HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-09-21 Leeward Exh A (SPP 20-000218) LEEWARD PLANNING COMMISSION
COUNTY OF HAWAII
HEARING TRANSCRIPT
SEPTEMBER 21, 2020
A regularly advertised hearing on the application of DOUGLAS AND KATHRYN HICKEY
(SPP 20-000218) was called to order at 9:38 a.m. via live-stream online meeting, with Chairperson
Nancy Carr Smith presiding.
COMMISSIONERS IN ATTENDANCE: Nancy Carr Smith, Barbara DeFranco, Perry Kealoha,
Max Newberg, Mark Van Pernis, Michael Vitousek and Faith"Faye" Yates
ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: J Yoshimoto, Esq. (Counsel for the Commission), Michael Yee
(Planning Director), John Mukai, Esq. (Counsel for the Planning Director), Maija Jackson
(Planner), Jeff Darrow (Planning Program Manager), Christian Kay (Planner),
Tracie-Lee Camero (Planner), Rachelle Ley (Secretary to the Planning Director), Kim Tanaka
(Board and Commission Secretary) and Noriko Sauer (Leeward Planning Commission Secretary)
APPLICANT: DOUGLAS AND KATHRYN HICKEY (SPP 20-000218)
Application for a Special Permit to legitimize the establishment of a venue for weddings and similar
gatherings on a 2.25-acre portion of a 20-acre condominium property regime unit of an 80-acre
property situated in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The subject property is located at
76-1297 Waiono Ranch Road, about 1.5 miles east and mauka of the Mamalahoa Highway —
Waiono Ranch Road intersection, Waiono Meadows, H61ualoa, North Kona, Hawaii,
TMK: (3) 7-6-002:028: Portion of 0001.
Secretary's Note: "- - -" indicates that there were technical and/or internet difficulties, which made
the conversation inaudible.
CARR SMITH: We'll proceed with the first agenda item. And before I introduce the first
agenda item, I'd like to make a disclosure of the fact that my husband, Riley Smith, is president
and CEO of Lanihau Properties whose assets include Palani Ranch. Palani Ranch along with
many other parcels have an easement over Waiono Road. My husband and Britt Craven who is
president of Palani Ranch, have together written testimony against the approval of the Special
Permit. I share this in order to be completely transparent, but I also share that this fact doesn't
affect my personal ability to be fair or impartial. And, but I do respect my fellow commissioners
and the applicants, and so I would like to make sure that everyone is comfortable with the fact
that I can be fair and impartial. Commissioners? Any of you have any reservations about that?
No one? (Pause) Okay. How about the applicant? Zendo?
KERN: Good morning, Madam Chair.
CARR SMITH: Good morning.
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EXHIBIT A
KERN: Um, I think we are going to—we are good. I, we trust for you to be impartial and fair
and all of that good stuff that we need on the commission.
CARR SMITH: Okay, very good. And Kathryn? Are you and your husband comfortable as
well?
K. HICKEY: Sorry, I forgot to un- - -
CARR
n- - -CARR SMITH: That's okay.
K. HICKEY: - - - I- - -you know, really hope that you can hear all of our testimony to and
weigh equally with the opposition.
CARR SMITH: Absolutely.
K. HICKEY: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: All right, well, hearing none, we will proceed then. So I'll introduce the agenda
item. The applicant is Douglas and Kathryn Hickey, SPP 20-000218. This is an application for
a Special Permit to legitimize the establishment of a venue for weddings and similar gatherings
on a 2.25-acre portion of a 20-acre condominium property regime unit of an 80-acre property
situated in the State Land Use Agricultural District. The subject property is located at
76-1297 Waiono Ranch Road, about one and a half miles east and mauka of the Mamalahoa
Highway - Waiono Ranch Road intersection, Waiono Meadows, H61ualoa, North Kona, Hawaii.
TMK is (3) 7-6-002:028: a portion of Parcel 0001.
All right. We have many testifiers who are logged on. I think Rachelle has them all off-line at
this point, but if anybody is lingering in here in the room,please make sure that your cameras
and microphones are turned off and wait until you are called upon.
All right, we are going to have a staff presentation from Maija Jackson at this point.
JACKSON: Thank you, Chair Carr Smith. Good morning, Members of the Leeward Planning
Commission. If you could just give me a moment to get the presentation up—sorry about that,
hold on just a second. Okay, can the commission see the slide that says, "Douglas & Kathryn
Hickey?"
CARR SMITH: Yes.
JACKSON: Okay, great. So the first agenda item is an application for a Special Permit, and the
applicants are Douglas and Kathryn Hickey.
The subject property is located in the North Kona District, and on the slide you can see the
subject 80-acre property outlined in red. The location of the permit area is shown with the red
dot. You have Mamalahoa Highway running in a north-south direction through the middle of the
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slide, and then off of the highway Waiono Ranch Road runs mauka and runs along the southern
edge of the property boundary.
The applicants are requesting a Special Permit to legitimize the establishment of a venue for
weddings and similar gatherings on a 2.25-acre portion of a 20-acre CPR unit within an 80-acre
property. And the slide says "legitimize the establishment"because the applicant has been
operating for the past three years an event venue out of their existing farm dwelling.
The proposed use would include construction of a 3,500-square foot event venue building that
would include a large covered deck, a large foyer, kitchen, two rooms for wedding preparation, a
storage room, women's restroom, men's restroom, and unisex restroom. Food will be brought by
the guests or provided by caterers or food trucks. And alcohol will be permitted at events but not
provided by the applicant. The applicant requests to continue to use the grounds of the permit
area, but not the applicant's farm dwelling, with temporary event tents and port-a-potties, to
accommodate rescheduled events and already reserved events until the construction of the
wedding venue building is completed. Events will occur inside the event venue building, which
will have sliding glass doors that would be closed prior to playing music, and outside the
building within the 2.25-acre permit area. The applicant is also open to limiting the volume on a
supplied PA system, should it be required as a condition of the permit. Events will be limited to
weddings, vow renewals, community and charity events. Events will be held daily between
9:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. by reservation. No overnight accommodations are proposed. The
applicant proposes 100 events per year, or an average of two events per week, with a maximum
of four events per week; a maximum of 125 guests at the venue at one time; and an average
events would consist of about 50 guests. The proposed use would generate a maximum of 250 to
500 visitors per week, and the applicant proposes to limit guests to bring no more than 20
vehicles to the venue and use a shuttle service consisting of passenger vans or busses, which will
be hired to transport guests between their lodging and the venue. For guests not staying in
hotels, for example a local Kona wedding, guests would be required to be dropped off at a shuttle
pick-up location.
This is the county zoning map that shows the subject property outlined in red. Again, the permit
area is shown with the red dot. And the property is zoned Agricultural-20 acres, along with the
surrounding property owners to the, I'm sorry, the surrounding properties to the east, west and
south; this is shown with the dark green. The Wai`aha Springs State Forest Reserve is just north
of the subject property.
The State Land Use district for the property and surrounding area is Agricultural, which is shown
in the light green.
The General Plan designation for the property and surrounding area is Important Agricultural
Land, which is shown in the light green color.
And this is the Kona CDP Map. Again, you can see the permit area shown with the red dot, and
you can see it's located about one and a half miles mauka of Holualoa. The CDP map shows the
Kona Urban Area outlined in red, and the Holualoa Rural Town Transit Oriented Development
shown in the blue outline; so the property is located outside of both of these areas.
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CARR SMITH: Maija, could I interrupt you for just one second?
JACKSON: Yes.
CARR SMITH: I think there we go, we had Naomi on the line, and I could hear her typing.
Okay, go ahead and proceed. Thank you.
JACKSON: Okay, thank you. So this is the applicant's proposed site plan. And I oriented it on
its side just so that I could zoom in and it would show up large, but you can see the north arrow
is facing to the right, so the actual orientation of the property would be if you turn this
counterclockwise. But this shows the 80-acre property. Again, there is four different CPR units
on this property, and the applicants' CPR unit 1 is shown with a dashed line in the lower left
corner of the slide. You have Waiono Ranch Road running along the left side of the slide. And
this site plan also shows three drainage easements running through the 80-acre property, one of
which runs through the applicants' coffee orchard, which, which is located just next to Waiono
Ranch Road. Here is a zoom-in version of the applicant's CPR unit. Again, you have the road,
the Ranch Road, on the left side of the slide. The applicants are proposing a parking area right
off of the road near the coffee orchard. The coffee orchard is shown with a solid outline that
runs right next to the road. And then there is a 10-foot wide paved driveway running up to the
existing farm dwelling, and just south of that is the location of the proposed venue. There is also
an agricultural storage building that is located outside of the 2.25-acre permit area.
