Those are all the testifiers you have at this time. Thank you, Rellie. I'm actually going to urge that testifier to provide their feedback now. As folks are aware today is a council meeting day. We have to start council meeting precisely at 1 p.m. Bill 121 will be the last thing that this body deliberates because there is a lot of information to move through. So I cannot say when we will be reconvening planning committee today. So again, encouraging that testifier to provide your remarks now or hang out with us for the next several hours. Thank you. With that being said, Jason Knifert, I'm sorry to be inviting testimony on Bill 121. Jason, if you could just reintroduce yourself as you begin. Absolutely. My name is Jason Izzert from Kailu, Kona. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for your continued hard work for the county. I wanted to testify today about one key point in bill 121 that has been concerning for me and several others. This section is regarding section G of the Good Neighbor Standards in the proposed bill which reads that, and I quote, quiet hours shall be from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. during which noise from transient accommodation rentals shall not disturb adjacent neighbors. Having closely followed the bill since its inception and representing myself, as well as others in the community, we believe that basing noise restrictions on whether it simply disturbs adjacent neighbors introduces a highly subjective standard that could lead to inconsistent and potentially unfair enforcement. After consulting with a number of professional acoustical engineers, I actually learned that unamplified speech is not regulated by the current noise ordinance and is protected by the First Amendment. The engineer stated, and I quote, unamplified speech is not regulated by the noise ordinance, not disturb adjacent neighbors is nearly impossible because it is based on individual opinions rather than objective criteria. Imagine a scenario where as soon as the clock strikes 10 PM, neighbors are poised by their windows ready to file a complaint at the slightest sound, be it a quiet conversation on a porch or the closing of a corridor. I know that kind of takes it to the extreme, but owners I represent have already heard from neighbors who plan to exploit this provision, inundating authorities with daily complaints about any kind of noise from their properties because they simply feel disturbed. Their goal is to weaponize the subjective standard that is currently in the bill of being disturbed to revoke these owners permits for two years and ultimately shut them down. This relentless barrage could lead to financial ruin or bankruptcy from owners forced to shut down their livelihoods over unavoidable sounds or quiet conversations. When police are currently called, law enforcement is referencing existing noise ordinances which provide clear and measurable standards highlighting the impracticality of enforcing a provision based solely on personal feelings and one's opinion. Under the current wording of the bill, these neighbors would have the means to cause significant harm simply because they feel disturbed, regardless of any objective violation. To address these concerns, I respectfully recommend that an amendment be made to Section G of the Good Neighbor Standards so that noise regulations during quiet hours be aligned with objective legal noise limits already established by law. This would provide clear. 30 seconds, please. The residents and enforcement agencies ensuring fairness and preventing potential misuse and weaponization of the regulations. By relying on established legal thresholds rather than subjective opinions, we can respect the property rights of all homeowners here in Hawaii County. Thank you so much again for your time and thoughtful consideration. I look forward to hearing the discussion today. Thank you so much for your testimony and chair. Those are all the test files here. Thank you very much. Mr. Clerk, if we could actually start from the bottom of the agenda and work our way up, I think that'll keep things nice and interesting. Bill 212, let's go. Bill 212 amends chapter five, article three, division two, section five, dash three, dash 22 of Hawaii County Code, in 1983, 2016, as amended relating to building permit exemptions. In Sam's greenhouse, there's other accessory structures of the floor area of 1,000 square feet or less, and located on agriculture's own land from the requirement to obtain a building permit and increase the maximum cost repair work for which a building permit is not required from $7,500 to $25,000. Introduce Ms. Kirkwoods. At this time let the record reflect I'm going to be transferring the chairmanship of the committee to my vice chair, Council Member member Inaba as this is my bill. Thank you. Go ahead council member Kirkowitz. Thank you motion to Ford bill 212 to the council with a favorable recommendation. Both the council member Kirkowitz second head by council and a relief to Ford bill 212 to council with a favorable recommendation. Thank you chair Inaba Thank you director Pousy for being here. This bill is designed to remove unnecessary permitting burdens and support our communities food security and housing resilience. What we're doing with this bill is actually addressing an unintended consequence from adoption of the current building code. And this was brought to my attention in June of this year by a constituent William Woodenberg, who reached out to county planning and public works to let them know that he was going to be installing a greenhouse on his property in Hawaiian Paradise Park. And he did not realize that he had to go through the process of applying for a building permit. And so under current regulations in our code right now, these structures, greenhouses in particular are very critical to our food sustainability, and they're subject to a very bureaucratic building permit process, and this was not previously in place. We are here to encourage folks to be more food resilient, Costco sells these greenhouses. And so we have to think about what are ways in which we can remove these layers of bureaucracy to encourage our residents to grow. So this bill restores exemptions that were in place so long as plumbing and electrical work is not required. Green houses are low impact structures that are essential again to food production and sustainability and we're merely putting back what was in place this long standing at exemption to allow green houses without the hurdle of applying for a permit. This bill also proposes to increase the annual building maintenance cost threshold from $7,500 to $25,000 before triggering a building permit requirement. This change recognizes the increasing cost of materials and labor and allows for essential maintenance efforts to occur, again without triggering a cumbersome permitting process. I did let public works know of my intention to be moving forward with these items. So really appreciate director you being here and providing feedback on this measure. Good morning council. Steve Howesy, Director of Public Works. Yes, we did have an opportunity to confer and everything is consistent. The language around the greenhouse that's consistent with what is already allowed under ag exemption as well. So, and then the cost increase, as you pointed out, it's very difficult to get anything done with respect to repairs and things on homes for $7,500. So I think this is reflective of the times. I'm not quite sure when that number was last looked at, but yeah, we're all behind that. I've also asked building chief Sonamara to join me here. She's not here yet. She'll be along shortly to help me answer hard questions. Okay. But in my mind, this is pretty straightforward and simple. straight forward and so on. Director, we got a couple of testifiers concerned about the structures being used as dwelling units. Could you address that? Yes, the code does not. An accessory structure cannot be used. An accessory structure cannot be used as a residence, so that that falls, that that would fall out. The only time from a permitting standpoint is if we take a structure like this and decide to add plumbing in or electrical, that would trigger permits for those. Okay, great, thank you. And I just wanna note that administrator, division chief, Jules Enzou and Sonomura has joined us. The Sonomura not sure if you want to provide any feedback on the bill. I really do hope it's helpful to some of the work that occurs within building division. Thank you for being here. I'm sorry, what was that? I'm just welcoming you and wondering if you might have any feedback on the bill. And again, I'm hoping that it helps within the permitting processes. It does. This bill is aligned with the state HRS for 4688 with 1,000 feet. And in addition to that, we included in the exemption an increase in the repair amount. So we don't need to issue permits for all of that. Sorry, I ran over. You look great. You sound amazing. Thank you, much for being here to answer any technical questions that my colleagues might have. Looking for everyone's support. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kerfowitz, with that opening it up for discussion, starting with Council Member Evans. Just a couple thoughts. thoughts any any thought on kind of wind you know any environments for making sure that they don't blow over and high winds is that part of what you do when you do your building permit review. That is part of the building permit review but with this exemption an agriculture structure does not need to get a building permit. So these are for structures and facilities intended to support agriculture. So it's not the same risk that you would have with residents that we do have the wind load requirements for. So I guess I support it in the sense that it's, I don't have it in front of me, but a thousand square feet or less. Okay, okay, thank you. Are you all? Thank you. Councilmember Glemba and then Councilmember Lee Boy. Thanks, just a quick question. Would this be retroactive in a sense? I think, believe I have a constituent who is in this sort of situation where he has a shed. And it's a shed rather than a greenhouse. And he's in trouble with the, I think with the adding the words or agriculture, potentially what helped this particular constituent. But he's in this situation where he has a shed and he's being told that he can't have that shed. He neither needs to do an as-built or tear it down, so I'm just wondering if this would help this particular constituent's line. What is the shed being used for? He is a farmer so it's like like storage of equipment and vehicles. Yeah so if it's less than a thousand feet it would be helpful. Yeah okay so he could basically get out of that particular vehicle if he says okay thank you. Just as long as there's no plumbing and water right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Did you want to add that to the record? Sorry. I'll get there. Gillette. I'll get there. Oh, yes. And you would need to file the declaration. Thank you. Councilmember Lidoy. Yeah. Actually, that walked me right into because I reviewed chapter 4688 out out of HHS. And there's a declaration process that requires an owner to notify fire department and the building division. And I understand that there's a form online that would help a farmer or an owner to apply. My question is, is it like self-resolving? Is there any trigger other than the owner saying, I'm going to be great about this. I'm going to let Fire Department and Building Division know that I built a greenhouse. Not to my knowledge. You know, I'm totally in support of this because at the end of the day and I'm going to something I learned long time ago from Roboparty Tax Office, if they find it, they will tax it. And so at some point, if they want to provide this on their tax forms, when Roboparty Tax finds it, they're going to tax it, and then there's going to trigger them to identify this as an ancillary structure to an add use, which will then trigger the form, which will then notify fire and you guys and with the exam. So I am in support, love that we're raising the threshold of the dollar value. I like that it's 12 months rather than a longer runway because sometimes repairs can mount up over time. And so chunking it out at $25,000 a year is very reasonable for a farmer in full support. Thank you Chair, I yield. Thank you. Councilmember Coney, I need to call you in full support. Thank you Chair, I yield. Thank you Councilmember Coney Lee, Klein, folder. Thank you. I think you were being here this morning. Interesting bill for the department. HRS 4688 is pretty clear and explicit about what they permit at the state level for these types of structures on agricultural land. Are you telling me that the department has been requiring permits for the structures that are exempted under the state code right now? No, we're in compliance with the state codes so we do not require a permit if it meets the requirements of the 4688. Okay, that's what I understand too. So what's the purpose of this bill? I'm sorry. What is the purpose of this bill then if it's already exempted under the state? I believe we're increasing the size to a thousand square feet. We're, I believe we're just make the little language here on greenhouse is just making it consistent. It was already implied, I think it's just putting it in black and white here. And then the other primary purpose of this bill is raising the threshold, if you will, for performing repairs in that meeting a building permit. I think that was critical. It's really difficult to do anything for $7,500 or less when you're just doing standard repairs on your home. So I think this is just an adjustment. And I think that that's really one of the bigger values here is for the building division to not have to review building permit applications for Somebody who's gonna come in in a calendar year and do $25,000 worth of repairs Okay Do we need to be more explicit about what is also permitted and 4688 within this section of our code. No, I don't believe so. If I don't have in front of me, but this bill pertains to exemptions from permitting and it's not specific just to the egg 4688. So, let's Steve mentioned for a home. If you're going to do repairs on your home, that threshold increases from 7,500 to 25,000 without a permit. That's a permit exemption. Okay. Okay. But as far as the greenhouse is up to a thousand feet, because there's other ways to calculate agricultural buildings, including trustees, and different measures. I just want to make sure that we're tighting incorrectly. It's for all accessory structures to have that thousand foot cap on it. Accessory structures. It's not just greenhouse. Yeah. Okay, so all accessory structures Is that following what is allowed currently in the HRS 4688? Yes, it's consistent. Yes correct If I'm remembering correctly you can build bigger than a thousand square feet. You can't, if you have a pre-approved design. Okay. Yeah, pre-approved buildings. So 4688, that's, it has different provisions depending on what you're building. But generally, if you're less than a thousand feet, I'm looking for the paragraph in the 4688, but it's also 1,000 feet. So that's aligning with that. Remember 1,000 feet one, but there's other allowances as well, which is interesting. Yeah, we follow the 4688 when we look at the exemptions. OK, so 4688 is still our guiding principle because that's HRS correct this is adding in the word greenhouse. I was like can you help me just understand how this is tying in differently than what's already allowed at 4688? The 4688 does include greenhouses and it also has a thousand foot cap on it. It also includes, whether it is thousand per-graph B, but it includes other types of buildings, barns, farm production buildings, storage buildings for the agricultural uses and processes, processing buildings. So it's more than just greenhouse is in the egg assumption. It is, yeah. I believe the desire was to be as specific as possible, which is why the word greenhouse was added. There are other structures per 4688 that are not explicitly called out here, but I think the concept as council member mentioned was to encourage people and maybe by putting it in black and white, it might provide more of an incentive or more encouragement for folks to know that they can put in greenhouses. Yeah, and may I just add that, you know, with the industry changing the way it is, there are a lot of vendors, supplyhouses that are selling greenhouse, so this makes it clear to our community what would be acceptable without having getting into the weeds of the 4688. Kind of go the other way. I feel like we should be very upfront with what's allowed by 4688. So the community can understand what's already allowed without having to create redundant county codes, which would make more sense to me. Because we don't have to allow this for county code. It's already allowed. It would make sense, but we wouldn't want to, I guess, jeopardize or have the parents of conflict with the 4688 so we just comply with the 4688. I agreed. Okay, so I'm the department's end. This is in parallel and the wording is succinct enough to keep allowing what 4688 already allows and doesn't limit down it all correct yes that's correct okay this came up because I had a community meeting and some of the folks had asked about the allowances under 4688 so I was reviewing it and then to see the bill come forward interesting but wanting to make sure that community members do understand what they can and cannot do when they have to permit when they do not. And it's important for them to understand that as we promote agriculture. Yeah. Okay, I may check you with your folks off line and digging a little bit more. Thank you. Thank you. Fair enough. Thank you, Council Member Kirkowitz. