Kitagawa still seeks to use his own land for scrap metal site

The Maui News
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

WAILUKU - Mike Kitagawa would like to move his auto and appliance recycling business from a leased site in the Kahului Industrial Park to land he owns next to Kanaha Pond wildlife sanctuary.

"I wanted to own my own dirt," Kitagawa told the Urban Design Review Board Tuesday.

He has operated a tow company since 1972, but he got into auto recycling when the Maui's only scrapping operations were shut down in March 2005.

It proved difficult for Kitagawa to get his operation going. He was able to get his Health Department clearance within days, he said, but he couldn't get the landowner, a properties arm of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, to sign off on permits for months. He finally got the permits after signing off on a policy to indemnify the landowner for any environmental issues from his operations, beginning operations in September 2005.

Since opening, he's recycled 6,000 junkers over two years, clearing away an accumulation of old vehicles and appliances, including a collection that the county stored without permits on the old Waikapu landfill.

Now that that's out of the way, Kitagawa's auto smashing business has shrunk to 25 to 30 cars a week, he said.

He's also facing competition for the scrap metals recycling business from a Mainland company, SOS Maui Metal Recycling, that came in and set up operations at Central Maui Baseyard in August 2006.

SOS got an exemption from former Planning Director Mike Foley to operate in the open air temporarily. Health Department rules require auto scrapping to be handled in a covered structure, except for the final crushing. Kitagawa had to build a covered structure for his operations. He considers the waiver for SOS illegal, and it still rankles him.

But he still wants his own place on which he wants to build a 16,000-square-foot warehouse.

He found what planner Paul Fasi called "a very unusually shaped property" - 2.6 acres that wraps around Midway Town Center and Maui Oil Co. The entrance would be from Hana Highway (near Second Wind) and the exit would be on Hobron Avenue.

This would take traffic off Hana Highway, said consultant Dean Frampton, since Kitagawa's containers would be hauled straight to the harbor down Hobron.

The board approved Kitagawa's design unanimously, with only a few questions.

One was about the access from Hana Highway. Landownership there is chopped up and intersected by an access for Alexander & Baldwin to maintain a drainage channel that separates the industrial land from the wetland refuge.

Kitagawa purchased a permanent easement into his lot, but it appears that however he configures it, it will present difficulties for the adjoining lot behind the Midway. There is no application for that lot yet, although developer Ben Brown has presented a conceptual plan for a medical clinic to the board.

Board Member Frank Skowronski wanted to know about clinic access.

Kitagawa said he would "want to be helpful" but couldn't make any commitments until after he gets his authorizations. He needs an SMA permit. The lot is zoned for heavy industrial uses.

Skowronski was also concerned about a wall the Fire Department may require between Kitagawa and Maui Oil's propane tanks.

This is still in discussions, but Frampton said it could possibly be as high as 30 feet and as long as 300 feet.

Skowronski said, "I would vote against a football field-size wall 300 feet long." But he also said he "would rather take that out of the discussion," since the board's role is to critique design and not to arrange for precautions against fires.

After being assured that the drainage system and collection of oil and other chemicals from vehicles and appliances would not be a threat to Kanaha Pond, the board wondered about the plans for an aerobic sewage treatment plant, since the area is so close to the Kahului Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Dave Taylor, the county administrator of wastewater reclamation, explained later that Kitagawa's project site is too close to the Kahului treatment plant. County Codes require landowners to hook up to county sewage collection lines if they go past their boundaries.

The area around Midway Town Center is so close to the treatment plant that there are no collection lines, only a force main.

The nearest point to tap into the gravity collection lines is the pump station near Gaspro.

Therefore, Taylor said, owners around Hobron Avenue are allowed to use septic or - in Kitagawa's case - aerobic package treatment systems.

If all the owners clubbed together to build a collection system, "we would have no problem with that," Taylor said. "That would be fine with us."