This is a floor plan, a proposed floor plan, for the event venue. And you can see there is a large
entry foyer, to the right of that is a kitchen food prep area, and then you have a bride and groom
wedding preparation rooms, as well as restrooms, and a unisex restroom all the way to the left
side of the building. And then that opens onto a large covered deck.
This is an aerial photo of the property, or a portion of the property, I should say. You can see a
little bit of the applicant's coffee orchard on the bottom right of the slide, the driveway going up
to the existing farm dwelling, and this red outline shows the general location of the proposed
event venue building. The structure just outside of the red outline is the agricultural storage
building, and then the two closest dwellings are located west of the CPR unit, and they are about
500 feet away from the permit area.
This is a photograph showing the existing farm dwelling, or a portion of it, I should say. And
then this is the general location of the proposed event venue. You can see the large tree in both
of these photos. One is a faraway view, and then the image to the right is a closeup view of the
location of the proposed event venue. This is a photo of the applicants' driveway from Waiono
Ranch Road up towards the farm dwelling. This is a 10-foot wide paved driveway.
And then these are two photos of Waiono Ranch Road just to give you an idea of the character of
the road. It is curvy, and you can see it is a private one-lane paved road about 12 feet wide, with
unmaintained grass shoulders. This is the intersection of Waiono Ranch Road and Mamalahoa
Highway; so this is looking, standing across the highway looking back at Waiono Ranch Road.
And these are two closeup views of the shoulders of the highway at the intersection; so the view
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on the left is on the north side of the intersection, and then the view on the right is on the south
side of the intersection.
The planning director is recommending denial of the application for the following reasons: The
request will be contrary to state law, state land use law, the General Plan and Community
Development Plan, which all seek to preserve agricultural land for agricultural uses, such as
forestry, farming and ranching. The property is classified as Important Agricultural Land by the
county General Plan, which is the highest classification of agricultural land in the county because
of its potential for sustained high agricultural yields. The property is in the Kona Coffee Belt
and has an eight-acre farm on the 20-acre CPR unit. The planning director is concerned that
agriculture will no longer be the primary use of the CPR unit, and the event venue will become
the primary use since it is likely the income generated by the event venue will exceed the income
generated by the coffee farm. Two other reasons for the denial recommendation are the adverse
effects on surrounding property owners, which would include a substantial increase in traffic and
in noise, especially with events occurring up to 10:00 p.m. daily; construction and operation of
the event venue with a maximum of 250 to 500 visitors per week would substantially change
the agricultural character of the land and its present use. And the last reason for the
recommendation, the private one-lane access road is substandard with narrow pavement width,
unmaintained grass shoulders, blind curves and hills, areas where flooding occurs, and therefore
cannot accommodate an increase in traffic. The access road does not meet the fire code for fire
truck access due to steep grades over 15 percent in some sections and road pavement width of
less than 20 feet. The intersection of the access road with the highway is also substandard, and
DPW, Department of Public Works, recommended improvements be made.
These are four additional photos of Waiono Ranch Road that provide examples of the inadequate
sight distance and substandard nature of the road. The photo on the top left shows inadequate
sight distance due to hills, blind hills. The photo on the bottom right [sic - left] is an example of
inadequate sight distance due to blind curves in the road. And then the photo on the top right is
an example of both a blind curve and a blind hill combined. And photo on the bottom right is an
example of lack of drainage structures, which leads to water across the road. And you can see in
all four of these photos the unmaintained grass shoulders.
So that concludes the presentation part that I have to offer you. I do want to name off all of the
public testimony, the written public testimony, we've received and provided to the Planning
Commission since the commission received the original director's recommendation report. We
received testimony from Phil and Kelly Johnson, Steve and Audrey Grossman, Wendy Mitchell,
Brittany Horn, Allison Naito, Ann Ferguson, Ally Brown, Kyle and Ka`iulani Thornton, Beth
Balik, Lyla Mah, Danielle Burnside, Amelia Antonucci-Fisher, Aesha Shapiro, Sally Rice, Riley
Smith and Britt Craven, Sara Moore, Pamela Parker, Sarah Gehman, and lastly, a letter from the
applicant's representative, Zendo Kern, dated September 18'', which responded to the planning
director's recommendation, as well as a revised event venue floor plan. And I apologize that I
wasn't, I didn't have time to put the revised event venue floor plan in the presentation, but I do
have that available, if the commission would like to look at it once the applicant speaks about the
revision.
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And that concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions that the commission
has.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Maija. Could you pull down your presentation,please?
JACKSON: Give me one minute here.
CARR SMITH: No problem.
JACKSON: Okay.
CARR SMITH: Here we go. So, were you planning on responding to the applicant's response
of September 18'h or did you want to address that later?
JACKSON: I think I prefer to address that later; if we could have the applicant present their
revised site plan and all their information, and then we can respond to that.
CARR SMITH: All right.
JACKSON: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Okay, Commissioners, do you have questions for the county? I see
Mr. Van Pernis's hand up. Go ahead, Mark.
VAN PERNIS: Can you hear me?
CARR SMITH: Yes.
VAN PERNIS: Ms. Jackson, something seems to have been totally ignored here. This is one of
those condominium programs that scams around the county subdivision law now illegal to do
this—so they could subdivide for condominium, condo-viding, without putting in the
improvements, such as a subdivision road. So I ask you, did you or the staff review the
Condominium Property Regime, CPR, or the amendments thereto, as part of this application?
JACKSON: Yes, thank you, Commissioner Van Pernis. So this CPR was created quite a while
ago prior to the county changing its codes to prevent CPR units on agricultural land
VAN PERNIS: - - - applicant- - - said that's a legal CPR.
CARR SMITH: Mark, - - -
JACKSON: Yes
CARR SMITH: - - - interrupt her when she's speaking.
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JACKSON: So this is somewhat of a, like a grandfathered CPR. As far as the CPR documents
go, staff did review those with the Planning Department's attorney, and a couple questions that
came up that are attorney can speak to, if you'd like, was, do the applicants need to get the
landowner authorization of the other three CPR unit owners in order to apply for this Special
Permit, and the decision was no. And another issue that came up from the CPR documentation,
we typically, the county doesn't regulate private agreements like CPR agreements or CC&Rs,
but whenever we do accept a Special Permit application or any application that comes before the
Planning Commission, we do check to see if there is a private agreement like CC&R or CPR, we
do check to see whether the document prevents the Planning Commission from issuing that type
of permit, whether there is any prohibition. And in this particular CPR document there was
nothing prohibiting issuance of a Special Permit so long as it's obviously done through the
normal process of issuance of a Special Permit.
VAN PERNIS: My question is, did the CPR or any amendments allow this sort of activity
anywhere on the condominiumized property where they refer to the entire property, not just the
applicant's property?
JACKSON: I think my answer was the CPR documentation did not prohibit it.
VAN PERNIS: But do they allow it?
JACKSON: I didn't see anything in the CPR document that said event venues are permitted, no.
VAN PERNIS: Isn't it correct that this property, at least as far as the common elements are
concerned, are owned by all of the owners up in Waiono Meadows?
JACKSON: Yes. But there is language in the CPR document that gives each separate owner the
ability to develop its land according with, with conformance to the zoning laws. And
VAN PERNIS: But that—
JACKSON:
hatJACKSON: the ability to apply for and secure a Special Permit is allowed under the zoning
laws.
VAN PERNIS: Now, is the development to the property allowed for their condominium, their
limited common elements or the common elements that are any portion of? Well, let me put this
way: Isn't it true that they can develop their condominium, which is their housing area, but that
they can't develop the common elements, such as a roadway, without permission of everybody in
the condominium.
JACKSON: Commissioner Van Pernis, I would have to look at again whether the language
allows development of theactually, I'm sorry, the Waiono Ranch Road, I do not believe, is a
common element of the CPR; it's a road lot that's owned by the original developer, and the
owners of the various properties up there, including the four CPR unit owners, have an easement
over Waiono Ranch Road-
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VAN PERNIS: - - -
JACKSON:
- -JACKSON: so the Ranch Road
VAN PERNIS: - - - I'm sorry.
JACKSON: Go ahead.
VAN PERNIS: So in all the other condominium owners and - - - another four, correct?
JACKSON: I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
VAN PERNIS: In addition to the four condominium owners involved in this application, the
road implied by the easement for all of the condominium owners up there.
JACKSON: The Waiono Ranch Road is a road lot, private road lot, and the owners of the
subdivision, including the four CPR unit owners, have an easement over Waiono Ranch Road.
VAN PERNIS: And all - - -the other condominium owners have the easement in addition to the
four, correct?