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Kirkowitz. Thank you. Just wanted to provide a touch mark clarification here. Yes, 4688 is being referenced in a particular section, but when we talk about greenhouses and accessory uses for ag and residential, 4688 only provides exemptions for properties that are two acres or larger. So this is really critical because when you think about spaces like HPP and communities throughout Pune, this supports so many more residents in being able to install a greenhouse for instance without having to go through the permitting process. I just wanted to make sure that clarification was provided for the record. Thank you. Council member Kimbo. You know, thank you. Just to add a little bit of additional clarity. I had had some conversations with the director and division chief about this particular section of the code. And there was a desire expressed by the department to bring the 4688 language into the section of the code so that people were not having to refer to the HRS. It was just there. In addition to the $25,000 exemption and why not, it happened to see council members Kirkwitz's proposal about the greenhouse as I said, well, let's throw it in. And so what in response to your comments, council member Connie Lee, Clifford, the best thing maybe to do is in addition to the notice of green houses here taking into account what council member Kirkwitz just said. be useful to list the other types of structures that are permitted through this exemption that as it's stated in 4688. So I would put that out as a to the maker as a potential amendment. I just add that whole list in. Thank you. Councilmember Evans. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. To the maker. Thank you for telling us. This is really about applying below the two acres. So if you consider any other structures, I would just consider which if you would want to mend that that's really making sure that they can also be allowed on land less than two acres because it 4688 is about exemptions for two acres or more. There are actually maybe some other structures that you would want to include in this. So look forward to seeing what you do. Thank you. All right. With that, I am in support. Thank you for bringing forward this bill. Appreciate anything bills that try and expedite. And I just want to clarify, I did reach out to real property tax and greenhouses are not taxed. So for the record, that's the one thing they might find that they're not going to tax. With that, there's a motion on the floor for Bill to 1, 2 to counsel with a favorable recommendation. All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries, nine eyes. Thank you. And at this time 1035, I will be passing the chair back to chair Kirkwitz. Thank you, let the refgrid reflect that I have Riyazoo, the chairmanship of the committee. Mr. Clerk, if we could move to bill 181. Is there any additional testimony for bill 181 draft 2? Very none. Bill 181 draft 2, amendments chapter 16, article 1 of the Hawaii County Code in 1983, 2016 edition as amended relating to the general plan. In search of amendment procedures for the general plan, including a comprehensive review at least every 10 years, and interim amendments between comprehensive reviews. Describes of powers and duties of the planning director and planning commission review and recommended amendments, and other counts to initiate or adopt proposed amendments. Introduce Mr. Renava, this was postponed to July 23, and September 3, 2024, and there's a motion made by Mr. Renava, second of May, to be against to recommend passage of bill one in one as amended on first reading. Thank you. Any questions or comments on bill one 81? Mr. Nava. Corporation Council did provide a written memo. I'm just want to point that out to my colleagues. We believe that one 81 is in line with the procedures set forth in the current general plan and ask for your support. I'm happy to take questions. Thank you. Thank you. And just noting that we have Deputy Corporation Council, Gene Campbell here to answer any questions. Folks might have regarding the memo. Thank you, Jean. Council Member Evans. I'd like to have Jean Campbell, Deputy Corporation Council. Thank you. Good morning everyone, Deputy Corporation Council, Deputy Corporation Council, Jean Campbell. I am going to start this with, I am not particularly familiar with this bill or this memo. So I can try and answer questions, but I'm afraid on an awful lot of these, I'm going to have to defer until Corporation Council strands returns. Thank you. I read the communication that was sent to us and the thing that really struck me is the importance of the charter and how it really gives a lot of direction. So I just wanted to make sure to the maker that this, what you've written, has been reviewed in that light of what the charter says, and they believe that it meets the intent of the charter. Because it seemed as I kept reading it, they kept going back to what the charter said, and that being such a guiding document. And no matter what other things that we've talked about, it looks like to me reading through this that the charter really does kind of set what you can and can't do. So I was just curious, if you've been involved in, you know, this Campbell, if you've been involved in that. My again, general understanding of this is that the charter does set out an inter- well I take that back That there is generally an interim amendment procedure and then a comprehensive amendment procedure and the interim amendments are not supposed to be going on during the comprehensive procedure again Not particularly familiar with this so you know, I Probably not answering your question. I'm afraid. Call number Evans, I don't mean to interrupt you. I just, I saw a message from Corporation Counsel of Judge Strand. She requested that she, that we pause on deliberations for this matter until she's back. She got pulled into an urgent meeting. But I think as the author of the memo, we certainly want her here to be able to explain this and answer any questions that you might have in depth. So if it's okay with you, I'd love to entertain a motion to table this particular measure so we can take it back up when Judge Chances back. I believe she expects to be back by 11 or so. Excellent. Motion to table bill 1-8-1, draft 2. Second. There is a motion by Councilmember Inaba, seconded by Councilmember Liloi to table bill 181. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with nine aye votes. Bill 181 is tabled. Moving on to the next order of business, Mr. Clerk, Bill 134. Is there any additional testimony for Bill 134 draft 2? Hearing none, Bill 134 draft 2, amendments chapter 25, article 2, section 25, that's 2, that's 42, with a white County Code 1983, 2016 edition as a amenity relating to amendments initiated by property owners and other persons. As the revision required, the Planning Director submit a subject area building entitlement report to the applicable planning commission and the County Council for each Change of the Sony District application, or would identify permits, approvals and other lawful entitlements, along with the construction of a building or buildings on any parts of the land with a quarter mile radius of the parts of which the change of zoning district is sought. Introduce Mr. Enable Miss Evans as Matt Rose Post-Pollumarch 5 August 20 and September 3, 2024 and refer to the planning commissions on April 2, 2024. There's a motion on the Florida Mystery Enable's secondary of Evans to recommend passage of Bill 134 draft to enforce reading. A communication 741.5 from Mayor Mitchell D. Roth dated July 26, 2024, transitioning for the council's consideration and action letters from the Wemward and Leeward Planning Commission and a communication 741.6 from customers for Lecker-Goray-Naba and Cindy Evans dated August 19, 2024, transmitting proposed amendments. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Mr. Ynaba, would you like to lead us through the amendments? Thank you. We have, can I make a motion to amend Bill 134 draft 2 with the contents of communication? 7418. Do I have a second? Thank you. There is a motion by Councilmember Ynaba, second by Councilmember Kimball to amend bill 134 draft 2 with the contents of communication. 741.8. Mr. Inaba. Thank you. We had postponed this once and postponed it again to give some opportunity to meet with planning department for this amendment. I did work with Deputy Director Darrow on this. And I think we've landed on a good place. So as we know, the initial bill is up to try and identify all buildings, excluding the existing buildings that are legally permitted to be constructed on the surrounding properties within a quarter mile. This amendment says that the director will prepare a report on all surrounding properties within 1,000 feet of the subject property. And it'll let us know that any property within that 1,000 feet where there was a change of zone, the description and status of any condition that has a timing element to it, and the maximum number of lots for our surrounding property that could be subdivided under its current classification. So puts it more in line with what planning department actually has access to and is able to provide us without trying to forge in DPW and information that planning doesn't have. Just wanna give the opportunity to planning at this time if they wanna chime in on the amendment. the Good morning Chair, members of the committee's and the current planning director. Good morning Chair, members of the planning committee, Jeff Darrell with the planning department. So yeah, thanks for the opportunity to share some of our thoughts around it. So in general, I think the meetings that we've had and where the language has gone has definitely improved. I think it's something that we can actually achieve better on our end. Where we're running into, I think, the biggest challenge or our disagreement is on the amount of feet. Right now it's amended to a thousand. We are standing by with what the Leeward Planning Commission had put forth, what should be consistent to our notices surrounding property owners, so an urban area would be 300 feet and an ag area would be 1,000 feet. That's more proportionally correct. I think sometimes it's hard to maybe identify what that might look like. And if you all want to, we have our program manager, Maya Jackson on Zoom and she can actually show kind of what the radius of that area would look like. So if that's, do folks want to, we're happy to provide that. And I also again, we'll say that there is going to be quite a bit of work that staff will have to put into putting this report together. Thank you, Director Kern. Just want to give an opportunity to Ms. Jackson if you do want to provide that demo to the council. You can go ahead. Thank you, Chair Inaba. Can you hear me okay? We can hear you perfectly. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and share screen. And are you able to see a map of the YK House Lots area? Yes. Okay. Great. So this first image that I'm sharing, um, Miss Jackson. Could you zoom into the map? Yes. Thank you. Is that better? Much. Thank you. Okay. So this first image that I'm sharing is a 300 foot buffer from one of the text map key parcels in YK house lots. And you can see it extends out about three to four lots in a north-south direction and about one to two lots east-west. The 300-foot buffer includes approximately 31 parcels. For the same property with a 1,000 foot buffer, of that it covers a much larger area, anywhere from nine to 10 lots in a north-south direction and about five to seven in an east-west direction. And it includes about 178 properties and I would just like to share with you. Let me know if you can see this. This is our GIS. Are you able to see that? Yes. Okay. So this is unfortunately I can't overlay what I just showed you into this because it comes from a different data source. It's from our real property tax website. And this is our planning department geographic information system. But this is generally the same area. And so the 300-foot buffer would have been in this general area, the 1000 foot would have covered pretty much this whole entire two to four blocks of YK house lots. And you can see all of the red outlines show each of the properties that have a rezone ordinance attached to them. Thank you. That's all I have to share. Thank you. Thank you. With that, bringing it back here to the chambers. We did discuss the 300 versus 1,000 feet. I did feel that for the council to have a better overall picture of the area that we would just go with a consistent 1000 feet and that would allow us to have knowledge that it's always 1000 feet and we're getting the same range every time. and that's why this amendment is providing for 1000 rather than 1.4 mile or 300 or 1000 depending on the type of zoning. So open to the discussion from the committee. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Aida. Council Member Kimball. Yeah. Thank you. Just wanted to note for those of you folks that were here last night and then those who missed the presentation. So in Communication 105 8.1 we had a presentation from some folks working on decision support tools. Within that packet there's this presentation that they've created for South Kono which actually has a layer of potential build out based on associated zoning. They have actually constructed this for the entire island. And so I know that they may have met with somebody in planning or they are going to, the reason I raised this is because the data set is there. I think that we would probably need to review some of the assumptions that they made. I'm not sure that they're fully aware of all of the different things, so there may be some tweaking there, but they would have the coding infrastructure to adjust those assumptions in terms of the model that's generated. Secondly, I think over the long term, we would have to determine how to keep their data set current based on any rezoning ordinances that we would approve because that would change that. It wouldn't be a static data set. It would have to be somewhat dynamic based on what we approve. But understanding the concerns and the difficulty of putting this data set together, I think we already have a head start on this and I would encourage the department and in you council member Enama to meet with our folks that we met with yesterday and see if they can you know tweak that to meet what the objectives are of this particular legislation. Thank you. Anyone else on the amendment? How's Member Kaguyaata? Thank you. Ms. Jackson, can you repeat what you said about how many changes of zone properties there would have been in that 1000 square that 1000 foot radius that you shared. Sure that would have been about 60 reason ordinances. 60 or 178 properties in that thousand square foot area. Okay, 6060. 60, correct. Okay. I'm a little concerned that we're going to be slogging through a lot if we do this 1000 square feet. That's just, you know, my initial like 60 re-zones that we need to read through. Do we have a sense of how many would be within that 300 square foot or not square foot, 300 radius? I would estimate it about five. Yeah, so I would just throw that out there that I would be a little concerned about having 60 on a regular basis to slog through. I think we can get lost in the weeds and not really be able to see what we want to see if we have that much to go through. So I'm just throwing that out there. We'd love to hear from anybody else on that. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Galimba. that out there would love to hear from anybody else on that. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Galimba. Yes, basically agree. Don't want to see slogging or slaughtering of trees for another thick stack of paper. I think that the idea of having a map that we can look at, and if we want to see 300 feet, then we can look at 300 feet so that the technology aspect that Cher Campbell brought up is definitely more appealing than any sort of really rigid set of report. Really that's going to take a lot of time for staff and a lot of time for us looking through. So I also would recommend that we work on something that has that sort of flexibility and perhaps weight on this decision until we can pursue that possibility that would provide. The kind of more of a customized set of information depending on the concerns of each particular council member or the public to look at either very close or far. So that's my two cents. Thank you, Council Member Galenba. Council Member Vika. Yeah. If I'm understanding things correctly, Council Member Inaba, you selected the 1,000 feet for some synchronicity and alignment and simplicity of it's always that amount. It sounds like the information and the data sets exist based on what council member Kimball is just sharing with us, which would help facilitate more feasible extraction of the information to be able to provide it to council. For myself, I feel like seeing a pattern of what's happening within an area, especially when it comes to zoning changes, is imperative for us to make better decisions here. I want to just shout out Maya, this transition to the digital GIS being able to look at things like that. Wow, how far things have come in the last six years. So congratulations and thank you for navigating what I'm sure was a wild ride. But being able to provide us that information in that format is so much more user friendly. And to me with 60 zoning changes out of 150, is that what you said, lots? 178. 178. So it's about a third of the lots in that thousand-beat diameter, I guess you'd call it, or it's not the circumference. But anyway, to me that really captures a lot of information about what's going on somewhere where just five in the 300 feet doesn't tell that broader story so I think there is wisdom in taking a look at what's happening within a thousand feet of places so for me I think that there is value to that. I am really hopeful. I know you guys are burdened, Maya, and all the things. But if the statements from Council Member Kimball about some of the information that was provided last night by the folks doing work like this is available, then let's utilize it and let's provide us with the best information possible with a broad range to be a reflection of what's happening in our communities. So that's my two cents, I'll be supporting them. Thank you, Councilmember, Canadian E. Klein-Felder. Thank you, Chair. To the maker, actually to the department first. When an applicant comes in to do a rezone, do they not have to submit a notice of rezone to all property owners surrounding their property within a certain amount of distance? Yes, which is the consistency with what we're suggesting. So the notice is provided to an urban, if it's state land use urban, it's provided within a 300 foot radius. So that'd be the first radius that might have shown. If it's state land use agriculture, then it's a 1000 foot radius because it's generally larger parcels. You want to get a larger expansion. That's state land use here. Yeah. So 300 feet in urban and 1,000 Prague. Okay. Yeah, I was thinking about that. I'm also thinking about the way that a liquor, a potential person wants to sell alcohol has to submit a notice to everyone at the end. There's so many square, so many feet of their TMK so that everyone knows that they're looking to sell alcohol. So same idea. Perhaps then to the maker where I see this most useful is not for a one acre lot in an urban area or a half acre lot trying to go from residential to commercial. I see this most useful in larger properties. Where you have two things working for you. One, it's going to decrease the amount of properties that touch that property are within a thousand feet of or 300 feet of. Which lessens the amount of properties you'd have to come back with as a report to us as far as the planning department. But to provide us that snapshot of what's going to happen in a community or an area where you have 50 acres or 20 acres being converted to a much less property zoning. And you have surrounding large acres that is potentially large projects. So that may help find a middle ground between what we're looking for as far as good decision-making and data to build that on. And then lessening what the department has to do because we're actually specifying a land quantity and acreage quantity or a size of parcel quantity where they have to come back with that report that maybe a healthy middle ground in giving us a data that we need so that we can see what's about to happen in a community or what a subdivision would do as we increase density in the larger land areas versus just every single reason decision that comes in front of us. So just adding that to the discussion today to see if that helps provide some way forward or some balance between what I'm hearing from planning and what I think this has the benefit of doing for us as decision makers. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Liloi. Thank you to the maker. I think what he was really asking for is how do we feel about a thousand square feet? And I'm landing in urban parcels in urban areas. It's a lot and I'm looking for someplace nice and soft to land. Maybe not 300 feet because that's what we're doing for notice to surrounding property owners. Maybe a little bit more and I'm trying to get back to the impetus of this bill which was actually identifying other parcels and correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Inaba was to identify other parcels that still had to satisfy conditions of approval. Because it was the satisfying of those conditions of approval of other parcels in the area that were not being met, which is why we weren't getting our sidewalks done. Why we weren't getting the curb gutter soil, getting the lights in. Whoever the property owner was, that was tasked with that various condition of approval, may have not gotten to the space of satisfying that condition of approval. And I think specifically of Ponohoa Street, there's parcels along Ponohoa Street that had curved letter sidewalks, right? And those parcels haven't yet finished, so you have broken sidewalks along the way. So I'm trying to wrap it all up. I'm, I like the idea of doing some type of cumulative assessment of what's going on and who's not in a space to either satisfy their condition of approval or remind them, hey guys, you got to start satisfying these because we're relying on that infrastructure to create a whole community. So not a big fan of a thousand square feet in urban. I don't mind looking a little bit more, three, four, five hundred feet. But I also understood this to be that tool because my bigger concern is how's within the planning department and its Rosin procedure is that notification to surrounding property owner. And I don't want to think an individual who is outside of that could then file a contested case hearing on a change of zone application. And that's where I'm getting a little concerned. Throwing it out there to the maker, I wouldn't support a thousand square feet, especially in urban areas, especially if that last size was 7,500 square feet. Happy to explore something a little beyond 300. But if this helps us make better decisions about how to tailor that next condition of approval, which I know you guys already do because that's why we send it out to all the agencies. That's where I'm landing on the amendment specifically. Thank you. I yield. Thank you, Councilmember Evans. Yes. Great discussion. What struck me is when you said, if you stayed within 300 feet, you would see five change of zone, but if you went a thousand, you'd see 60. And that struck me then. You'd want to know a thousand because the land use pattern of what's happening in that community is huge if you go a thousand feet. Plus, if you're going to create start creating that kind of density then you're looking at the sidewalks and the mass transit and the solid waste and to me it just gives you a whole different picture if you get a little bit wider. The other thing that struck me is when I sit in the end zone of a football field, it's 900 feet. This is what a football field is. So when you look across, look how far you look. It's not really that far. I mean, you can see to the end zone on the other side. And I'm thinking a thousand feet to me doesn't seem like a lot. Maybe you bring it down to 900 feet at the end. But I do think that for planning and for the planning commission to understand what's really going on and how maybe the changes of the land use is like there is a, there's something going on in the community, the density is increasing. There is conditions like Member Lee Lois said that have been put there. I mean, I think that information is critical and I think that's why one of the planning commissions was favorable in understanding when we test and buy it in front of the planning commission, they understood that that information can tell them a lot more about what they're agreeing to understanding what is going on in the immediate area. And the other thing is when you speak to the planning commission about a change of zone and they ask you what's going on in the surrounding area, what research do you do to be able to answer that question? How far do you look? I guess to you, Director Kern. We look generally around the area. We provide a zoning map. We show the settlement pattern of the area. It's usually within around 300 plus feet. If it's urban, larger if it's ag. We then look at the roadways. We look at the impact. We look at the mitigation. We then receive comments back from all the various agencies and take all that into consideration. Okay. All right. Thank you. Are you? Thank you. Council member Inava, thank you. Are you? Thank you. Councilmember Inaba. Thank you. I just want to clarify the report that we're asking for doesn't require all of the zoning ordinances associated with the properties around to be submitted to us. We're not going to be getting stacks and stacks of paper. The intention is to give us a quick overview report. So when we look at a document, we're able to see what, especially like Council Member DeLoy mentioned, which properties have expired or zoning ordinances that they expire soon and where the conditions are for those. Also looking at any lots that could be subdivided. So we're seeing that comprehensive picture of what the impact could be in the area in light of our decision as well. So just want to, there are a couple of comments made regarding us getting more paperwork than we already get. That isn't going to be the case, because it's an overview report. And should any of us choose to go then and look at the ordinances and so we provided we can go and do that on our own. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Kimball. Yes, I'm listening to this discussion and some of the comments. It occurs to me that there's actually probably not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach to this. I can see us wanting a very, like, even a thousand feet. If I'm thinking about the Waimea property we were talking about the other day, I'd actually like to see it out much further. Whereas in an urban area like was shown in the example, yeah, I think a pretty narrow perspective. And so just to the maker, what I'd like to consider is perhaps approach to this where it's the council may request such a purport and provide certain parameters that we would want to see. My question that I haven't been able to think through just here on the diocese, how could we put that request in prior to the time that it comes before us as an ordinance because we obviously like to have it be part of the packet and the commissions too. So I guess that's the little more time to think through is like how could we sort of preemptively say we're going to need this kind of report for this type of decision because the more I think about it, I think the less likely that we can find one standard to fit all different scenarios. I mean, it's going to make a big difference if we're looking at an area that has potential for sewer hookup versus, you know, septics, road requirements and traffic issues versus somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, I'd like to have some more time to think that through, but that's kind of where I suggest maybe we go with something a little bit more flexible and just find a way to notice the department of front when we're gonna, when we think something like that is gonna be necessary what the perimeter should be. Council member, can you make a claim, Felder? when we're going to, when we think something like that is going to be necessary what the parameter should be. Councilman Brick and Amy, the client builder. Okay, just a random one. I think a football field is 120 yards. Which puts it, which puts it at about 330, 360 feet long, not 1,000. I think you said 900. Okay, thank you, anything on the amendment? No, thank you. Okay, I'm going to withdraw this. I don't think there's support for a thousand feet. I'll work on an amendment. So withdrawing my mold. Well withdrawing my motion. Can I retain the floor for now? I'll prepare that the amendment has been withdrawn. And with that I will prepare an amendment right now to have it in line with the notification on first date for 300 and 1000 feet. I don't think wherever we're gonna land on a perfect place, but the planning department indicated their support for that. And I think we need to land somewhere. If that's the place we're gonna land today, then that's what we're gonna land. So thank you for your support planning department. I'm gonna make a motion to table Bill 134, draft two. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Bill 134 has been tabled with- Vote count. Sorry. Seven, aye votes. Council members, Kimball and Vloy are excused. Mr. Clerk, sorry. Council member, you now have a minute of motion. Second, aye. Mr. Cunningly, Klein-Filter. I forgot about that. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. You know, seeing that we have Judge Strantz back is there an appetite to remove Bill 181 from the table and deliberate on that. Great. We have a motion, please. Motion to remove Bill 181 draft 2 from the table. Thank you. There is a motion by Council Member Inaba, second by Council Member Kagiwata, to remove Bill 181 from the table. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with seven aye votes. Council Members Kimbo and Lila are excused. Hi, Judge Trance. Great to see you. There are some questions about the memo that you transmitted. And now that you're back, we would love for you to walk us through your legal assessment to help us in our deliberations on this measure. Thank you. Good morning, Elizabeth Strance, Corporation Council. Thank you for your patience with me this morning having to step out. The memo that I submitted to the Council was less of a legal memo than to provide you with legislative history about where we are, and especially in light of, at least my understanding of some of the impetus of Bill 181. And in particular around what is the authority of this body to amend a general plan bill that's submitted that provision of the ordinance, without the history it's confusing and misleading. And I know that I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to understand it. And I believe the clerk staff has as well. And so it's out of context of the legislative history, I think that it's not clear because of the way the language was written and that when you get to why the language was put in there, it's understandable that it's context matters. And the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's really the message of the legislative history. And so, I also felt that the legislative history was insightful in terms of timing issues and the relationship of making amendments with the review of the planning commissions and and what the prior body considering the general plan ran into. And I thought that there was some pretty helpful legislative history that might help to inform this body in terms of how it is going to move forward with the comprehensive review and even consideration of Bill 181. So the conclusion is that the language that is contained in the current ordinance about this body's ability to make amendments to the general plan is not a limitation of authority on this body. What the intention of that language is to firmly or attempt to firmly and clearly, which we wouldn't be here for more, but to really give the examples of the types of amendments that this body can make without any further review by the Planning Commission and then which must go back to the Planning Commission for Review. So this idea about new amendments going through the interim planning process means that instead of starting at the beginning of the general plan process that is outlined in the code, you skip over to the process outlined in 16-2. And that has a little bit more of an expedited review by the Planning Commission and the Planning Director. And the goal was that an amendment to the general plan, whether it's part of the comprehensive review or the interim review, should be able to complete within a council term. So what they ran into during consideration of the 2005 plan and I think they were beginning to run into it even when they started to make interim amendments starting in 2006, is that it took seven months from the time that the council proposed an amendment to the time that it came back, which if it was made mid council term meant that the proposing council member might not still be In office when the amendment came back and so It's really within that context that I thought some of this legislative history was helpful there that I thought some of this legislative history was helpful. There was a fair amount of discussion when in 2007, the really substantive, well, I'm not gonna say more significant, but the more detailed amendment was made about process was made. What had happened in that was the council was already into the interim amendment process. And ironically, there was confusion about what amendments the council could initiate in which they could not. So very same issue that is now, now be before us. And some frustration about that. And so the council initiated a resolution, which was the process, for an interim amendment change to the general plan amendment process. And that resolution included a proposed bill. And in that proposed bill there was some proposed timeframes for planning director and council review that were rejected by the Planning Commission as being too short. And it was a longer period of time than is proposed in Bill 181. And so I wanted to place that before you folks because amendments need to go back before the planning commission. And knowing at least what a prior commission felt in terms of the amount of time that they needed is important. And then the other thing to remember is back in 2007, this county had one planning commission. Now you have two. and so when this body is starting to think about the amendment process and the commission involvement understanding that times have changed and anticipating what the burden is on the department and the planning commission is important. Another interesting piece about that is that the bill eventually adopted by the council was bill that came as an interim amendment from the Planning Director who gave to himself, and I'm saying he because of the he at the time and is now was a little bit of a shorter period of time and The question was wasn't that too short of a time for you and the response was well No, not really because these amendments have to go through a resolution process, which means I'm gonna have noticed of at least To hearings now have gone through the public hearing process and so I will not be getting these cold, cold. And so what that history tells me is really looking at the process and how and when people and bodies get information is important so that when something comes back to you, you have the benefit of a timely review by the Planning Commission and they're able to do their job under the County Charter. The planning director has obligations around the dental plan under the charter including statutory obligations about having a data driven document and so I think that the point really is it's that the planning general plan is such a unique piece of legislation and it has requirements of a number of different bodies. The planning department, the planning commissions and then ultimately this body that really understanding how the different levers work is really important. And so what I really wanted to do with this legislative history is to try to compile it because highlights that address the issue that you're currently evaluating. And then, you know, let the process move forward. But I think at the end, you know, this is just such a unique piece of legislation legislation that it requires unique lands and trying to help you with and provide you information that allows you to put on those lands that lands. I thought was important. And so that's really what this document was trying to do more than providing any real specific legal opinion. I did provide a little bit of statutory information. I provided a case, but the most important thing that I would hope that you or anybody that read this would get out of it is just some history of what's gone before. There's been some public testimony about there's been efforts to limit the authority of this body and to be honest with you when I first read the language, that's what I worried about too and spend a lot of time but how can you do that? And there's your responsibilities under the charter, you know, and having done the history, the pieces fit together a little bit more, but it took a lot of work. So having the other thing, the other purpose in submitting something as a communication to you is to at least if this comes up again in the future that there would be a starting place for somebody else. I would say there's kind of one other piece of this that I hope gets addressed at some point. And that is the ordinance, the general plan, since its initial adoption in 1971 has been by ordinance, an un codified ordinance. And it's included its amendment processes. Then there's chapter 16 of the white county code called planning. And it has one section on the general plan that hasn't been, isn't always updated well. And so for example, it still represents references the 1971 plan as the county's general plan as amended. But the ordinances in 1989 and 2005 specifically repealed the plan before it. And the legislative history doesn't include a really important 2014 amendment that changed really, I think, made a really significant change to how the comprehensive review is commenced. And so, whatever this body does, and it's clear that, you know, we've been, the county's been through this a couple of times. It's a complex and never really totally anticipated process. 2014, they anticipated it would be a pretty straightforward process this time around with the community development plans. It wasn't there's been a lot that's happened. You know, so I think being able to address some of the issues that repeat themselves is important, understanding the history, I think, is important. And really taking your time and having a really thoughtful approach to something rather than trying to solve an immediate problem in front of you, I think is important because the history is pretty rich. Some of the persistent problems are pretty clear and being able to sort through that, I think at your end is particularly important since you're the final arbiter of the plan. And so that's really what I'd like to say about it. If there's specific questions about the memo, I'm happy to provide that. But what the purpose of it was is really to give you a lens into what's gone on before around the amendment process. Thank you, Judge Jansk, for this very extensive historical recounting of the General Plan. Any questions for Carp Council? Council Member Evans. Thank you. Thank you. I kind of jumped to the end of your memo to us and it seemed that kind of the real guiding for us, guidance comes from the charter. And so we have Bill 181 in front of us and I was thinking given that I think you concluded the charter really gives us a lot, you know, kind of the, or our starting point on this. Does 181 is consistent with our charter? Yeah, anyway, yeah. Yes, yes and no. The charter doesn't say anything about the amendment process. It's silent on that. It does treat the general plan as a single ordinance. So it does say that. The case that cited for you has a different set of facts where the city and county of Honolulu charter required a two-thirds vote for amendments to the general plan and the council was trying to enact an ordinance under their general ordinances that would have only required a majority. Some of the language in the opinion is, I thought, really helpful because it talks about the importance of the general plan in that where their procedure set up, they should be followed. Since the general plan is an un-codified ordinance, it's treated similarly to some of your other zoning and other plans that if they have deadlines and things like that, this body wouldn't go and pull it back before the time for it to come back to it is. Having said that, it's a unique piece of legislation in your charter specifically permits amendments. And so I don't want to say that there's a case on point that says that you can't do it because there's not. I think my message is to look at both the ordinance in the charter carefully and then decide as a matter of policy whether you want to pull out the amendment process from the general plan itself and then beyond that whether you want to do that right now. And so that would be my response to that question. And that does lead me a good segue to my next question. And when you were talking, you were talking about the 1971 comma, as amended, and things changed later on. Some people have told me that what we're looking at in this particular charter that will probably come in front of us here in the near future is not an amendment. It's actually a replacement and that they feel like it was a startover. It was looked at as a startover and it's like kind of a new plan. So I wanted to just play a little bit on words here about we're not really amending the charter. What we're doing is replacing it. We now have a new starting point with a new charter. And does that change how we look at the language and how we move forward? Not really. The same thing that my understanding is being proposed now, that's what they did in 2005. It was, I don't want to say get in replacement. It was a replacement. And that was what I believe happened in 1989 as well. And so the precedent is that when they come back, they come back with an entirely new plan, rather than pulling a piece out here and pulling a piece out there. So what's the processes I understand that now is consistent with par-practice. Okay. And I guess my last question is, if a comprehensive review goes on for years and years and years and years, it gets to the point that maybe we as a body see that there's something really important to be addressed. Can we not address it even though? I mean is there a limit? I don't know if you'd put that in ordinance or code but it just seems that if you have a department that you want them to put in front of us something within three years but we're now into it the fifth or sixth or seventh year it would seem to me that there must be some trigger or some point where we can go ahead and maybe change something. I don't know, it just seems like. That's a good question. And it's something that has come up and we've all pined on. And so the way that the general plan is currently written as it says, it's that the director shall put a bill in front of the council within the 13 years. But there's no consequence for not doing that. And so the law says that that means that the law is director in not mandatory. So if this body wants to impose something, so Bill 181 actually has language to that effect in it, then the council would need to do it. And what I had suggested with this current plan, since the time it already passed, that the council could consider a limited amendment that would put in that new deadline and what would happen if it didn't happen. But, you know, the prior councils have been very reluctant to put those kind of deadlines because of the amount of work that goes into them. And when they've posed a deadline on themselves, they haven't met it. And so it goes to the point of the processes can be become for some, you know, just as an observer to this process, there were probably points back in 2018 and 2019 where maybe the whole issue, you know, the issue of when a plan would be submitted would come to the council. But the council was apprised what has been happening all the way along. So if you look at the history every year at budget hearings, for example, Planning Director would get asked, where are you with the General Plan? And they would be given an updated, this is when we think we'll get it to you, and when that date passed it come up again. Councilmember Kirkowitz asked the Planning Director to come back a couple of years ago. He estimated that the plan would come to you during this calendar