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Dru Kanuha, Council Chair and Members of the County Council Page 3 taro, sweet potato and other crops. Additionally,the property is classified as Other Important Agricultural Land by the ALISH System, which are important to agriculture in Hawai`i yet they exhibit properties, such as seasonal wetness, erodibility, limited rooting zone, slope, flooding, or droughtiness,that exclude them from the `Prime' or `Unique' agricultural land classifications. These lands can be farmed satisfactorily by applying greater inputs of fertilizer and other soil amendments, drainage improvement, erosion control practices, flood protection and produce fair to good crop yields when managed properly. A major concern in allowing a rezoning of agricultural land that creates smaller lot sizes is that this will reduce the potential use of the land for commercial agriculture by fragmenting the land into areas too small to be farmed on a commercial scale. While a few crops can be intensively cultivated on very small acreage, usually these crops have a very limited market. Reducing the size of the lots can reduce the range of potential agricultural uses and the range of market opportunities for those crops. In this particular situation, the applicant is requesting the change in zoning in order to subdivide into three lots to convey to family members. At least two of the newly created lots will be used for agricultural purposes such as pasture. The Kona Community Development Plan(CDP) also identifies the property as partially in the urban area and partially within the rural area. The CDP has different land use policies for how each of these areas are developed;however, for both areas the overall land use policy is to concentrate all new development in existing villages rather than to continue to allow the historical scattered land use pattern of rural and urban sprawl caused by the subdivision of agricultural lands into smaller parcels. In the urban area, the policies of the CDP strongly encourage new development within compact villages along proposed primary transit routes known as Transit Oriented Developments (TOD's), or as Traditional Neighborhood Developments (TND's) along secondary transit routes, or as infill developments which are new developments adjacent to existing urban- developed properties. Rezoning of lands that are not infill developments or TOD/TND developments are considered "greenfields"developments, which require an amendment of the CDP before they can be approved (see Policy LU- 2.8).