JACKSON: I guess I'm not understanding your question, Commissioner Van Pernis
VAN PERNIS: - - - CPR provides. Now, what is the lia-well, don't, is the granting of a, this
application as to this property, since this property is only a portion of the entire property, is this
approval, if this is approved, do not all the condominium owners up there, which are per the
single Tax Map Key number, don't all of them have the same right?
JACKSON: The, should the Special Permit be approved, the obligations of the permit conditions
would fall upon the owner of the 2.25-acre permit area, which in this case is the Hickeys, the
applicant.
VAN PERNIS: Is that a legal question you referred to counsel on on whether or not approval of
this permit would run to the entire Tax Map Key number?
CARR SMITH: Mark, I believe she already, she stated that, that they did check with corp.
counsel, and that it was determined that it's only the applicant's portion of the CPR that is liable
under the potential Special Permit. Correct, Maija?
VAN PERNIS: - - -the question was
JACKSON: Yes
VAN PERNIS: not presented to counsel; different question was.
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JACKSON: Chair Carr Smith, we also do have the Planning Department attorney, John Mukai.
I believe, he's available, if Commissioner Van Pernis would like to ask those questions directly
to him.
MUKAL Well, it's the Planning Department's position that they are following the Planning
Rules, and under the Planning Rules only the owner's consent is needed; the other owners'
consent is not required for the, for the Planning Department to process the application. There is
a rule for what needs to be in the Special Permit application, and it doesn't mention the other
CPR owners' consent. And, finally we'd like to point out that the Planning Department is not
the arbiter of the CC&Rs with regards to this CPR development.
VAN PERNIS: But doesn't it have to consider the CPR whether it allows this activity?
MUKAL Again, as Ms. Jackson pointed out, each owner can develop and apply for the Special
Permit.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you
VAN PERNIS: And - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: —any other commissioners that have questions? Where did Mike go? Did we
lose Mr. Vitousek? I'm not seeing him. Why can't I see him? Go ahead, Max.
NEWBERG: I just wanted to ask, with the permit, and I believe it's a 3,500-square foot facility
being proposed to be built, would that be on the existing cesspool, or is there going to be a septic
system installed in regards to that? - - -
JACKSON:
- -JACKSON: The applicantoh, I'm sorry the applicant is proposing a new wastewater system.
It would likely be a septic system.
NEWBERG: Okay, thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Hold on, Mr. Van Pernis, for just a moment. There is Mike, okay,
thank you. Can I please ask Naomi Melamed to leave the meeting and come back? I believe you
are for Agenda Item number 2, which could be a while. So if you could please leave the meeting
and watch it on YouTube, and you'll know when we are getting close. We'll have breaks in
between. Naomi, can you please do that? Thank you. I'm not sure who is on the phone at this
other phone number, but we really only need our necessary people on the line right now. There
is a phone number that ends in "46"; if you could also please leave and watch YouTube, and
you'll be informed when it's your time to testify, if you are a testifier.
All right, let's get back to Commissioners with questions for staff. Mr. Van Pernis.
VAN PERNIS: There are many questions. First, Ms. Jackson, do you know whether the
proposed improvements are on the condominium owned by the applicants, or the limited
common elements, or the common elements owned by everyone up there?
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JACKSON: I believe the proposed improvements will be on the limited common elements.
VAN PERNIS: And who owns the limited common elements.
JACKSON: The applicants.
VAN PERNIS: And then terms of the easement, have you reviewed the easement and seen
whether it allows commercial traffic?
JACKSON: The easement over Waiono Ranch Road was provided in the deed, it was described
in the deed, and it did not describe any limitations.
VAN PERNIS: Isn't it correct that any of the owners up in Waiono Meadows could litigate to
stop the use of the commercial activity in the easement?
JACKSON: That's a legal question.
VAN PERNIS: All right, the other legal question would be, what is the liability of the county for
allowing a use that is not allowed by the Condominium Property Regime?
MUKAL Again this is John Mukai for the Planning Department—it's not the Planning
Department's, I mean, it's a private matter between the condo owners; they can do whatever they
want to each other. But don't expect Planning to go in and be the arbiter of the CPRS or any of
the CC&Rs on the property.
VAN PERNIS: But it's going to allow a certain use regardless of not being an arbitrator of the
CPR meaning.
MUKAL That's why they applied for the Special Permit.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. Mr. Vitousek.
VITOUSEK: Yeah, I just, I just kind of want to echo Commissioner Van Pernis's concern. In
the, you know, I do understand what the counsel is saying about how the Planning Commission
or county is not the arbitrator of a CC&R concern. But my understanding is that the CC&Rs are
the lowest level of enforcement for that property, meaning that they have to be adhered to but
technically it's up to the members of the association to enforce that privately through action,
through legal action. I agree with Mr. Van Pernis that for us to be approving an action that
would basically be setting up the community to have to police itself seems like it could
potentially put the county in liability, and I would like to know a little bit more about that.
Specifically, my question, you know, is coming from the CC&Rs, Section 5.3(7), Use of the
Product [sic -Project], "All occupants shall exercise care in the use of musical instruments,
radios, televisions and amplifiers, and shall otherwise avoid making noises that may disturb other
occupants"; so, to me, the CC&Rs are indicating that they are not allowing loud noises, loud
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events that could become intrusive into this area. So for the county to approve such uses, to me,
would be problematic.
MUKAL The county did issue a denial in this case, and that was one of the concerns of the
director.
VITOUSEK: I agreed, yeah. Just want to echo Mr. Van Pernis's concern, and I see that those
considerations were taken into the director's recommendation for denial.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Anyone else? Commissioners, any other questions for Maija?
(Pause) Okay, very good. Thank you, Maija, for your presentation.
JACKSON: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Appreciate it. All right. Next is the applicant's presentation. I believe we have
Zendo Kern who is the planning consultant, the applicant, Kathryn Hickey, or the applicants, and
Alan Tuhy is the applicants' attorney—he is also with us today. If you could all raise your right
hand, please.
KERN: Including Clair, Madam Chair, Clair is here as well
CARR SMITH: Oh, I'm sorry, yes, yes, and Clair Mason. Thank you. If you could all raise
your right hand. You, too, Clair. Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this
matter before the Leeward Planning Commission?
APPLICANTS/REPRESENTATIVES: Yes.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. Did you receive the Planning Department's
Recommendation and Proposed Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Decision and Order?
KERN: Yes.
K. HICKEY: Yes.
CARR SMITH: Very good. If you would like to go aheadI kind of assume, Zendo, that you
are going to take the lead. If you would like to just tell us who you are again, and comment on
the Findings of Fact, and give us your presentation, please.
KERN: Thank you, Madam Chair. Zendo Kern,planning consultant, here representing the
applicant. Good morning to all the commissioners, Planning Department staff, and everyone else
in attendance.
Okaya bit perplexed here. Came into this, knowing this is going to be a little bit of a
challenge, didn't think it would be this kind of challenge. I got a call from the applicant towards
the end of last- - -when she was looking to change the wedding event venue from inside of the
house to outside of the house, and she realized that she was actually not in compliance, so we
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talked about that, and she said that she wants to be in compliance, that's how she operates. So
we started this process to go in that direction. She has operated the event venue for about three
years—we talked about that—no complaints, no issues all the way around to our knowledge. So
it looked like it was relatively straightforward for the most part, basically continuation of what
was already occurring there, but making sure it was legitimized. Before, you know, usually
when people come in to legitimize something, it's because there was a complaint made. In this
case, you know, we've reached out to the neighbors multiple times, etcetera.
I'm just going to take a step back real quick. Obviously, the CC&Rs is a concern for the
commissioners; Alan Tuhy can speak to that. What I want to take a step back is about
agriculture and fairness. We have a farmer here that actually operates a farm. Often times we do
see applications come in that have no farming activities on there. In this case, we actually do
have a farmer. Ms. Hickey has been a, you know, been a part of the Farm Bureau for over six
years. She chaired the Farm Bureau, as well as other charities in the area. I wonder how many
other of the surrounding areas actually do farming. That's one of the issues we have here in
Hawaii County.