year. I think earlier in the year, but within this calendar year and so but what is in retrospect a little might have been helpful is to have that conversation in terms of your process. So is this going on so long that the council should hold hearings for proposed amendments because it's been four years since they've been able to propose amendments. Should any of the other deadlines changed? Do we have a new council who has more to come up to speed on? But the need for this to be a collaborative process is really important because it might take longer than you think both on the director side and on your side and I think that in the end on your side how long you're willing to hold on to the plan will depend upon what it will take to get the votes to pass a general plan. So if you have the votes early, then council members can save interim amendments to after the plan is passed. If you don't then there's a back and forge on going proposed amendments, going back and forth to the commission and back, back up to you. But if you were to say we're going to give ourselves, you know, a certain amount of time, does that give you the time that you need to do this process? And it comes back to a conversation that I think we've had before about do you get it done or do you get it done just right? And then it's in the world changes. So thank you, thank you. Thank you for that. I just will say that clearly getting the approval for a general plan to me is different than trying to do interim where we're trying to update as the world turns. So hopefully we figure out a way to do both. Thank you. I yield. You councilmember Evans. Councilmember Kimball. Yeah, thank you. Just first responding to a comment, Councilmember Evans made section 6-7.5, subsection C of the charter. It has language that says, now I just lost it. So this is the function and duties of the planning commissions, all amendments to the general plan or the adoption of a new general plan shall be considered by each planning commission. And so the charter does allow for a general plan that is essentially a new plan to be approved in that sense. And I think one of the causes of confusion with respect to what's in the general plan now as the process is that use of the terminology amendment versus what we are really doing is an update to the plan. And that update can take the form of an amendment to a existing general plan or an entirely new general plan. And so this has been actually a fascinating legislative through the hoop sort of thing. I've had extensive conversations with Judge Strands, with our legislative folks, Jacob, who's really knowledgeable about it, of course, the introducer by Surrey Naba. What I'd like to get right now is a confirmation from the planning director. My main concern about the general plan process we are undertaking right now was that the council had the authority to make substantive amendments once it reaches us having gone through the planning commissions. In the transferences interpretation, we do have that authority using the interim amendment process as prescribed in Section 16.2 of the current general plan. I just wanted to confirm with you director that that is your understanding as well. This is Indo KernCurrent Planning Director. Thank you for the question. I'm going to defer to Judge trans. My understanding though is that an interim amendment is after the comprehensive review, they're not the same thing. So that's I think where my increase understanding would need to occur because there's the comprehensive review process which we're doing right now. And then there's the interim amendments which would happen after a plan is adopted.2 16.1 refers to the comprehensive review process 16.2 refers to the interim amendment process 16.1 Ticks us all the way through all of the stuff that planning is supposed to do prior to it getting to the planning commissions It gets to the planning commissions. They do their business then they send it to us. That is all In the section comprehensive review. There's other language in there that says we are not allowed to make amendments substantive ones during the comprehensive review. However, based on the legislative history that you have uncovered and explored, which I really appreciate by the way. It seems that previous councils really intended the comprehensive review process to essentially end at the point, which is given to the planning commissions, and therefore allowed the council to make substantive amendments, but they had to utilize the interim amendment process, which means they had to create the amendment submitted by resolution to the planning commissions for review. So they couldn't make substantive amendments when it came to the body without that additional review, which aligns with the charter, because the charter says that the commissions have the authority to review any amendments to the general plan. So that being said, the charter is the end all be all. This process resides in an ordinance that is subject to the charter, but cannot go against the charter. One would argue that the way that it was constructed actually could be construed in a way that violates the charter and the council's authority also violates the ability of one council to limit the function of a future council, right, by saying we couldn't do it, we couldn't do a substantive amendments. We cannot do that as a body. So it is my belief after reading what you've said and talking with LRB that even though it lives in this ordinance, the ordinance is a subject to the charter, the process by which it gets to the commissions and gets to the council, we have left the comprehensive review process and we are in the approval process that allows us to use that in term a memo process. Would you concur that that is the conclusion that you've arrived at? Wow, I feel like I need a diagram. I'm happy to provide one. Where's my way forward? I'm not sure I would describe it the same way, but the results is the same. I guess, you know, in a, when there are rules of statutory construction that are both in the Hawaii, the Hawaii revised statute and a matter that either don't make sense in the context or would seem to contradict each other. And it's of course it's legal and it's a Latin word in parametriab which means that you try to read confusing provisions in a way that complement each other and accomplish the intent. And so one of the troublesome parts of the way that ordinances written and an and an interpretation that says this body can't make amendments is that ultimately this body is responsible for adopting the general plan. And so the troublesome part would be to say that well that's true end, but you have to do it through an amendment process. So similarly, a interpretation that says that when a bill comes to you, the commission has done all it needs to make sure that this public body also had an opportunity to weigh in. And so trying to look at a process as it is intended to be, if sometimes not always clear from the language that is used. And so then you look behind it and you look at the intentions. And that was part of the purpose of going through this legislative history. And for anybody who's wonky, it's fascinating because they had to amend the charter because there was a point at which the charter didn't say the council could make amendments even though they had the obligation to adopt the plan. And the charter got amended not that it was ever carried out but then you would have questions like that. And so when you have a process that this counts this county has only gone through a handful of times you know I think there are pieces that are emerging and will fall in place over time and shorter is better but it's it's not a clean process. So well I think this is all clear as mud. What I think we need to do is have consensus between this body, if I may have a couple of minutes, this body, the legislative, LRB planning and corporation council about what we can do right now. And I am satisfied if that includes the ability of the council to make interim amendments when the general plan comes to us. If we cannot come to agreement that we have that authority and would use that process, then I think that that is problematic and I think it actually conflicts with the charter. That said, I do think we ultimately need to move this into the code. It should not, this process as it were should not live in the general plan itself. The new general plan has an even less meaningful section on how the review process and amendments happen. It would be much better if that section were either eliminated or referred to something in the code that established the process. So I do think we still need a 181 type bill and I think there's some additional language needed. I think after having more conversations with LRB and Judge Strantz, I am inclined to say that we need to understand and go through the process for some of these timing elements because, again, limitations on ourselves to restrict the actions of a future council apply as well as is gone before. So what I'm inclined to say is if we can come to consensus that we have that ability to do interim amendments, we can just continue to work on bill 181 massage it, but not necessarily have it apply to the current process given that we would have that authority. Thank you, feel. Thank you. Planning director Judge Trance, any comments? No. Okay, any comments. No. Okay. Thank you. Director. Clear as mud. Okay. Yeah, I do agree though it would be nice that if kind of all four bodies could come to some type of understanding on that. I also agree that that that 181 definitely has merit on the next go around without question where it fits into this one I think is still trying to be played figured out and I think having that process in chapter 16 is much easier to find It's it's it's a better place for it to be so definitely agree with that For us, I think it's just really important. You know, I didn't start this process I came through partway through really wanted to come bring a good plan together and get it across the finish line But I want to make sure that the process is done right, whatever that means. Thank you. Council Member Vegas. So in order to speak in just simple speak out of legal speak, the legislation I believe was hard forward in order to allow council members to make amendments to the general plan that's going to come before us. I started a conversation that question whether or not we are legally able to do that based on wherever it's written in the code or the charter which it was clear as mud. But now what's being said is that moving forward, something's going to change that future councils 10 years from now when another general plan eventually gets to them. They will have the ability to make amendments when it comes before them, but we in fact will not have that opportunity when it comes before us. So we will have opportunities to make amendments when the general plan comes before us. Thank you. That's just where I wanted to get to because I felt like I went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth into all the people out there who have asked and said that they had concerns and wanted to ensure that there was opportunity for council to make amendments to the general plan when it actually gets in front of us. Congratulations, it sounds like we got there. So thank you for clarifying and confirming I yield. Thank you. Councilor Verly-Loye. Yeah thank you Judge Trent and thank you kind of enjoyed that read. I think it was there for some of it during the 80s and 90s so I was like well yeah I remember Curtis Tyler and some of those conversations. Nancy Pasekio. Yes, I believe there is some positive energy behind 181. I think where I keep slipping is this area of interim amendments. Because when I walk into an interim amendment, it could be something as small as a 28-acre parcel. But if that parcel provides connectivity and when I look at the charter, the basic framework and organization and operation of the government. So if that area was slated for a wastewater treatment facility or the new rubbish dump. If we made an interim amendment to what that designation general plan designation would be, we would then run into a substantive amendment, which alters the main provision of the general plan by adding removing or modifying key sections or clauses. And so I think I know where we're trying to go but it's even a definition of what that interim amendment actually impacts. And so I am supportive of the council having some ways to tailor. And I'm going to call it tailoring. Some ways of tailoring these general plan amendments, especially as it lends itself to our land use pattern guide where we want to see economic development where we want to see agricultural and sometimes in tapping in the past where a parcel is right on the boundary line or a cusp of that resort node that economic development area of that agricultural zoning and so we would tailor in the whole property, which in my mind, turns into a Domenamis type of an adjustment. So for me, I like the idea of having more heads at the table and really being very clear that an interim amendment literally cannot agitate the larger framework and overall general planning that this guide is supposed to be providing to us. And two Miss Kimball's point, I do think within the process we get a lot of feedback where communities are saying, you know, this really isn't a good fit for us, but better explanation on why, right? Because it provides that continuity of sewer services or road infrastructure or some of the larger water issues that we have out there. These planning documents, specifically the general plan, actually helps us as policymakers to provide the appropriate funding to help guide that infrastructure need that's very aged around here. So that being said, I guess I'm still looking for some definition of interim. I clearly understand what substantive means as long as that interim doesn't bang up against what a substantive change would look like. I'm okay with a lot of this stuff. I think it's really honing in on some of that and to the maker I see him for seriously taking notes there. And I think we've all asked for that clarity, right? Of what are we trying to achieve? Are we trying to tailor an area to make it fit better? Or are we weaponizing an amendment to sabotage years and years of planning for a roadway system, for a sewer system, for a water project? Like let's be real, right? Those are my thoughts. I yield. Thank you, Council Member Kimball. Yeah, thank you for some additional time. In response to that, one of the things that Judge Johnson, I had a little bit of a conversation about, which I think is a really interesting consideration with respect to 181 and future activities, is should we actually separate the general plan narrative from the looping map and the maps, right? And have those be two separate bills that run concurrently? That might change this whole idea about what is substantive and what is not. I would, to answer your question as it was asked, an interim amendment is by default substantive because non-subtiv amendments can be made without having to go through the planning commissions. But any substantive amendments, again, this body is the determinant of substantive or not, has to go through the interim amendment process, which the main component of that is that review of the planning commissions, which they'll want anyone now contemplates with amendment we made last time. So, I'd like to have the opportunity to discuss more with Judge Shanson and Director Kern, what would be the, any even, her critics, what would be the appropriate vehicles of basically at this time say we have decided based on all of this information we all agree that we have this ability to make the interim amendments. Whether that's a