The Committee on Zoning and Planning met on August 22, 2025, at 9:01 a.m. to consider four agenda items: Bill 33 (administrative enforcement of land use violations), Bill 51 (Fort Street Mall Special Improvement District), Resolution 25-207 (Special Management Area permit for the Cove redevelopment), and Resolution 25-236 (Lau Lima Affordable Rental Housing project). The meeting was chaired by Councilmember Kiaaina, with Vice Chair Waters and members Topola, Dos Santos Tam, Cordero, and Okimoto present.
Aloha and good morning, everyone. It is Thursday, August 21st, 2025, and the time is now 901 a.m. With the Committee on Zoning and Planning meeting, please come to order. I would like to welcome committee members, Vice Chair Waters, Councilmember Topola, Councilmember Dos Santos TAM. I understand that Councilmembers Cordero and Okimoto will be coming in shortly. We have enough quorum to start timely. Welcome, Councilmember Okimoto. And that's critically important because otherwise the hearing is gonna be longer. A couple of months ago, we had a 20-minute start time, and we can't afford that. So I appreciate people coming on time. Although remote verbal testimony is being permitted, this is a regular in-person meeting and not a remote meeting by interactive conference technology under HRS section 92 3.7. Therefore, the meeting will continue notwithstanding loss of audiovisual communication with remote testifiers or loss of the public broadcast of the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide verbal testimony on all items on the agenda when each item is taken up in two ways in person in the council chamber and remotely via via video conference or phone. Before testifying, each person shall state their name for the record. Each speaker will be limited to a one minute presentation per item. All persons who register to testify in person will be called one first. Persons who did not register will be given an opportunity to offer testimony after the registered testifiers. Once in-person testimony has concluded, I will proceed to the remote testifiers. When I call your name or the last three digits of your phone number, please follow the prompts to unmute. It's both the English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii. Pursuant to Article 15, Section 4 of the Hawaii State Constitution and Section 113 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Members of the public may testify in either language for verbal uh testimonies offered in Olelo, Hawaii. Additional time as may be necessary if we allowed for the testifier to provide an English translation of their testimony. Written testimonies, including the testifier's address, email address, and phone number, will be available to the public as described on the posted agenda. As a courtesy, please turn off or silence all cell phones for the duration of this meeting. Thank you. Moving to agenda item number one. Bill 33 2025 CD1. This bill amends the administrative enforcement provisions for violation of the standards and requirements of the land use ordinance. It was introduced by Council Chair Waters and would allow for the fiscal posting of a notice of violation or notice of order in a prominent location on the property as an alternative method for the Department of Planning and Permitting to serve the enforcement notice and provide the department with an additional tool to address violators who deliberately avoid or refuse to accept service of the enforcement notice. Members, we have distributed a proposed hand-carried CD2 version of the resolution. OCS 2025 676, which makes the following amendments. At the request of the Department of Planning and Permitting, it deletes ROH 21-2, 150-2DC D6, which would have required that the notice of violation include a statement of the actions that are necessary to correct the violation. It adds a new section to the bill to amend ROH 32-5.4 to make conforming amendments relating to references to renumbered ROH sections and section eight of the bill, which provides that the ordinance takes effect upon its approval. It adds that the amendments made to ROH 21-2, 150 to E in section two of the ordinance supersede the amendments made to ROH 21-2, 1502 E in Section 11 of Ordinance 25-2. Ordinance 25 2 updated the land use regulations in Article 5, the last land use ordinance and becomes effective on September 30th, 2025. So the amendments made to the administrative enforcement provisions in this ordinance will supersede the amendments made to the same ROH section in ordinance 25-2. Before I call up the administration, I would like to take uh public testimony. Unless Chair Waters, if did you want to talk about? Okay, thank you. Uh proceeding first with in-person testimony in the chamber. Do we have any in-person testifiers for this item? Chair, there are none. Is there anyone in the chamber who would like to testify? Please come to the podium and identify yourself. Seeing none, proceeding on with remote testimony. Clerks, do we have any remote testifiers for this item? Chair, there are none. Moving forward for the administration, we have uh Don Takiuchi Apuna, Director of Planning and Permitting. Thank you, Chair.