Before that, I'm a guy about fairness, you guys know, born and raised, most of you all know,
born and raised here on the Big Island, former chair of the Windward Planning Commission,
former elected official, county councilperson. Not going to come in and we're not always going
to agree on the same thing, but I do think fairness is something that is a very good place to start
with. And feeling like it's stacked, stacked and stacked kind of in the opposite manner for
fairness honestly right now. From the recommendation as one measure to even the fact that there
were 32 letters of support sent in to the commissioners; I don't think many of those were
mentioned. There was the change of venue that was put in there; that was mentioned but we
haven't had a chance to get into it. But, before that, there was a time when—so when the
Planning Commission gets a recommendation and it's a favorable recommendation, the Planning
Department says we give a favorable recommendation for these reasons and here's our proposed
conditions, right? We've all seen that many of times. Now, recently, when there is a negative
recommendation, it comes as this proposed conclusions of law and findings of fact, instead of we
propose a negative recommendation for these reasons and let's talk about it. And if that's so
what's decide, then that comes out to be a conclusions of law and findings of fact. It's different
than how it used to be. I, what I want to say right off the bat, that isn't fair, to me; I'd want an
even case, whether it be for or against it, in the same way. So if the Planning Department
supports an application, should it not come out as proposed findings of fact and conclusions of
law in favor of it? I wonder. So it's very one way; if we support it, we kind of do, here is
conditions, if it's all right; if we don't, this is it, proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
I wonder there, conclusions of law. So, are these conclusions of law? The findings of fact are
relatively accurate - - -relatively accurate. I mean if you go down these and say that, you know,
number 3, for example, on page 9, we did talk about agriculture tourism in there as a component
that we would be submitting for, but we are submitting as a Special Permit on its own; therefore,
the agriculture tourism component has no bearing on that, none. It says in ag tourism, it doesn't,
you can't do other things; if you want to do other things, go, go for Special Permits. So that's
what we are doing. So, "The proposed use is contrary to the objections [objectives] sought [to be
accomplished] by the Land Use [Law and] Regulations?" I, it's not a conclusion of law because
12
EXHIBIT A
we talked about ag tourism in there. That's a reason to go against it? I don't think so. I would
think that- - - andwe have - - -
CARR SMITH: You are breaking up a little, Zendo,just to let you know.
KERN: How about now? Can you hear me all right?
CARR SMITH: Yeah, go ahead.
KERN: Okay, thank you, Madam Chair, really appreciate that. You know, if we want to talk
about, talk about that, as far as, you know, an unusual and reasonable, that, that part of the code
is for unusual and reasonable use of agricultural land situated within the state Agricultural
district. I would say this meets that criteria; it's unusual and it's reasonable and it doesn't take
away from farming, it actually supports a small farmer.
Going further down, "The proposed use would adversely affect surrounding properties." On the
surface one could say that that's a potential, but we did put in there multiple times that we would
limit sound decibels to the property to a residential level, that we would mitigate sound, we
would mitigate those elements, which would normally be into, in a condition, if it was approval.
And the applicant is happy to put that in as a condition. So in here in this conclusions of law, it
goes back and forth on saying that we propose to limit it but we might not be able to limit it and
maybe we can and maybe we can't. Well, somewhat subjective. We put it out there on the onset
that we would limit that to there is actually a technology to do that now; you can actually put
indicators on or, excuse me, some type of device around the properties or on the side, and it'll
actually click into your phone when you are increasing a sound decibel level. So there's ways to
actually read it, limit it, and even ways to report it. So that's something that can be completely,
completely dealt with. But what I find very interesting, page 10so we go through all of that,
how basically the planning director believes there would be a substantial increase in noise, I- - -
say that there have been many events over the past three years that obviously didn't have this
effect, I'm sure there would be complaints but the last paragraph it says, "Lastly, any time a
non-agricultural use is established in an area actively being farmed or ranched, it can create
conflicts between the two land uses. There is a concern that the guests of the proposed event
venue may complain about farm and ranch-related nuisances such as noise or odors from
surrounding properties." Is that a conclusion of law? Is that a reason to not do this? It's kind of
like not supporting farming? This doesn't make sense to me unfortunately.
DPW talked about some need for improvements off of the county road and Waiono Ranch Road.
Applicant is more than willing to do that there was to be a fine condition. We have also limited
the number of vehicles right off the bat. The applicant is willing to work with that as well.
There could be safety-control or traffic-control type person during events. That could be very,
very easily mitigated by way of a condition.
"Unusual [conditions,] trends, [and needs] have arisen," "there is increasing pressure to use these
farm lands ... "this is another one where we are supporting a small farmer, and this is a way for
them to actually offset their revenue. The actual area of the farm unit—they talk about the
ALISH system and the agri- excuse me, the important ag land, this area- - -
13 - -13
EXHIBIT A
CARR SMITH: - - - didn't catch - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: - - - What was that, Madam Chair?
CARR SMITH: We lost you there for a bit—
KERN:
itKERN: How about now?
CARR SMITH: if you can - - - a couple of thoughts, please.
KERN: Okay, referring to the farming—everybody hear me all right? Good?
CARR SMITH: Yes.
KERN: The majority of the property is used for agriculture - - - has been used for agriculture the
proposed - - -really not farmable without massive, massive change, alteration of the land - - -
MASON:
- -MASON: We lost you again a little bit, Zendo.
KERN: Okay, it's not going to be—can you hear me? If it's not going to be heard - - -
MASON:
- -MASON: Maybe if we can turn off our camera - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: Maybe - - - and technology is not working.
CARR SMITH: Maybe we, maybe we should move to the applicant, see what they would like to
add. Should we do that?
MASON: Could we hear the rest of- - -
KERN:
- -KERN: - - -MASON: Maybe if
CARR SMITH: - - -
MASON:
- -MASON: we can all turn of our cameras
CARR SMITH: Hey Clair, excuse me, Clair, you can't just speak out, okay? You need to raise
your hand or, be acknowledged. We have somebody trying to take minutes of all of this, and we
can't all just start speaking out. So, appreciate it, thank you. Zendo, what do you prefer?
KERN: I'll try to clear this out, but if the sound is going back and forth still, then I can bounce
over and we can go back and forth, so just please
14
EXHIBIT A
CARR SMITH: Okay.
KERN: —call, call out, if, if I'm not being heard. And I'll try to somewhat summarize this
portion of it.
Basically the part of it saying substantially alter the area of the land, or the area of the character;
again, this has been an ongoing use with no complaints, and there's many ways to mitigate these
elements.
We talk about the General Plan and Kona CDP. There is nothing explicitly against that. Both of
those could be argued in either, in either case. So I'd say, I'd say that element is very subjective.
It appears that there's Section 1.6 of the Kona CDP, but that is just an excerpt that's taken out;
there is nothing in the Kona CDP that explicitly prohibits this request.
That's my take on the conclusions of law, findings of fact. I feel a lot better, if those were just a
recommendation than a proposed conclusions of law, as I don't think they are conclusions of
law. I also think it leaves people in the public, it also could leave the commission, to being
steered a certain way. That's, and that part of it, that's, that's Zendo Kern standing on my inside
of it; it's just somebody who wants to see fairness in Hawaii County. It sucks that this is where
we are with this application in this manner.
I want to point out that we did reach out to the surrounding properties multiple times the very,
very beginning, beyond any of our required notices, to attempt to talk about this and to basically
talk story with the surrounding properties to, you know, see if there's issues to work those out.
So the thing that I'd like to really point out here is that there's many ways to mitigate sound,
many ways to mitigate the traffic, we've already reduced the size of the venue—which I'll let
Clair Mason speak to that, she's got a lot of good detail on the venue side of it—and there's also
an opportunity to reduce the number of people. What I, what would be really need us to see
some dialogue or some conversation occur to hopefully find a middle ground to support a real
farmer, real farmers, and a way to, you know, bring in some additional income as well, will
support a tremendous amount of other small businesses. So, I wonder, this is a very big question
for the commission is, how do we support small farmers, how do we support small business, and
how do we do that in the time like this that's unprecedented. This is a much bigger decision than
just a yes or no on a Special Permit; this is an opportunity, again, to find a middle ground to
work together and, and support this.
On that note, I'd like to turn it over to Kate, Kate Hickey, the applicant for a bit, so she can talk
about her story. I didn't really tell her story because I prefer her to tell that story. Then we can
probably go over to Alan for him to speak any, anything regarding the CC&Rs, and then we can
go to Clair. And I can maybe get the, the microphone back to close out this - - -. Thank you,
Madam Chair.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Zendo. Go ahead, Kate.
15
EXHIBIT A
K. HICKEY: Hi everybody. I'm Kate, and this is my husband, Doug Hickey, and we own
Sunshower Farms in H61ualoa. Thank you so much for hearing our application today. I'm, I'm
really nervous, so, I hope I'm clear.