resolution of memo or something like that, but I do think in addition to 181 with where we are right now, something that for future councils go what did they do way back that in 2024 they will have something to look at and see where we arrived with that decision Thank you Go ahead to chance so the ordinance as it's written the that list That was a 2007 attempt to answer that question. And so that would be a starting point. There's comments in some of the transcripts or the videos of hearings where they talk about case-by-case basis, but you know, the genesis of the 2007 amendments was in part a desire for more clarity too. And what I hear this body saying is that you still need clarity. And so that's probably a good discussion to have and to make sure that the people that are most knowledgeable about the areas are able to comment. Judge Chance, I'm looking at your memo page 4. It talks about two interim amendments being adopted, which affected amendment procedures. So outside of amending the procedures, were there any actual amendments that, like a zoning designation or a strategy in the general plan was amended? Yes. Okay. Some of them are listed if you go to Hawaii County Code Chapter 16. Okay. They're listed, but there was a flurry in the 2006, 2008 time period. I think mostly of map changes. I don't recall seeing and I didn't look at all of them, but I think most if not all of them were map changes. Okay, that's really helpful. It sounds like we still have some refinement to do with this bill and take common to some sort of agreement around what we are considering a substantive amendment to be within the comprehensive review process and what an interim amendment looks like once a plan has been adopted. Seeing where we are with timing and what else we have left on the agenda. Take one final comment from Councilmember Canaley-Iquine-Filter, but would like the introducer of the bill to consider postponing this measure to a future meeting. Councilmember Canaley-Iquine-Filter. Thank you. Thank you Judge Trans for this document. This is enlightening. I appreciate your time and energy and putting this document. This is enlightening. I appreciate your time and energy and putting this together. Do you know why the Supreme Council chose to, or was it the council that put in the ability to amend inside the general plan? It's always been done that way. There was I think draft three of the current general plan proposed moving it out of the ordinance, but then it just suddenly was taken off the hearing calendar and I couldn't find any explanation for why that was done. Interestingly, the 2005 general plan is numbering for plan amendments is different than what you see. Now the assignment of 16-1. two was added later. And I don't know if it just coincidentally or purposefully coincides with chapter 16 of the white code. So the answers I really don't know, I find it curious though. Yeah, this finding curious that no council has chosen to address this and even the attempts that they did didn't seem to nail it. And I wonder if that's because this was a way to do it at the time or a way forward from that council member or that council body to find a way to amend. It might be good to have a broader conversation because this is a decision whether to codify something or not codify something has to do with how broadly applicable the law is. And so, you know, laws that would have kind of broad application or codify these laws that have greater specificity are not. It had the clerk's office tell me a couple times what the exact language of that is. But unlike a zoning ordinance or something, this ordinance envisions that there might be amendments. And so whether it should be treated differently is probably worth a conversation. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Council member Inaba. This makes me sleepy. Okay, so I think we have an amendment that is not ready yet today. I don't feel like we're much more clear than when we started off after all this time. But I know and I think we can all agree that we want to ensure we can make those substantive amendments when this draft general plan gets to us. So I think with that in mind, by the time we get to our next hearing, we will have a plan to make that happen. I'm going to postpone a month to make sure we have adequate time to get that done. So postponing motion to postpone bill 181 to the November 7th Committee meeting. Thank you. I have a motion by Council Member Inaba, second by Council Member Lee Loai, two postpone bill 181 to the November 7th Committee hearing. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with nine aye votes bill 181 is postponed thank you. I don't think we need a break we can keep moving forward I'm just kidding you guys we are going to do a 10 minute break we are in recess you at 12 12 I'm going to have to go. you you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we are calling this meeting back to order. If folks could please take their seats. We have reconvened committee at 12.16 p.m. We are going to go back to Bill 134. May I have a motion to remove 134 from the table. Motion to remove the 134, draft to from the table. Second, thank you. There's a motion by Council Member Inaba. Second by Council Member Lee Loy to remove Bill 134 from the table. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with eight aye votes. Councilmember Evans is excused. Bill 134 is back on deck for discussion. Thank you. Yeah, one thing LRB for processing this amendment quickly so we can take action today. So motion to amend bill 134 draft 2 with the contents of communication 741.9. Thank you. There's a motion by Councilmember Inaba. Seconded by Councilmember Lee Lloyd to amend bill 134.2 with the contents of communication 741.9. Councilmember Inaba. Yep. So this amendment reads that the Director shall prepare a report on surrounding properties of which any portion is within 1,000 feet in the case of a subject property in the state land use agricultural district or 300 feet in the case of a subject property in either the state land use urban or rural districts. So in line with what the planning department requested and it gives us, you know, perhaps a more balanced approach while still providing the information that is also asked for my colleague's support on this amendment. Thank you. Any comments on the amendment? Council Member Connelly, thank you, Kleinfelder. No, I'm continuously impressed by Mr. Inavisibility to get amendments in so quickly. And I do appreciate the folks at LRB as well in making this happen. Thank you. I do appreciate the folks at LRB as well. Thank you. Planning department. Would you like to weigh in on the amendment that is before this body? body. In the essence of time we appreciate the amendment it's consistent with the notifications and really appreciate the ability to continue to work with the language and massage something out that I think we can work with so I'm going to work out thank you. Great thank you there is a motion on the floor to amend bill 134 draft 2 with a contents of Communication 741.9, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with eight aye votes. Consumber Evans is excused. Back to the main motion. Bill 134.2 as amended. Any questions or comments before we move to the vote? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with eight aye votes. Councilmember Evans is excused. Bill 134, draft two. As amended, moves forward to the council with a favorable recommendation Thank you everyone for your hard work on that 122 122 122 thank you 122 Is your knee additional testimony for bill one two two draft to Hearing none bill one two two draft to immense chapter 25 and chapter 14 article four section 14-20 of Hawaii County code 1983 2016 edition as amended relating to repeal of bed and breakfast as a permitted use repeals all provisions and allow for bed and breakfast establishments issues by Miss Kimball and Ms. Kirkowitz. This was referred to the Planning Commission on January 30, 2024, and post-PON in July 8, August 20, and September 3, 2024 in this motion by Ms. Kimball. Seconded by Ms. Galimba, to recommend passage of the 1-2-2 draft 2 on first reading. Thank you, Ms. Kimball. Yes. to on first reading. Thank you Miss Kimball. Yes since the fate of 122 is highly dependent on what we ultimately do with Bill 121 I'd like to request that we table this for now and come go to 121 and come back to it. I'd like to hear from the rest of the body before I take the motion to table this measure. I'm actually inclined to have a discussion and vote on this today. I had agreed to co-introduce this measure as a way to have a conversation within our community. And it's very evident based on the public testimony that is coming through that folks would like to retain the ability to seek a bed and breakfast special use permit through planning commissions. It is a very distinctive sort of experience that folks are providing to members of the members of wherever you're from that are visiting Hawaii, island. So I'm actually inclined to request that this bill be withdrawn just based on the feedback that's been provided by community. And I would like to hear for the rest of my colleagues. Councilmember Kagiwata. Thank you. Yeah, I've been kind of lukewarm on this one the whole time. So I'm, I guess I'm wondering if, I know we've talked about it several times, and we've been over it, but I'm wondering if Councilmember Kimmel would just do a very brief recap on the purpose behind this one particularly. I think I understand it was kind of to just like keep everything together, but I would love if that's okay to have just a brief recap on why the need for 122 and why the need for bed and breakfast no longer having their own standalone kind of retaining that that's that's special. So if I could chair one available. Would you like to provide a very very quick summary? Thank you. Sure. Of course. So the reason for Bill 122 in the context of partnering up with 121 is that the original and draft before you of 121 has owner hosted and operator hosted. This is the first point. Bed and breakfast allows for both owner or operator as the host. Okay, so in Bill 121, we contemplate treating those differently. When we get to the discussion of Bill 121, I have some more to say about that. So that was one reason to remove 122. The second reason was by creating the pathway within 121 under the transient accommodation rental procedure, you would have those three procedures for owner hosted, operator hosted, unhosted, and then you would add layer on top of it this additional procedure. So planning department would actually have to deal with four procedures. Those are the two main reasons. There was a certain anticipation at some point or another that perhaps with one 21 going through. We would see anordinate amount of vet and breakfast going through, we would see an ordinate amount of bed and breakfast going through. We hadn't really contemplated jumping onto this in this way today, so I haven't. I will say that if this is the will of the body to continue bed and breakfast permits, I'm not entirely opposed with drawing 122 and coming back at it with a slightly different approach which I think will be more meaningful as we discuss 122 because there are some constraints that we're going to suggest with respect to 122 that could also apply to, could also apply to bed and breakfast that I think this body might be interested in. Council Member, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kimball. That's very helpful for me. Yeah, I'm inclined to not pass 122 as it is. That's just my feeling at this point and would like to consider Councilman Chair's motion to potentially withdraw. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Vegas. I apologize. Go ahead. Oh, no. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. The 120th year has given me heartburn all the way through. And I feel that there is something special about this opportunity for travelers. It's a global opportunity for basically home sharing, home stay with people. And I appreciated the testifier earlier. Of course, there was one that was in support and one that was against. But I just, I still think that this, I still think that there's a place for bed and breakfast in our community. And so I would be inclined not to support the passage of Bill 122 today. So I would encourage the maker to consider withdrawing it. Yeah, I yield. Thank you, Council Member Inaba. Thank you. Thinking back, I think I always had concern with this bill. And I've stated in previous hearings that are not supportive of it. So if we vote on it, we voting no. Thank you. Councilmember Galiba. Thank you. I would like another approach to it. I think that there is there's value to the bed and breakfast concept, but I don't see the value. It isn't to me a very valid value that it's a pain to get through the process. You know, like that shouldn't be the value proposition. I think maybe people just come in and tell us all the time, like you shouldn't make life hard for us. So making life hard shouldn't be the reason for it. It should be because it is a special kind of travel, hospitality experience. So I would definitely look for something that would be around that kind of legislation. So I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I think there's a way to do that. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you. Councilmember Canneley Kleinfelder. Thank you, Chair. Just did a maker. 