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Ms. Bobby Jean County Council August 12, 2002 Page 2 Leithead-Todd - 02A-391 The lands owned by these landowners, all of whom have owned their land here for many years, are located generally between Keauhou Resort and Hokulia and between the shoreline and area below the Kuakini and Mamalahoa Highways in North Kona. These lands, which are referred to herein as the Lower Honalo lands, are vacant or in very low -carrying capacity cattle ranching. The cattle are placed on the land primarily to keep scrub vegetation down to mitigate fire hazard. In general, the Lower Honalo lands are steep, stony, and rocky Aa and Pahoehoe lava with little or no soil cover. These are the same soils as underlay Hokulia and Keauhou Resort. There is no irrigation on these lands. As a County condition for the development of Hokulia, a bypass roadway for Mamalahoa Highway is currently under construction across these Lower Honalo lands. No provision is being made for the bringing of irrigation or domestic water to these lands in the building of the bypass. The draft General Plan update proposes to replace the current "Orchards" and "Extensive Agricultural" designations for these Lower Honalo lands with a new classification called "Important Agricultural Lands." The text of the draft General Plan update sets forth criteria for lands to be classified as "Important Agricultural Lands." The draft update states that lands to be classified as "Important Agricultural Lands" have "better potential for sustained high agricultural yields." The criteria set forth in the draft update is shown in Exhibit B, which is attached. That same criteria has been used by Belt Collins Hawaii and the respective landowners to evaluate the Lower Honalo lands. Our evaluation, which is attached as Exhibit C, divides the Lower Honalo lands into four areas beginning at the shoreline and moving mauka as follows: Area 1 - Lower Honalo land makai of the new bypass road down to the shoreline. Area 2 - Lower Honalo land between the new bypass road and the old railroad right-of-way. Area 3 — Lower Honalo land mauka of the old railroad right-of-way up to about the 1,000 -foot elevation. Area 4 — Lower Honalo land mauka of the 1,000 -foot elevation. You will note that our evaluation shows that the Lower Honalo lands within Areas 1, 2, and 3 do not meet the criteria for "Important Agricultural Lands." It is obvious from our evaluation, using the draft update criteria, that these lands belong in the "Extensive Agriculture" classification, which is defined as "Lands not classified as Important