So, to tell you the story of our farm, in 2012 we moved to Hawaii - - - Chicago. I was an
attorney there, I worked in environmental law for NRDC that's Natural Resources Defense
Council, and it's always been a passion, like a lifelong passion, of mine to be living sustainably,
and really just contribute to the betterment of our earth and not, and not, you know,
non-sustainable practices. And that was a big part of our move to Hawaii. We purchased our
farm in February of 2013. We had every goal, when we bought our farm, of making a hundred
percent of our living as organic farmers. We thought about what we were going to do with what
we had, with our gifts, with our passions, with our money, and what kind of difference we
wanted to make in the worlds, and that's what led us to this farm. When we bought it, unlike a
lot of the properties, or like many of the properties around us, it was a home with unimproved
farm ag property; there were no crops, no animals, and we started everything from scratch. To
be clear, that is the case for all of the units in our CPR. We planted our eight acres of coffee on
our own. We have six acres of pasture animals; we have a herd of sheep and a herd of goats; we
have about an acre and a half of chicken coops; we have beehives also in that area; and then a
number of fruit trees and other vegetable gardens. We actively farm about 17 acres of our 20
acres. The proposed event venue site is on our site plan two and a half acres, but that includes
our house and driveway; the actual site plan for just the venue would be about three-quoters of
an acre. So we are not talking about a large portion of our farm. We are really dedicated
farmers, and that is our goal.
We have tried a lot of strategies in the almost eight years we've owned this farm to make it
profitable. We have planted our coffee, like I said; we have our animals; we have, vend at
farmers market; we've sold microgreens to restaurants; we sold homebrewing supplies; we had a
vegetables delivery CSA; we baked bread; we sold eggs; we've done farm tours; we've done
coffee tasting; we sell our coffee online. We have done everything we can do to make our
property profitable for us and to make it as farmers. But it wasn't until 2016 when we, when we
hosted a couple of farm-to-table dinners in conjunction with Slow Food Hawaii, of which I'm
on the leadership team. And that was the time when we realized that there was a market for
small weddings. We had a number of the guests of those dinners asked us, like, oh, could we do
a wedding up here? Do you do weddings? Are you up for weddings? And so we said, oh, sure.
You know, we thought that it was part of our ag,just ag tourism; never did I realize at that point
that we were in violation of our zoning. We did a couple of weddings in 2016, and then from the
photos and reviews from those weddings, the demand went crazy. In 2017 we did 12 weddings,
and 2018 we did 40, and 2019 we did 50, and we had 50 on the books for 2020 before COVID.
We have done over 100 weddings on our property at this point. I realize I'm telling you right
now all about how we violated our zoning, and I'm really sorry about that. I want to be clear; the
day I realized we had violated our zoning, the first thing I did was call our lawyer—Alan Tuhy is
on this call—and I asked him how we could get into compliance. From that day forward, we
have not booked even one new wedding, which I'll talk about in a second, but we are trying to so
hard to come into compliance with the rules and to be able to continue to farm and do our
wedding venue.
16
EXHIBIT A
So, making a living farming, I really just want to talk about how hard that's been for us. In 2019
that was the first year that we have ever been able to take a salary from our farm. We had
farmed for six years making no money at allsorry, my husband will talk for a second.
D. HICKEY: (Indiscernible–away from microphone) I don't, what do you want me to say? I
don't know
K. HICKEY: Okay, he doesn't know, he didn't prepare. But we had been working for all these
years not taking a salary. In 2019 that was the very, very first time that we ever were able to pay
ourselves, and that was because of the event venue. We were also able to, to do a lot of other
things that was really helpful for our farm. We were able to sell all of our coffee at a profitable
rate for the first time because we could sell our coffee to the same clients that were at events; we
could sell them to the guests; we could sell them as coffee wedding favors; sell through coffee
like, you know, people would serve the coffee at their weddings. So it was in symbiosis with
our, with our weddings and events, our coffee, and our farming is all one.
We havesorry, I have some notes—we've been able to hire four fulltime employees. Right
now we only have two because of coronavirus, but before coronavirus we had four fulltime
employees with full benefits, paid time-off, 401K matching, bonuses at the end of the year. And
the reason we were able to do that was because of weddings. We were never able to be the kind
of employers that we wanted to be for our farmworkers before we had weddings.
I realize that it is not an ag use to have a, a wedding venue, but it is what allows us to do our
agriculture; those things together is what allows us to be a small farm and a profitable farm.
We are also able from our small venue to support so many other local businesses like cake
bakers, florals, caterers, musicians, photographers, on and on and on. And I think a lot of those
people are going to be testifying at this meeting in our favor. I really want you guys to
understand, and the whole commission to understand, that if we lose this and we don't get to
have the wedding venue, it will be really hard for us financially, but it will also have far-reaching
impact on all of our vendors. Some of our vendors count on us for almost all of their income,
and they are going to talk to you about like - - -venue that's so many other - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: - - -break up a little bit.
K. HICKEY: - - - Can hear me now okay? Chair?
CARR SMITH: Yeah, go ahead.
K. HICKEY: Okay. We also really want to support charitable events and kama`aina events with
our venue. We get asked a lot to host charitable events, a lot. And we have not been able to do
that as much as we want it, because the space that we've been out of in the past has been our
home. So it's like, it's been really hard to do any increase of events here, especially for not
being paid for them, but with the new venue, we would like a condition of our permit that at least
five percent of our events be charitable events. We've been approached by Donkey Mill Art
Center, the Kona Coffee Festival, Kona Coffee Pageant, and Slow Food, I mean there are so
17
EXHIBIT A
many that have asked us and probably ones that haven't even asked us because they didn't know
that we would do this. That's a big part of our, of our mission, and also a big part of why we
want to build this new space. Also, event space for kama`aina, you know, I, you all live here and
you know, there are not a lot of venues for locals. Almost all of our weddings are for destination
clients right now, and that's because of the small size. If we were approved for a small wedding
venue that's smaller, you know, that's - - - 50 people, let's say, that would be fine for us and our
bottom line, that would be fine to make enough money to survive as a farm. But it really doesn't
serve locals. Locals need a place that they can go that can have, you know, up to 100 guests.
And so that is why we applied for that higher number. The weddings I enjoy hosting and that I
really want to do are for smaller amounts. Our average size wedding in 2019 was 29 guests, and
that is right where I want to be. That is the size and type—we are talking about small intimate
events. The Planning Department in their recommendation said that we'll have maximum of 250
to 500 people; yet, that is, that is the maximum, but that is a huge misconstruing of what we
actually do where the vast majority of our events are small, under 50 guests. And then we want
to have a few, a handful, of larger events for kama`aina and for local charities.
Also, so finally, we are trying to follow the letter of the law in every way that we can. We did
not receive any complaints for our venue for the three years that we are in operation, nor did we
receive a notice of violation from Planning. We were the ones who started this process
unprompted so that we could be in compliance with all regulations. Since we have applied for
our permit to be in compliance with our zoning and to show our good faith, we have not accepted
any new bookings, which has put a huge financial strain on our business. If it wasn't for SBA
loans and, you know, some of our own savings, we would have been out of business already
from having not taken any new bookings for over eight months, nine months now. And that is
really, really hard. So I just want to be clear like we are Hawaii farmers. We do farm the vast
majority of our property. We will continue to do that. We need your help. We need a lot of
help. We need it from you. Please help us and approve our permit. Thank you. That's all I
have to say.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much, thank you. Did your husband want to say anything?
(Pause) No? Okay. I think Zendo wanted to move to you, Mr. Tuhy. Did you want to chime in
regarding the CC&Rs over CPR docs?
TUHY: Well, actually, Madam Chairperson and Members of the commission, I, my comments
will be really pretty limited. First of all, to confirm what Ms. Hickey just told you, I've
represented these folks for a number of years before this permit issue came up, and the day they
found out, I think it was the day or within hours quite literally of finding out that they needed this
Special Permit, I first referred them to a land use planning they ended up with Mr. Kern—and,
so I said the first thing is getting into compliance. And then immediately, they were
discontinuing all activity. So I think they've acted in good faith, and they've done the best that
they can to comply with the rules.
The second thing I wanted to look at, and this is sometime later, we had looked at the roadway,
and as Ms. Jackson indicated, this is a private roadway. There are easement rights over it. But
there is no road maintenance agreement. And there was kind of a concerted effort made to create
a roadway maintenance agreement among the owners. It was unsuccessful, and it was an attempt
18
EXHIBIT A
made back about nine years ago, about 2011. And that, you know, after a good start effort, there
was really no, anywhere near the hundred percent- - - hundred percent. There is no association
there. Again, partial response to Mr. Van Pernis's and Mr. Vitousek's comments, the roadway
doesn't have any particular language regarding maintenance of traffic. It is a very common
agricultural roadway. I've been here 35 years; I've driven hundreds of these. And what you do
is as a matter of courtesy, you wait for oncoming downhill traffic and you let them through. It's
never been a problem. And I'm not aware of any safety issues raised by reason of this road. So
the roadway itself is something that there is not much my clients can do short of filing a lawsuit
against everybody and trying to get a road maintenance corporation, which I think would be a
terrible thing for the owners up there. So, it kind of deferred on this for the time being to see
what they can do. And they've also, and they've not stated this so far, but they've offered to say
what can we do, how can we help, to, to help in the maintenance of this roadway up here. And if
that is some, somewhere where they can assist—one thing they can't do is that they can't create a
road maintenance agreement. What they can do is what they've offered to do, which is to offer
to improve it along with the other owners. And so far, those efforts, they haven't gone very far,
we are going to try to continue to push it.