122 would remove the ability to have bed and breakfast? That's correct. Existing bed and breakfast would be. Grandfather didn't. Grandfather didn't. But going forward, no bed and breakfast. They would fall into the either hosted or operator hosted. That is correct. And what is the problem with that? Is this rhetorical question? Yeah. That is a real question. That's what I'm hearing. We're voting the bill down. We're saying there's an issue with this. So having them fall into a new category, grandfathering in the ones that exist already, just just around matter on what each different. You know, if I may, this actually, 122 was a suggestion by the planning department for there to be one less process to manage because it a bed and breakfast could be interpreted as a hosted or operated hosted rental. But with a special use permit for a B and B designation it's a one and done kind of process. You get your permit there aren't actual like there aren't annual filings with the planning department that one would have to submit, but there are parameters in which you must operate, which are distinctive from ETA. Okay, maybe then to the planning department. I feel like between 121 and 123, we spent a lot of the time discussing those 280 use in 120 on, but 120 too is kind of following in between. Interesting in your comments. I think here's some of the questions. Okay. Yeah. So I think the intent was if 121 passes in some framework as it might which contemplates hosted rental as being owner operator, then it's basically a buy-right use, you don't need to have a B and B which is a use permit. If the body fills otherwise, so be it. I think there hasn't been a lot of discussion on it because it's kind of seeing how 121 shakes out, right? If 121 shakes out drastically different, maybe there is the need for 122 or to men 122 or not to have 122. I think the bigger question will come up with folks is explaining to them. Let's just say 121 passes in some framework like it has and we were regulating hosted oner hosted, etc. And somebody comes in and says I want to do a hosted rental. I want to do a B and B. We would then say, do you want to do it this way or do you want to do it this way? One is to buy right, go ahead and do it today. You're going to pay a filing fee, you're going to pay an annual fee, and there's these parameters to it. The other way is you're going to go through a public hearing process. It's going to be a one-time fee and there might be additional conditions that come onto it. Your choice. I think I go at number two. Have fun with that. Interesting. What is the fee to apply for the use private? $500. $500. So one time done, you get a better breakfast as long as you pass. As long as you pass different different process some folks You know going in front of the public can be very tricky Did we set a deadline on the day to apply to be a better breakfast is that? No, there's no deadlines or anything. That's why we've seen a number of them come through with people anticipating something You know being changed so personally I personally, we're not attached to it. We just thought it was kind of cleaner because you're eliminating something and then it's by right. But if the will is to keep it, then I think for us it's going to be a matter of messaging and explaining to folks. And then do you call your just regular host who want to be in B or B and B is only exclusive to that special permit and that is completely unclear Historically we've said if it's been a B and B if you go through a special permit then it's a B and B Otherwise you're just a host to rental. Yep. Okay. That's helpful. Does that? No, that's really awful actually. It's it's a it's interesting But therefore they want to kind of simplify process down to one or the other, not both being open. And I can understand that. Perhaps then finding a way to incorporate Bill 122 into 121. So I can see pros and cons to both. I'm going to go play for the use program and do a one time fee and there's never anything after that. And I'll be a hosted rental. Thank you. You're welcome. Constable Kimball. Thank you. Um, um, um, I'm going to go play for the use program and do a one time fee and there's never anything after that and I'll be a hosted rental. Thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Kimball. Thank you. I did want to make clear that at one of the very early discussions that we had was with the planning department and councilmember was, should we just push all how to to the bed and breakfast process? So that was an option that we contemplated. As much as it is a more burdensome process, it also takes a little bit more time for people to implement. So Axel, who was in earlier, he talked about all of, he had to hire a consultant, they had to bring all the buildings up to code They had to take a kitchen out of one building because that would you know there was a bunch of things that needed to happen So it does take a little bit longer than what is In 121 with respect to the hosted permit. There are a couple other differences and and I I think I'd like to get to the that to those differences a little bit when we talk about one, twenty-one and some of the changes that I want to suggest there. I would reiterate that I'm going to make the motion to table again because I would like to go through some of the legal requirements around all of this before we make any decisions on 122. I also would like a little bit of time to consider if I could do what you're suggesting, Matt, which is to move the Ben and Brook with stuff. I think maybe I could, but I'd have to talk with the court council. So motion to table. Motion to table 122 by Councilmember Kimball, second by Councilmember Inaba. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed? No. We have eight in favor, one opposed, Councilmember Evans. Bill 122 has been tabled. Back to the top of the list, Mr. Clerk. Bill 121. Is there any additional testimony for Bill 121, draft four? Hearing none, Bill 121, draft four, men's, chapter 25 articles, one, four, and five of the White County Code in 1983, 2016, as a men, it really needs to transit accommodations, rentals and hosting platforms. Repeals section 25-4-16 through section 25-4-16.3, relating to short term vacation rentals and establishes new provisions for transit accommodation rentals and hosting platforms for transit accommodation rentals. Introduce Ms. Campbell, Ms. Kirkowitz, referred to the Planning Commission's in January 30, 2024, and wasoned on July 8th. August 20th and September 3 of 2024. There's a motion for the Biden's Campbell's Secondo and Ms. Kirkowitz to recommend passage of bill 1-2-1, draft 3 as amended on first reading. Live communication 675.472 from Councilmember Jennifer Coguata dated September 4, 2024, transmitting proposed amendments. Thank you. At this time I am going to be transferring the chairmanship of the committee to Vice Chair Inaba as I am one of the co-introducers of this measure. Thank you. Let the record reflect 1236. I would assume the chair. All right, here we go. Bill 121, Council Member Kim, will I believe you have some amendments? Yes, I have a communication that was shared this morning. It's 675.508, which transmits a presentation, as well as something that I had promised in previous hearings, which is an outline of all of the sections of the bills. Please be very aware it is not completed, it is meant to be primarily a quick reference for you folks. So if there's a particular section that you have a question about that you can use that as a guide. If we can go to the next slide right there, Rally, already. What I'd like to do with the Chair's approval is I'd like to briefly talk about the Rosehill decision as it applies to this. We did at the last hearing. I shared with you that one of the concerns has been some of the constitutional questions as raised by Council Member Evans and some of the testifiers. I want to just briefly say what Bill 121 does in its current format. And then I have a pretty substantial amendment. And the intention of the amendment is to share with you folks if we swing the pendulum to as absolutely restrictive as I think we can be with respect to TARs. This is where we could go. And so I would expect that we would maybe not pass that amendment, but look at different proposals within that and determine the appetite to do them. So if we can go to the Rose Hill decision. So among other things. Okay. Sorry. I'm going to take us on a pause real quick. If we are going over the Rose Hill decision, is corporation council willing and able to lead us through that discussion being that it is a legal decision that was made by the courts and I feel that we should be getting advice on legal matters by corporation council. I believe that what corporation council speak for themselves, but I think that they have not completed their full analysis of the Roasell decision. Deputy Corporation Council, Gene Campbell, if you could just kind of give us a progress update as to where you folks are. Good morning. Is it morning? It's still not morning. What I roughed it. Anyway, Deputy Corporation Council, Gene Campbell again. As you all know, the Rose Hill decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court came out mid late last week. I personally read through it at least twice now. I've been contacted by quite a number of people to talk about it, to hear their opinions about it, and their opinions have covered the entire spectrum from people who believe that it is an absolute bar to any variety of vacation rental of any sort across all state ag land. Two people on the other end of the spectrum who believe that it doesn't even say that the Rose Hills can't do what was before the court. And so our office Corporation Council strands, I think very wisely, has suggested that our office sit down together to have all of the attorneys in our office read this and do a fairly in-depth analysis before we offer the county's legal position on this case. So today, we may have personal opinions about it. There's a lot of those flying around but we do not have a legal presentation or a legal analysis of the case quite yet. God, thank you Deputy Crop Council. So I'll councilmember Kimball with the Office of Corporation Council not yet ready to weigh in and with their intention to do an in-depth review together. I'm wondering if you were able to proceed with anything besides that because I think we really should get that opinion from the collective minds of the attorneys at Corporation Council. So I will proceed with the caveat that this is my interterrification with some legal guidance. And so should be taken with that grain of salt, but I think it is relevant to some of the future discussions around the amendment with respect to HRS 205, 4.584, which I think has been mentioned frequently with respect to 123 and 121 and I wanted to make sure that everybody had the text of that particular part of the HRS in front of them. Please note that the underlining is mine and not in the actual legislation. I don't want to make a decision on this myself. I personally, I've stated my point and I want to hear from the body on how much we're going to get into a decision right now that the courts made. We'll start with Councilmember Villegas. I won't be making a decision on this today and I'll actually be asking for it to be postponed. Again, I think that we're on a slippery slope. And while I appreciate and recognize one of the makers' diligence in digging deep into very complex issues with the intention of clarifying. I think unfortunately it's having the opposite and it's bringing in, it's causing more concern. And so my request would be that it be postponed and there'd be more time for there to be more professional from legal the legal teams that we are most reliant on. Well, let's just say those with law degrees at least of which I do not have one. So I would ask for that at this time because this is overwhelming and when things are this big and this intense and have had this much resistance this far, I don't believe at least in my life. That's when it's wise to take a step back. So that's my reflection today. So I yield. Okay. And you know what? I will make a decision. Council member Kimmou, can you just skip this role so apart? I don't want us to get legal analyses of the decision right now that have not been reviewed and okay, by the Office of Corporation Council, but I do want you to get through the amendments that you have proposed for today. And I believe the intention of the maker is to postpone this bill, but I think there's some discussion that we are intending to have today. So if you could proceed. Yep. Yep. I will skip the Rosehill section. There will be a couple of points where I will mention it when we get to the amendment because there are some interpretations there that involve that decision. The other issue that I wanted to speak about, which is the constitutional requirements Bill 121, in its current form, identifies operator hosted and owner hosted is two distinct categories. Because 121 is a regulation of commercial activities, it is bounded by the Commerce Clause 14th Amendment of the Constitution and therefore requires that we cannot treat residents differently than folks that are non-residents. And the test for that, you know, there is an allowance for that sort of discriminatory action if it's, that first test, it's a legitimate local purpose, which I think we can clearly articulate. The second piece of this is that there can't be another mechanism that is non-discriminatory to solve the problem. And that's the issue between the owner hosted and the operator hosted. It is there are other mechanisms that could achieve the same alternative. However, if we do treat operator hosted and owner hosted the same, and there are indirect effects on interstate commerce, as long as we pass the test that the government is the interest is the public purpose is legitimate and that the burden of an interstate Commerce doesn't exceed Also the answer to two has to be no the local benefits then we are okay from a constitutional perspective. So if we can go to the next slide please. Oh I've got the clicker my apologies. The conclusion is that in the current form Bill 21 is unconstitutional from the standpoint that it treats owner hosted operator hosted differently. And so therefore, it's best to combine those two into a hosted category, which is going to be the amendment before you. There are some other options that allow us to meet that second test, and the threshold is much lower there. I did want to just talk about the the 121 is primarily a registration process in its current format. Some of the testimony and things that I've seen going around are that this that the 121 would close some existing transient accommodation rentals. The truth in the matter of that is yes, if there are transient housing, accommodation rentals that are currently operating illegally, they would not be able to register and there for be subject to the fines of operating and unregistered TARs. However, all of those that would not be able to register, such as those that are claiming to be hosted but don't have a host, those that are operating in additional farm dwellings, which are prohibited by 205-4.5, or any of those renting more than 30 days, but not actually rents. Saying they're renting more than 30 days, but actually not, those are already violations of the law. And the claim that Bill 121 is making these things illegal is incorrect. They are already illegal. It just has not been enforced. And so if something is not enforced, it is not inherently because I'm there for a right. It's still illegal. And just because you don't know that doesn't mean you don't have to follow it. So I just want to be clear that, you know, in the context of the physical impact study and other things, as 121 stands right now, it is a registration process, though some that meet these conditions would be closed or would be subject to penalties for violation. I was going to stop here for questions, but I don't think that's necessary because I'll stop and see if there's questions about constitutionality and anything else that's been said so far before I introduced the amendment. Council Member Evans. He was actually brought up by a testifier today and one of my constituents brought it up to me that when Bill 108 was heard by the body that when they were out in the community doing presentations they told people that were currently operating that they could continue to operate and they didn't have to register. And like I said that came up today and someone else brought that up to me. So I just don't know how this, what you just put up would apply to them because they've been doing it before 108 got passed. Councillor Schell. Councillor Schell. So it would depend on the conditions if they have been even prior to 108, if they're on a property that is subject to 205, the use of a farm dwelling. So if they are renting an additional farm dwelling, even though they were not required to register, that is in illegal use of a farm dwelling, right? So that is, so yes, when the registration process comes around, that will be identified as an illegal rental and they will not be able to register because that's already an illegal usage. But there are other scenarios where if they're hosted and it's not insanely land use ag, they will now just have to register and they can continue operating until the registration has been approved. There are some nuances but it's dependent on whether or not they're already doing something that's not legal and I've always said it's a registration process. You're fine if you're operating legally. Well they were under the impression they were legal but we'll cross that they'll have to cross that bridge with our, yeah, when it comes up. Thank you. Okay. If you want to proceed, Council Member Kimball. Also noting we're going to need to wrap this up real shortly. We have our start of Council at 1 p.m. