2020-02-20 Leeward Exh D (AMEND REZ 2004-024 & AMEND REZ 2004-025)

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interested in flipping the property, they would have done that way back when, not 15 years later. So I think the operative question is like why the delay, why all this delay. I mentioned some things already about, you know, they had a global recession in 2008, you know,people who are involved directly or indirectly in the real estate or any development field would understand that if you are the banker and you are trying to seek, you want to do a project and the bank thinks that, oh, you know what,this is the field of dream, the bank is not going to lend you the money, you know, because the field of dream is that don't worry, people will come; it doesn't work that way. Then, even right now, you know, even though he has Spring Group coming in, we know what happened to the economy when you had things like the SARS back in the mid-2000, and now we've got the coronavirus, and big firms are beginning to feel like the effects of that, you know, from a global sense. Nobody can predict what's going to happen globally. But you need to have some people at least willing to take a chance. Spring Group right now is willing to take that chance. The Director is saying that like you've got to recommend denial because the request is not consistent with the General Plan. So I would say like, well, you know, if you look at the General Plan and you look at the Charter, and I hate to use a religious metaphor, but the General Plan is the so-called the bible. The Charter doesn't talk anything about the CDPs. The CDPs are mentioned in the General Plan itself, the Charter only mentions the General Plan. So the hierarchy of planning documents, you really have to look at the General Plan. And the General Plan, Sections 15.1, states that the CDPs are designed to translate the broad General Plan statements to specific actions as they apply to specific geographical areas. Essentially, the General Plan is controlling. If there is any conflicts between the General Plan and the CDP, they say that the General Plan prevails. So, then, you know, in addition to that, I would say like given that, then if the General Plan, if the time extension was considered in 2011, and if the planning director at that time had looked at the same document, which is the General Plan was approved in 2005 the same document we have today, the planning director in 2011 said that, you know, granting the time extension is fine because you are still consistent with the General Plan. So I ask: Why today, we have the same General Plan document, and you are saying it's not consistent. So I guess like if you look at it, the only regulatory change that has occurred since 2010 to where we are right now, are the amendments to the Kona CDP, which happened in 2019. And the amendments to the CDP made, tried to make the CDP more of a plan than a regulatory document. And in so doing, you know, they tried to make it a little more flexible and less rigid, and so they used the terms like "guidelines" or"encourage." So from the applicant's standpoint, we would say like there's no substantive basis to conclude that the requests are inconsistent with the General Plan. Now, if you look at the CDP itself—the Director recommends that you deny because he wants the project to go through a Project District rezoning application, because the Project District fixes the location of the TOD, allows flexibility in land use, density, design, so on and so forth. But it requires a minimum area of 50 acres, and it requires at least two-plus years, plus considerable funds, to secure State Land Use Commission approval, County Council approval, master plan approval by the Kona Design Center and Planning Director, over two years. Now, if you look at the TOD process and this site, the Transit-Oriented site, the CDP clearly, in my 15 EXHIBIT D