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you know, if the Commission, hopefully, sees it the way that, you know, we are seeing, I'm hoping
<br /> that the Commission would act, and if you recommend favorably on all or a portion of it, you would
<br /> need to have reasons for its favorable recommendation. You would also need to have corresponding
<br /> amendments to those. So that's what I did.
<br /> One final thing I'd like to kind of mention is that,you know, in what I presented on the affordable
<br /> housing, the existing condition—and even the proposed condition, even if it deletes the rental
<br /> portion, the subject property already was entitled to 50 affordable housing credits the existing
<br /> condition right now, and we are not proposing any amendment, is saying that, you know what, you
<br /> cannot use any of those affordable housing credits to offset your affordable housing requirement,
<br /> and, two, you cannot buy credits and you cannot, it will, your, satisfy your requirements off site;
<br /> they have to be on site. And that's explicit in terms of what the existing condition states. So,
<br /> therefore, if the affordable housing, the rental component, is a very critical issue for the
<br /> Commissioners, and I kind of sense that it is, then my recommendation is that if you look at
<br /> Condition, Condition B, the new Condition B, then you leave the wording in, and that wording
<br /> basically says, further as represented by the applicant, a minimum of 20 percent of units will be
<br /> rented at 80 percent or less than median income level and the remaining at 120 percent or less than
<br /> the median income level. So that was what we were proposing to delete. If you cannot agree with
<br /> that,just recommend its denial on that component. But don't let that one issue cause you to, to
<br /> recommend denial on the entire package of requested amendments.
<br /> I had mentioned earlier, Brian Cook and Ken Van Bergen, landowner, developer, and also on
<br /> standby is Mr. Okanekuhe is in a position to answer any traffic-related questions that the
<br /> Commissioners may have. Thank you very much.
<br /> CARR SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Fuke. Were Mr. Van Bergen or Mr. Cook planning on speaking?
<br /> COOK: Yes, Madam Chair. I'm Brian Cook representing Puaa Development, Suffolk
<br /> CARR SMITH: Can you speak up?
<br /> COOK: Yes, I can.
<br /> CARR SMITH: Thank you. Go ahead.
<br /> COOK: Yeah, we acquired the property, 62 acres, back in 2004, zoned Ag agricultural property.
<br /> We felt like at that time there was a need in central West Hawaii to develop a project that would
<br /> provide affordable rental housing and commercial shopping center, that we felt like that area is
<br /> central, and as it turned out, that area became a Neighborhood TOD; so someone did agree with
<br /> the - - -. And we got it rezoned for Neighborhood Commercial, CV[sic]-20, and RM-2.5 of the
<br /> brown. We felt like at that time that we needed to provide housing for local people that can't afford
<br /> place, that were currently - - -. And so we felt like an affordable rental housing project would be
<br /> very important where we would have rental rates below market price affordable rental housing - - -
<br /> beginning I felt like, well, if we - - - affordable rental housing project of 250 units, and we set aside
<br /> 20 percent of them at 60 percent of rental rates, and then we set aside 60 percent of it at 80 percent
<br /> of the low-income rates, and the final 20 percent at 120 percent, and so that's how we started the
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