But that's kind of the extent of what I had to say. Unless you have any other questions, that was
my comments.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Zendo, you want Clair to come in now and speak to the
specific area, or
KERN: Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair
CARR SMITH: is that correct?
KERN: yeah, if we could have - - - designer and - - - feedback, so we've made some
measures to kind of make some adjustments, reduced the size of the venue, etcetera. So there's
some good drawings that she has there, and that she can present that because she knows those
very well. And then if maybe I can get the floor back after that, appreciate it.
CARR SMITH: Sure. Go ahead, Clair.
MASON: Okay. Hi, aloha. Apologies, Madam Chair, for speaking over you early. Haven't
done this before online.
CARR SMITH: That's all right- - -
MASON:
- -MASON: So I'm going to share my screen here so you can see the updated plans. I'm on two
separate screens, so hopefully I can get the - - - okay, let me know if you guys can all see this.
CARR SMITH: No
MASON: No - - -
19
EXHIBIT A
CARR SMITH: - - -
MASON:
- -MASON: Oh, okay. Let's see, okay, here we go, uploading. Okay. Are we looking at it yet?
CARR SMITH: Yes.
MASON: Okay, wonderful. Okay, so, first,just a small introduction. I work in the construction
industry as a designer and project manager. I specialize in sustainable construction and
restoration. I have been working with Kate for the last month to develop a new set of plans that
appeases the concerns of their neighbors and concerns of her own and can serve as an
environmentally mindful establishment.
So the updated concept plan is still a concept; however, it has been changed to show a much
more accurate representation of what would be constructed. You'll see here that we have
reduced square footage by over 25 percent; it was originally 3,500 square feet, and we are down
to about 2,700. So here is the floor plan—let's see (indiscernible–voice lowered). We've
reduced the number of restrooms that was originally on the plans; we had several restrooms on
the Hilo Drafting co-plans, and here we just have the three guest bathrooms and one staff
bathroom, and this represents the appropriate and legal number of restrooms needed for the
maximum number of 125 guests, and would be much lower for the general number of guests,
which would be around 30, with maybe 10 people working. We will also be vigilant with the
placement of the septic system as to not allow any possibility of contamination to the stream that
was mentioned earlier. And right now, the Hickeys are also on a cesspool, and I have mentioned
to them that it's also very likely that we would at this time be able to switch them over to a septic
system, which is something that's going to be legally necessary for them on their property seen
here, so, that would also add to the environmental sustainability aspect.
I want to mention like Kate has been super adamant every step of the way that we make sure to
address any issues or nuisances that might be a concerning to her neighbors. For example, we'll
been adding ample soundproofing to areas where noise would be transmitted at higher decibels,
and now have the dance area, like here, in the middle of the building as to add extra sound
dampening between the sound system and her neighbors' homes. They also plan to go so far as
installing decibel meters on their property lines to monitor and keep record of their noise
compliance.
And as far as the design goes, Kate's developed really great aesthetic, and we are working
closely to design a space that is cohesive with the natural setting. The building itself would be a
combination of Hawaii ranch style architecture and modern rustic simplicity. The building will
have responsibly sourced `ohi`a posts along this wraparound lanai, goes all the way around the
building here so you have views around the whole building, and that's all with responsibly
sourced `ohi`a posts.
And then, of course, our goal is to have Sunshower Farms to remain a carbon-neutral business,
with the addition of the space. The following are a few of the many sustainability aspects of the
proposed construction: a hundred percent solar electric power, as they are off-grid; using a
propane or solar electric water heater; using native plants and locally sourced groundcover for
20
EXHIBIT A
landscaping; absolutely no use of chemical plant removal; using catchment water for as many
legally allowed purposes as possible. The list goes on. So I'll show you just a couple of
perspectives here just to give you a better idea of the design and just very simple space here.
This is from all sides, so this is looking out, this view will be looking out onto the ocean—okay,
I'm not sure how to go back there - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: - - -
MASON:
- -MASON: - - -thank you again, and we really hope that we can see this. How important it is to
be supporting these local ag businesses, you know, they, they just can't keep getting by without
having something to supplement their income.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much, Clair. All right, Zendo - - -wrap things up
KERN: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.
CARR SMITH: before we go to questions?
KERN: That's perfect. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Clair. I wanted to clarify a
couple of things actually. Based on our count, there's 55 letters of support, so that should be,
have gotten to everybody by - - -the actual number of guests I think it's gotten a little bit
misconstrued, or I think this is where some fine tuning needs to occur. We do have a, you know,
the request for the higher number, but again, as she was saying, that the average is closer to, you
know, 30, 40, and the higher guest count was for actually put in there for local families that
wanted to actually have - - - so, generally - - - local weddings can be much larger - - -point of
that is is that the applicant in my discussions have been more than willing to, you know, come up
with some parameters around that to maybe rein that in a little bit, or define it greater actually
would be a better way to say it. So it's, you know, only so many events per year at that higher
number, average at lower. So there's ways to control that and mitigate that. I think that's really
important. And I think that's something that we were hoping to have done with some of the
surrounding property owners, but never had that opportunity to do so, even though we've tried
many, many of times.
And the tech that I was referring to was sound decibel meters, put sound decibel meters along the
property edge, and that can actually go back to your phone and let you know when that's risen.
What we've proposed is basically the sound decibel level at the property line of a residential use,
which agriculture is much higher. So again, you know, all of this was - - -really trying to
mitigate these issues. And the review of the CC&R documents that there is nothing in there that
we can find that create some issue regarding sound or has created an issue regarding this request.
I think the other mitigating measures that we would have in there as far as number of people,
traffic control, some, you know, some improvements, sound decibel meters, etcetera, some
improvements to maintain the roadway; these are all things that we could do to actually find a
middle ground to support a farmer, and create a good, reasonable - - - as you folks as
commissioners can see that, and hopefully can help carry on this conversation to again find a
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EXHIBIT A
middle ground to support our local farmer. With that, I will—Kate, did you want to, did you
want to add any last, anything else?
K. HICKEY: Yeah, I did want- - - about, and I forgot to say this earlier, about our
environmental sustainability effort for our venue. Clair talked about it a little bit with how the
building design would be, but just like in every aspect of our wedding business, we work to be as
ecofriendly as possible. From all the florals that we have at our venue are all grown on island.
We forage many, many of the things that we use from weeds, invasives, we cut down things so
that we can specifically utilize those in a beautiful way while also are removing things that
shouldn't be there. We do native planting. In our coffee orchard we are one of the only farms on
our roadI think maybe the only one—who has left all of their native `ohi`a trees in their
orchard. We are trying to keep as many of our native trees as possible, and our native plants.
Our landscaping is almost entirely native plants, mostly ferns, other than the things that were
there before, and large taro patches. We are working towards being a certified carbon-neutral
business. We actually already meet the standards, but we are not technically certified as that.
All our food waste from our events, all of it, goes to our chickens or into our compost; none of it
goes to the landfill. We don't allow plastic at our events. We don't allow Styrofoam. We don't
allow straws. Everything that we use is wooden or cardboard and—if it's not, you know,
washable glass or china—and those things are chipped in a woodchipper and create, we create
mulch with that and we use it on our coffee trees or in our other farming practices. Just
throughout everything that we do in our farm, our goal is sustainability. We love this island, and
we really, like, this will not have a negative environmental impact on our land. If anything, it
will be a positive because we'll have more money to be able to put into the sustainability efforts
that we really want to do. So that's, that's all I wanted to say about that. Thanks.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you.
KERN: Thank you, Madam Chair, appreciate it.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. All right, Commissioners, do we have any questions for the
applicants? Faye, go ahead.
YATES: Hi. I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't have any objections against the family
that that's trying to make a living on their farm (indiscernible–away from microphone) I just
have some
CARR SMITH: Wait, wait, sorry, Faye, hold on just a second, yeah, can you bring your mic to
you? Thank you.
YATES: Okay, starting again. I'd like to preface this by saying that I have no objections - - -
make a living and, you know, living of their dream of being in a farm; however, I have some
question mostly like, you know, talking about the number of people, you probably would have
more people come, because if you are permitted, then you are able to advertise and more people
will see. And so my concerns are, you know, like you have more traffic on that road, so
somehow, you're going to have to do something about that road, because I think that's unsafe.
