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Honorable James Y. Arakaki, Chairman <br />and Members of the County Council <br />Page 4 <br />Lands of Importance to the State of Hawaii (ALISH) system designates the property as <br />Prime Agricultural Land and Other Important Agricultural Lands. The requested <br />Agricultural Project District will continue to encourage agricultural activities or the <br />utilization of the lands within the proposed subdivision in a manner consistent with the <br />Intensive Agriculture and Extensive Agriculture designation by the General Plan LUPAG <br />Map. The major concern in allowing a rezoning of agricultural land that creates smaller <br />lot sizes is that this will reduce the potential use of the land for commercial agriculture by <br />fragmenting the land into areas too small to be farmed on a commercial scale. While a <br />few crops can be intensively cultivated on small acreages, these crops usually have a very <br />limited market. Reducing the size of the lots can greatly reduce the range of potential <br />agricultural uses. At the same time, a strong demand exists in the real estate market for <br />lots in agricultural areas by purchasers who are interested in large -lot residential home <br />sites or for speculation. The desire for these "gentleman's estates" tends to drive up the <br />price of agricultural land making it less affordable for commercial farmers. <br />Most agricultural rezonings in Hawaii County in the last twenty years have <br />resulted in subdivisions where the primary use is residential, not agricultural. For the <br />most part, these rezonings did not occur on prime agricultural land. The predominant <br />zoning in the former sugar lands north of Hilo and in Ka'u is A -20a. There will be <br />considerable interest by the new owners to rezone to reduce the minimum lot sizes <br />because the biggest component to value is the ability to build a home. The per -acre price <br />is therefore higher if the property can be sold in smaller lots. This desire to create smaller <br />lots must be handled very carefully because of the possible carving up of the land into <br />uneconomical units, and the increasing per -acre price. The issue of the optimal lot size <br />for agriculture is difficult because with the end of sugar, agriculture is in flux. No one <br />crop, or even type of crop, has emerged as a probable economic mainstay, so it is difficult <br />to determine an optimal size of a lot. The proposed rezoning has the potential to increase <br />the agricultural productivity of the area by providing water. For that reason, the Director <br />is willing to recommend approval of an Agricultural Project District, but with a limit of <br />17 lots (10 acre average) rather than the 25 proposed by the applicant. This will allow an <br />experiment with a mix of lot sizes, rather than having a predominantly 5 -acre lot project. <br />The Zoning Code is one of the tools to implement the General Plan and is one of <br />the County's primary land use control mechanisms. The Zoning Code sets out the various <br />types of uses allowed by providing for certain zoning districts. In this particular case, the <br />applicant proposes to establish an Agricultural Project District to provide flexibility in the <br />location of these land uses without specifically identifying where these uses should be <br />located on the property. This method or concept of identifying varying land use <br />designations would be consistent with the intent of establishing an Agricultural Project <br />District within the Zoning Code. <br />