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Preserving the North Kohala Coast Planning Committee Hawaii County Council 2008 MR 11 8M 8 34 Planning Department 101 Pauahi St., Suite 3 C' 1, f': r. Hilo, HI 96720-3043 UNI` March 10, 2008 Re: Support for Repeal of Ordinance No. 97 192 and Urge Rezoning TMK (3) 5-9-1:8 to RA 20 acres Aloha, The six North Kohala nonprofit organizations and groups signing this letter represent nearly 400 families in North Kohala We have testified at the Planning Commission meetings in August and December of 2007 and January of 2008 in support of the Planning Director's recommendation to repeal ordinance No. 97 102 and to revoke the Special Management Area (SMA) Use Permit No. 379 for TMK (3) 5-9-1:8. MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, the applicant does not meet the conditions for a time extension. The circumstances and contexts under which the application was initially approved have changed and must be considered: 1) There is very compelling documentation that development and construction activities upsiope of this area have already significantly degraded water quality. A State marine biologist has publicly stated that the reef immediately offshore of this property has been severely impacted and is "a mess". Low-lying coral has been killed and is now covered by a layer of filamentous algae and everything that lived in the sand, mollusks, worms and urchins, is dead. Please see the attached photos. The scale of damage in this area, immediately offshore of Kohala LLC, is significantly greater than the damage that precipitated the EPA investigations and fines against Hokuha. Additional development of any kind will only contribute to this problem, especially development on this parcel that borders the ocean. There are no best management practices (BMPs) on the planet that can guarantee no further degradation. 2) There is an even greater body of evidence and support that the proposed Kohala LLC project is not at all aligned with what the community has consistently expressed with regard to preserving the coastline. The input received in the last two years during the community readiness program for the North Kohala Community Development Planning (CDP) process and the draft recommendations emerging from the focus groups for the CDP, including a call for rezoning the State coastal lands to Conservation, clearly identify preserving this coast free of any development. We support re-zoning TMK (3) 5 - 9- 1-8 AND we urge the Council to please introduce a floor amendment to re-zone this area to Ag-20 acres or Ag-15 acres. There are many significant reasons to support a change of zone of at least Ag-20acres and many of these reasons were documented in previous testimony. In summary Ag-20 acres is the most appropriate zoning for this parcel because: a) The vast majority of land in North Kohala is zoned Ag-10 acres. b)The land immediately north of this parcel will most likely be rezoned to Conservation in the next year (see item m, below). Comm. No. q1264 Ref. To Nttttd Ref. Dote