And also, does, if the, you know, if the county approves this, does the county become liable in
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case something happens? So I'm thinking that the road would need to be improved. I'm also
thinking, even though you said that you'll have decibels and all of that, we all know that, I think
it's important. I don't know if you've gotten any feedback from your neighbors how they feel
about it. And also, you know, you are saying no more than 30 to 50. No, that's not realistic; I
would think that if I had a wedding - - -people want to come to my wedding. Also, if you are
going to have a community event, that's more than 50 people. So, I mean, you know, those are
the things that I'm concerned about this, you know. You have proper restrooms? Proper
parking? And buses, you say you are going to have buses to event that go up and down the road;
So you are going to have more traffic. So that's my concern. Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Faye. Go ahead, Mr. Van Pernis. Go ahead.
VAN PERNIS: I'll ask all the testifiers, now be they head of them Mr. Kern, or otherwise: Are
you willing to improve the road to subdivision standards?
KERN: To improve the road to subdivision standards would be too far great of a burden
imposed upon - - -this time. The applicant is willing to comply with what the Department of
Public Works requested as far as improving the - - -
VAN PERNIS: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: - - -the highway. As far as making road improvements or mechanism to support road
improvements, yes, we've talked about that. The applicant is willing to do that within a
reasonable manner. Absolutely, without question. Again, that's why we are limiting, you know,
cars in the first place, as well as having the passenger vans and whatnot, all of this was in
mindset to limit the impact as far as traffic goes. And absolutely would be willing to contribute
some money. But I'm sorry, Commissioner Van Pernis, that would be too far great of a burden.
VAN PERNIS: That avoids the issue. DPW doesn't have jurisdiction of the road, only tie into
the highway. Is the applicant willing to provide any improvements on the private road? Any
improvements at all?
KERN: Yes, Commissioner Van Pernis, as I mentioned, the applicant would be willing to do so,
if it's within, within reason. I think this is where kind of working this out as far as number of
folks, guests, what type of improvements, what mechanism would be there, would be a way. So
under normal circumstances when you have a community association such as this that has a road,
you know, basically, a road association
VAN PERNIS: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: in other cases what we've been able to do is, you know, increase those annual road
dues for the business - - -per person
VAN PERNIS: I'm not talking about community association
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EXHIBIT A
CARR SMITH: Mr. Van Pernis, please stop interrupting. Can you let him finish his thought,
please?
KERN: I'll just say in this case we don't have that mechanism to make it easy, but as, to answer
your question, yes, the applicant is willing to make some improvements within reason.
VAN PERNIS: You can unilaterally? There is no association. The majority of landowners
don't approve this use. So the question is, does Ms. Hickey agree to build improvements to the
road for the benefit of her property regardless of any association or other landowner?
KERN: Yes, Commissioner Van Pernis, I, I believe I haven't stated otherwise that, that she is
I'm just saying it makes a little more challenging not having the mechanism, but, yes, the
applicant is willing to work on road improvements or a mechanism to help fund road
improvements that are within reason for the activities that they are doing.
VAN PERNIS: Are you talking about association? I'm talking about unilaterally by
Ms. Hickey. Exclude association
KERN: I'm talking about improvements, I'm talking about improvements or a mechanism to
fund the road improvements on the roadway, period.
VAN PERNIS: So I take that as she is unwilling to unilaterally improve the road.
KERN: That's not an accurate statement.
VAN PERNIS: What road improvements would she be willing to do unilaterally?
CARR SMITH: I think we are being a little repetitive here.
VAN PERNIS: All right, let me move onto another subject. This may be for the planner, the
last person. How many of the improvements, parking, etcetera, are on the common elements of
the property owned by numerous, all the owners up there?
KERN: To our knowledge, all the improvements would be made, or what we commit to is all
the improvements would be made on the CPR parcel that is owned by the applicants.
VAN PERNIS: I understand the CPR, but CPR includes limited common elements and common
elements, which are owned or influenced by persons other than the CPR owner.
KERN: Right, I mean, so, we are all pretty aware that this was a, quote/unquote, subdivision, by
way of CPR, and in these cases, it was an 80-acre parcel that each lot got 20 acres, so each
person is allowed to use their 20 acres with, to have their property rights. And so they would
have their
VAN PERNIS: - - -rather than answer about the location, let me ask the last person. How many
of the elements have been drawn around the common elements owned by other property owners?
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EXHIBIT A
KERN: To our knowledge, there are none.
VAN PERNIS: Let me ask the testifying specialist who drafted plans and presented it to us.
CARR SMITH: All right, Maija, did you want to respond?
JACKSON: Yes, Commissioner Van Pernis, my understanding is that all of the parking,
driveway improvements and the event venue will be located on the limited common element unit
1 that's owned entirely by the Hickeys.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. So no common elements.
VAN PERNIS: And do all, all persons who have interests in the limited common elements, have
they joined this application as applicants?
CARR SMITH: We discussed that earlier, Mark, and I believe it was stated by the Planning
Department that that was not, it was determined to not be necessary.
VAN PERNIS: Oh, I disagree, I think that—
CARR
hatCARR SMITH: Okay, all right—
VAN
ightVAN PERNIS: - - - common mistake CPR
CARR SMITH: All right, I'm going to move over to Mr. Tuhy. Go ahead.
TUHY: Just very briefly, Mr. Van Pernis. Article XVI of the CC&Rs for the four-unit
subdivision says, "Notwithstanding anything to the contrary [contained in this Declaration,]
individual unit owners shall have the right, at their sole discretion and without the consent or
permission of other unit owners or the Association, to renovate, remodel, make additions to,
enlarge, remove, replace or restore the improvements" and so on. It also provides in the small, in
the CPR for Greener Pastures, is what it's called, that's four-unit subdivision, it says, and this is
Article XVII, "To the extent that joinder of any other unit owner(s) may be required in order to
effect any alterations to individual units," everybody is deemed consent with. So I think the
consent of other owners is pretty well addressed in there with the idea being that there is some
leeway there for the owners to go ahead, so there is no veto power by other owners.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you.
TUHY: Thanks.
CARR SMITH: Mr. Newberg, go ahead.
NEWBERG: Yes, I'm trying to determine the exact location of the property on Figure 1. I'm
curious—it seems that the subject property applying for the permit is 1.4 miles from Mamalahoa
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EXHIBIT A
Highway—and I'm curious to just get a little more information on the layout of the property
compared to maybe how many properties, guests would pass on the way. I don't want to
assume, but I'm thinking makai to the subject property and then perhaps properties that would be
below that that could be possibly impeded by traffic that are trying to flow mauka up to the
highway,just to get a little bit of feel of where we are located for the subject property and the
traffic.
CARR SMITH: Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Maija.
JACKSON: Yes, Commissioner Newberg, there are 19 lots, I'm sorry, 16 lots that have access
to Waiono Ranch Road, and of those 16, nine of the lots are mauka of the Hickey's CPR unit.
NEWBERG: Okay.
CARR SMITH: Commissioner Vitousek.
VITOUSEK: Yeah, I also just wanted to point out that in the map on Figure 1, Mamalahoa is the
bottom of the map, so all the traffic is going mauka up Waiono Ranch Road to get to the subject
property.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Commissioner Kealoha, did you have a question?
KEALOHA: Thanks, Chair, yes, I do. I'd like to ask the Hickeys. How much pounds of food
do they produce and what is their average annual revenue off their farming activity? Regardless
of whether or not you are paying yourself a salary. I'm just interested in your average annual
revenue, as well as your poundage produce.
CARR SMITH: Go ahead, Kate.
K. HICKEY: Hi, okay, so for coffee our trees are new; we planted - - - so each year our actual
production has been going up because, you know, for a while they were adolescent trees. Our
production right now is at about 30 to 40,000 pounds of cherry per year, and of roasted that—we
sell nearly all of our coffee is roasted, and not as cherry—so that ends up being about 3 to 4,000
pounds of roasted coffee a year. We don't commercially sell any of our other products, although
we do eat them ourselves and give them to people and, you know, share, but, I mean we use our
animals for milk and meat, honey, eggs, and have quite a number of fruit trees, and taro patches,
so I've never weighed any of those amounts. We don't sell them commercially, so I don't know,
but we are actively farming all of those areas. It's just more for homestead. The part that we
commercially farm is our coffee only. And my husband is looking up our revenue right now,
and he's saying that last year we made about$30,000 from our coffee. Next year our revenue
should be higher on our coffee because our yields are just going up every single year. So, you
know, hopefully, they continue to go up, but not all of our, not all of our property is well suited
for coffee farming. It's all fairly well suited for farming in general, but not all well suited
specifically for coffee because of soil in different spots and where there's water and streams that
go through different places, and things like that. So right now, there's maybe about an acre more
where we can plant coffee and that's it.
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EXHIBIT A
KEALOHA: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Kate, while we are on that topic, could you share with us what your special
event business brought in in 2019? Do you have that handy?
