2019-08-15 Leeward Exh A (SLU 19-052 & SMA 19-072)

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vetted, you know, through a public forum like this. It's ultimately a decision that the Commission has to make. I can understand some of the relevants from an SMA standpoint, you know, for contested case, like one of the contestants raised issues relating to tsunami impact, possible ocean water, nearshore water contamination in result of flooding or grading activity associated with the property, you know. Relative to the other concern about descendants, you know, lineage, I don't think that there's not, I cannot specifically understand whether it's a nature of ownership that's being questioned, you know, land ownership, or is there a concern about like securing access to the property for religious purposes or cultural practices, whether it's —so, so I think those need to be further identified. We don't want to take a position necessarily to say we object to their request for intervention, but we'd like to bring that concern up to you, and make also this added request that there is some measure of urgency on the part of the developer because they kind of want to see the project through, they have some preliminary funding all the way, you know, like forward the affordable housing. So, if you can establish a schedule, say, for example, if there is, you know, their request is granted and a schedule is established, the hope is that prior to the next major milestone for the contested case hearing, during the intervening time, there can be a discourse or discussion with the intervenors and hopefully arrive at some resolution such that a contested case hearing can be alleviated in the future. VALEN: My name is Gregory Valen. I'm actually the landowner, and I'm the landowner, I've owned the land for the past ten years. And I thought I'd come in today just simply because I'm not really a developer, I'm not really part of the process as much; I have friends that wanted to get involved with it. But I want to just explain a little bit about my intension as the landowner and the history of what we are trying to do here. That's all I want to do; I want to get very clear on what's happening because our goal is not to really harm anybody. Our goal is to help the community, not to harm. And just right now my background is, I've been a resident of Hawaii for 45 years, so probably as kama`aina as you can get. I'm also a surfer, I do more standup now than anything, I'm a paddler; I do all these things, and pretty much have been a part of the Hawaiian community for years. And buying this land ten years ago, my intension was to build the agricultural use, build a home and possibly a barn, maybe some stables. But after turning 70 I realized that that's probably a pipedream and not really a reality. So my intension was that, you know what, it's too late for me, but I've had a good life here in Hawaii, what can I bring back to the community that would be a benefit to the community. And I pretty much talked to my friends and, you know, these people are in Washington, some are here local in Hawaii, and they pretty much said why don't we go for, you know, one of these 201Hs, which I had no idea what it was, where we can provide affordable housing back to the community. So in my heart, under oath, I thought I was doing a pretty good thing because West Hawaii needs, desperately needs affordable housing. And I knew over 50 percent of the units had to be in, I said we need to set some criteria. Again, I'm not a developer, and I thought this was a very clean deal because this is not, this is not a TMT, this is not a Vrbo, this is not an Airbnb; this is for residential people, you know, on this side of the Island of Hawaii. That was my intention. And when we sat down—I'm sorry, I have notes, I'm a little older now I've got to look at my notes —but we set requirements and that was, Number One, affordable housing. And the second 10 EXHIBIT A