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to amend Bill 121 with the contents of 675.509. I hope I can't remember campus. I can't remember Gilemba to amend Bill 121 with the contents of communication 675.509. Thank you. The intention of this amendment is to present all of you folks with sort of the goal post on one side of the bill and short term vacation rental. What I have generally heard and I've gotten feedback from community members is that there is an interest in being slightly more restrictive, particularly when it comes to agricultural land. I wanted to present you folks with all of the different potential options we have in one amendment to be more restrictive than Bill 121 is right now. And so this amendment proposes the following. As I said before, due to the constitutional concerns, we have to combine owner and operator hosted into one type, which would be hosted. Given the conversation over 122, we could potentially contemplate that all owner and operator hosted go to the bed and breakfast process as another option or we have this process and that process. As I mentioned before within the Commerce Clause we have to treat hosted, TAR, then we can require that an outside owner can only have one operator hosted TAR. So this adds language that would say you can only own one. When we have a situation where 23% of our housing is in outside ownership, there is that public purpose associated with that, and we are treating both the same limiting to one per owner. It also proposes that ownership be limited to natural persons, or trusts or LLCs, but the people in those trusts and LLCs have to be actual people that are related to each other by family. It also requires that if there is TAR in the first farm dwelling, so if it's a farmer and they're renting out a couple of rooms in the building that they live in, they would have to demonstrate agricultural activities. This applies to the Rose Hill. I wouldn't won't go too much into it, but it's the question of whether or not in that case, the farmer living in the dwelling satisfies the requirements of the HRS or not. I think that's something we have to have a discussion about. And then it also proposes under Act 17, it gave the counties the authority to phase out non-conforming user certificates. So I've added to the bill language that would say, when you sell or transfer a transient accommodation that had received a non-conforming use certificate, it would be amateurs, it would be removed. And so for those of you that are concerned about existing tiers and AgLand or residential land, this is the way the mechanism we would use without being subject to litigation regarding taking. With that, we do need to wrap this up temporarily. So I'm going to put the meeting in recess. We need a time certain, to be safe to adjournment. And after the adjournment of council is fine. Okay, so this committee will resume after the adjournment after the adjournment of council is fine. Okay, so this committee will resume after the adjournment of our council meeting today. This 1253, this committee is now in recess. Hello, it's 4.35 pm and we are taking the policy committee on land use and development. Out of recess, we are currently on bill 121. I am Holaca-Gurlianaba. We are meeting in Hilo today. I'm chairing this meeting as council member Kirkwitz is one of the co-introducers of bill 121. I'm chairing this meeting as Council Member Kirkwitz is one of the co-introducers of Bill 121. We left off with a presentation in the middle of a presentation by Council Member Kimbo, so we will T off right where we left off. Council Member Kimbo, go ahead. Yes. And the current motion on the floor is to amend bill 121 with the contents of communication, 675.509, thank you, Mr. Clerk. Great, thank you. So, I'll first start by saying over the last four years of being on the council, I think I've sufficiently established that I'm a bit of a control freak. And I will say that I prepared extensively for this presentation as you might notice from the fact that you have an outline and a slide deck, including reading the Rose Hill decision probably about half a dozen times tracing down all the references to make sure that I could answer any question that you guys might have with respect to the Rose Hill decision. I will say that life has taught me time and time again that the more you try to control a particular situation, the more life will remind you that you are not in charge. So where we are right now is there's this amendment on the floor, which the intent was to share with all of you for the purposes of discussion what having gone through the constitutional questions, the Rosehill decision and other things that we have discussed, what I would consider the furthestthest most radical goal post from sort of the consensus position that we're at right now with the tarp bill. What I would request, what I'm going to propose is that I will withdraw this amendment at this time. Again, post-pone Bill 121, but I do want to just briefly go over these high-level concepts and encourage you between the slides and the outline provided of Bill 121 and the draft amendment. Ask you folks to look at these different concepts by the time we have the next hearing so that we can just figure out where to go from there. So the amendment number one combines owner hosted operator hosted into one type hosted. That is, like I said, in response to the constitutional concerns. I was a little bit sort of set out of whack about talking about 122 before 121 today. I did go look at the bed and breakfast language. I think that it is a pretty easy fix to pop it into 121 tweak it a little bit. So it matches with everything else and we can include that in 121 with the same limitations that would be with respect to transient accommodation rentals. The bill also, or it's the amendment of proposes an ownership limit to one tar per owner. And as they said, since we're treating owner operated and owner hosted and operator hosted as the same, what that allows for is folks to buy investment properties stick in operator in it and run a TAR. And we've had numerous conversations about protecting home ownership for local residents. So if we say you can have one primary residence and a TAR in it, and you can also own one investment, or somebody can own one investment home and put it operator in it, that is going to make the playing field equal, right? And so that's another thing that we can legally do, constitutionally do, is just say you get one TAR. This bill or amendment does introduce language that would create a non-conforming use to grandfather in anybody that owns more than one right now, okay? The next possible change would be to ensure that the ownership is their own by people and not by corporations. So it limits the ownership to an individual, a natural person, or it can be a trust or an LLC or a corporation as long as the folks that come into apply represent 50% or more of that entity and that they are related by blood marriage, whatever. So that prevents us from having outside corporations purchasing homes to make available as TARs. The next one has to do with the first farm dwelling. So this was a little bit tied to the Rosehill overview. The requirement about a farm dwelling in the HRS says that there has to be a family living in the farm dwelling that is, the farm dwelling is accessory to the farm or the family living in the farm derives their income from farm activities. So it has kind of been the past practice of, if I may just have a few more minutes, the past practice of the planning department to say that the farmer being in the home satisfied that component of 205-4.5 and therefore they could rent extra rooms because the requirement of 205 had been satisfied. The 205 doesn't say no rentals of transient accommodations. It says that the purpose of the first farm dwelling is to house somebody involved in the farm activities. And so if you satisfy that, I'm not saying that answer is right, but that's something we need to discuss and figure out and maybe we'll have more about the Rose Hill by the next meeting, but the proposed amendment would require that if you are having, if you're renting rooms in the first farm dwelling where you live as the farmer, you also have to present some evidence of agricultural activity, right? So that's another thing to consider. I will say that by allowing farmers to have some rental rooms in their first farm dwelling or detach bedrooms to the first farm dwelling, it does allow a lot of farmers to stay here and if we don't allow for that I am concerned we are on the fast track to gentrification so I request serious consideration around that. The other thing the last thing that this proposes, there are some other many things in there that I'm sure are going to raise alarm bills for folks out there. But the last kind of big one is that this amendment proposes the phasing out of non-conforming use certificates and that was something that the state enabled through Act 17 this last session. It allows the counties to basically phase out existing non-conforming uses. So this would be if somebody has a non-conforming use to have an unhosted rental in a residential area because they got one when Bill 108 was passed when it sold that will no longer be possible, and it'll go back to purely residential use. So, it's an important part to highlight one of the differences between bed and breakfast and the TAR process. It's a bed and breakfast is a special permit. It runs with the land, so when somebody gets the bed and breakfast permit that property can be used as a bed and breakfast in perpetuity regardless of the ownership so it's important to understand that distinction. There's a couple other editorial amendments some other many many things but those are the key ones so if I can ask everybody to review these for next time and let me know which are the ones that you want to consider keeping or not, hopefully the outline on the slide deck will provide more clarity. I will work on an additional amendment to move or at least edit the bed and breakfast section to match the rest of this so that it can be an option to keep that special permit. But that I yield and I guess unless there's further comments I'll just withdraw. Motion to amend Bill 121 with the contents of Communication 675.509 is withdrawn. And then with that I would like to make a motion to postpone. I'm going to say November 7th just because we have another the item on the next October meeting. So motion to post poll in 2 November 7. I'm motioned by councilmember Kimbo. Second by councilmember Kirkowitz to post-polling bill 121 to the north-vamper 7th committee meeting. Any discussion on post-polling men? Seeing none. Oh, we have some cake. Quick. The councilmember. I do you have a filter? Thank you. I just wanted to appreciate Kelsa and Mary Kimball for bringing us for a lot of information, which is better than no information. And then also a clear and succinct way to kind of review everything that has been brought forward and done to this point, as well as some of the bigger decisions that have been happening around us in regards to short-term vacation rental so that we can have a better discussion. So appreciate the effort because it takes time and energy on behalf of you and your staff. So thank you. Councilmember Evans. Yeah, I appreciate the postponement and just to point out I know that some people that were here testifying here a few weeks back was saying how hard it is to keep following the amendments and the different drafts and so hopefully because this is a recorded meeting you know hopefully people we can guide them to actually listen to this recorded meeting so that people can feel like they can You know kind of know where it's at right now because it's It's looking like it's headed towards a draft five and it's still and it's sitting in council And so um Anyway, it's getting pretty thick So hopefully hopefully we can encourage people to watch So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Kagiwata. Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate the postponement as well, just so we can get through all the material. But I just do want to, and I want to thank both councilmembers Kimball and Garkowitz for this, you know, very heavy lift. You know, we have Sunshine Law, which is a really good thing for the public. It means that we don't take this away and make changes and make backroom deals and then come here and just vote on something. Everything that we do, we do here in front of you and so you're seeing how the sausage is made and it's going to take us time and we've held this in committee, it's still in committee, it has not moved out of committee because we are still working on it. So for those of you who are saying you know you keep adding all this stuff or changing everything, that's the way complicated policy like this gets made. So I think it's really important that we just you know we have to keep at it this is our job and we're gonna you know keep keep going here and keeping it in committee seems like the absolute right thing because it's still being worked on and discussed so it's great I think when new ideas are coming in still and we and we're thinking about this in a complex way, it's complex legislation. So appreciate all the work by everybody that's worked on this and happy to postpone. Thanks. Thank you. All those in favor of postponing Bill 121 to the November 7th committee meeting. Please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 9-9-9 is Bill-polling to November 7th Moving on to bill 122 Do we need to I believe we table that yeah motion to remove bill 122 from the table Move by councilmember Kim both second and by councilmember Glimba to remove bill 122 from the table all those in favor Any opposed motion carries nine eyes bill 122 from the table. All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. 9 eyes. Bill 122 is back on the floor for discussion. Councilmember Kimbo? Yeah, motion to post-bomb Bill 122 to the November 7th committee meeting. Move the councilmember Kimbo. Seconded by councilmember Kagiwata to post-bone bill 122 to the November 7th committee meeting discussion on the postponement. I'd like to request that we hold this as well. I heard loud and clear what some of the concerns were from folks about removing the bed and breakfast option. I think that this section of the code has some flaws that need to be addressed. And I'm not sure if this bill can be the vehicle for that or it. I think reading it again, I think we can take care of all of it in 1-21, but I would like to just request that this bill be still available as a potential if necessary to make some amendments to this section. Thank you, Councilmember Evans on the postponement. Yeah, I understand, postponement. I just want to point out that we're postponing a bill that says repealing the bed and breakfast as a permitted use. Just wanted to point that out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I feel a certain way about this bill. I'd rather take action on it today as I shared earlier. So, roll call vote Bill 122, please. On the most moment, sorry. On the motion to postpone, Bill 12 bill 122 draft to November 7th 2024 councilmember Evans no councilmember golemba aye councilmember kawaiiwata aye councilmember khani kainfeller on the motion to post-poll yes sir on the motion to post-poll on to November 7th aye councilmember Campbell aye start on the motion. Post-pollant in November 7th. Aye. Customer Campbell. Aye. Customer Liloie. Aye. Customer Bee, I guess. Aye. Customer Kirkowitz. No. Acting Cherry Namba. No. Acting Cherry Namba, you have six votes in favor with customer Evans. Customer Kirkowitz and yourself yourself voting no to motion carries the matters postponed to November 7, 2024. Thank you and with that I believe we are at the end of our agenda for today. Thank you to the public who came to testify and partake in our legislative process. This meeting is adjourned at 451 PM Mahalo.