K. HICKEY: Yeah, in, well, as far as total sales in 2019, $250,000, but that is not including our
expenses; so like our florist, for example, we pay her directly from that, and so about$50,000 of
that went directly to florals, for example, and to staff and so on. So from actual, actual profit, not
just revenue, we made approximately $80,000 last year on our, on our events.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Any other questions, Commissioners? Commissioner Van Pernis.
VAN PERNIS: Yes. Are you advocating this might be for Mr. Kern—are you advocating
that, are you advocating that all agricultural properties be allowed to have commercial activities,
if, in order to make more money?
CARR SMITH: Mr. Kern.
KERN: I'm advocating on a case-by-case basis that farming is very hard on a good day. And I
think we are going to see a trend, I mean we've seen it for a while, where there are ways or
mechanisms in place for farmers to offset or increase their income. I do think we are going to
see that as a trend. Am I saying it's across the board? Probably not. But I do think it's a trend.
If you look in California as well, where in the wineries, they actually do quite well, they do a lot
of weddings as well, and getting people on site actually allows you to, you know, sell your
product for a greater yield than you would selling it through a wholesale. So, I think it's a trend.
VAN PERNIS: Isn't this precedent, if granted? Isn't this application precedent for commercial
activity on all agricultural properties?
KERN: Well, if we'd like to discuss precedent, we, precedent has already been set, 2010, a
Special Permit for Duarte Farm Co., Inc. Hawaii; they have a Special Permit for weddings, as
well as overnight accommodations, and I think a much longer list of other elements. But that's
why it's a Special Permit, you know. Does it meet the criteria? Are there ways to mitigate
impacts? And in this case it does meet the criteria, and there are ways to mitigate impact. I think
we should be getting into more of that. But precedent has been set, Mr. Van Pernis, if we are
going to go there.
CARR SMITH: Thank you.
VAN PERNIS: That's Kauai, you said?
KERN: No, that's the Big Island, that's Tax Map Key starting in 7-005, so it's just- - -way
from the applicant's - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Kern. We are moving on to Commissioner Vitousek.
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EXHIBIT A
VITOUSEK: Is there going to be public testimony on this as part of this meeting?
CARR SMITH: Yes. We're going to get there as soon as we are finished with this line of
questioning, then we're going to go to public testimony after a break.
VITOUSEK: Well, I would like to reserve my questions for after public testimony.
CARR SMITH: Absolutely. We can do that. Max, did you have your hand up? Commissioner
Newberg?
NEWBERG: I did, but I agree with Mr. Vitousek; it'll probably be more prudent to wait until - -
-thank you.
CARR SMITH: Very good. All right, Commissioners, are we good at this point? (Pause) All
right. Thank you, Applicants. Let's take a 10-minute break here to allow testifiers to come on
line. I have 11:17, so we will come back on around, let's say, 11:30. Thank you. Please make
sure you are muted and your camera is off.
(Chair Carr Smith called a recess at 11:17 a.m. She called the hearing back to order at
11:31 a.m.)
CARR SMITH: All right, I guess we'll proceed. I'll call up the names of who I want to swear
in, and then I'll cross them off after they testify. We're just going to have to try to do it like that.
It's going to be a lot to get through everyone, but thank you for your patience and understanding
as we figure this out. Does that work, Rachelle?
LEY: Yes.
CARR SMITH: Okay. All right, so the first group of people that I see that I'd like to swear in is
Amber Haley, Michael Haley, Jessica Bruner, Bre Nelson, and Martin Rathbun, and Aislinn
Chalker. If I could do those six, seven, six. If you folks could please raise your right hand and
swear or affirm - - - sorry?
A. CHALKER: And Aislinn Chalker, if I - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: So, right now I'm swearing in Amber, Michael, Jessica, Bre, Martin and
Aislinn. I don't know how else to do it. It's too confusing otherwise. So, folks, if you could
please raise right hand and swear or affirm that you will tell the truth on this matter before the
Leeward Planning Commission? Could you nod or say yes.
TESTIFIERS: Yes (and nod).
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. All right. Before we get started—so the Planning
Department did mention all the testimony that had been receivedCommissioners, have you all
reviewed the testimony?
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EXHIBIT A
VITOUSEK: Yes.
CARR SMITH: If anyone has not, can you please speak up? (Commissioners indicated that
they had reviewed the written testimony received earlier.) Okay, all right. Yeah, we actually
have around 40 testimony to hear, so, due to that, turn off your cameras and mute yourself until I
call on you,please, except for the commissioners. And Amber will be first. Your testimony is
going to be limited to three minutes, and we're, that's going to be very strict today. Normally,
when we are in-person, it's a little bit different, but since we have so many testifiers, we have to
stick to that time framing. You will literally be muted after three minutes. So please use that
time efficiently. Then after your testimony is complete, after your three minutes, we're going to
ask Commissioners at that point if there is questions for that testifier, and when we no longer
have questions for that testifier, then that testifier will leave the room. Okay? Thank you all
very much. All right, let's start with Amber Haley right now. I believe your testimony is for
yourself, and we'll be seeing a lot of you today, but right now this is just your testimony,
correct? Okay. Go ahead, Amber.
A. HALEY: Okay. Good morning. My name is Amber Haley, and I'm a local resident,
entrepreneur, and I'm a Big Island realtor. Really happy to be here, so thank you so much.
When I heard that Kate and Doug had voluntarily turned to the Planning Department to make
sure their venue was in complete compliance with the county, only to receive a negative
recommendation, I was personally, incredibly disappointed. This is when I decided I must be
here today virtually in person without question on a very busy Monday for my business, because
that is how much I believe in them getting their permit. And of course, I'm not surprised to see
there are so many outstanding community members, neighbors, and business owners also
supporting them with many letters and testimony submitted. So here is why I think this permit
really needs to be approved among other reasons. As a realtor, I've come to learn unfortunately
that so many businesses and individuals openly and willingly operate out of compliance for
many years with no repercussions. And to me, this feels incredibly problematic. You may even
know some of these businesses; people operating illegal rental properties, people operating small
businesses without a GET license, people building houses and structures without county permits.
And if you weren't aware, there are venues on the Big Island that operate openly outside of their
zoning. I could probably, if I was getting married,book a wedding right now at one of these
venues. And these things are all too common. As a licensed realtor, I've always made it a
priority to make sure I'm operating legally, ethically and in full compliance with the law. I know
the Hickeys to be the same. They are people of integrity that only want to operate in complete
compliance. Kate herself is a lawyer; she holds herself personally and professionally to the
highest code of ethics. I can't imagine the frustration and difficulty they must feel right now,
fighting to follow the rules with the potential of being denied. If I myself as a professional
applied to be in compliance and was denied, it would be absolutely heartbreaking to watch all the
others of their zoning continuing to do so without issue.
So here is my point. The systems need to reward those who are at least trying to be in
compliance, and not those who aren't. I hope today you set that precedent. Beyond all the many
reasons they deserve a special use permit, the Island of Hawaii needs a business like this one.
I've known Kate and Doug and their employees for years. They have helped shape so many
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EXHIBIT A
individuals in this community. Even the little things they do, like not taking the extra fees from
vendors that the large resorts do, they offer generous benefits, all of the things they put money
and resources into community members and into the State of Hawaii. It contributes and makes
a difference and makes our community better, safer and a stronger economy. And I don't even
need to mention this, but the pandemic has decimated our local economy. By approving this
permit, you'll be directly bringing money back to the state.
Thanks so much. I could never express in three minutes how much their farm is impacting
myself personally and the community as a whole. I've seen them offer their time and wisdom to
help so many other entrepreneurs facing obstacles and their businesses and come up with smart
solutions. I want to show you that they are people who can be trusted to address any concerns or
impacts of their business, with intelligence, empathy, and fairness. I hope the public testimonies
you are about to hear can paint a bigger picture on how far-reaching your decision today will be.
I really hope you swiftly approve this permit. Thank you. Aloha.
CARR SMITH: - - - I'm sorry I was muted. Commissioners? Commissioner Van Pernis.
VAN PERNIS: Ms. Camero, are you advocating that every agricultural property like this one
should be allowed to carry on commercial activities?
CARR SMITH: Mr. Van Pernis, Ms. Camero is a staff member at the county, and she is our
timekeeper today. Ms. Haley is the one that just testified
VAN PERNIS: All right, I'm sorry
CARR SMITH: I'm hoping you are not going to have that question to every single testifier,
but
VAN PERNIS: - - -this testifier says she's a realtor, and I want to know if she is advocating all
agricultural properties, such as this one, be allowed to carry on commercial activities.
A. HALEY: As a realtor, I just want to speak within my area of expertise, so I'm kind of with
Zendo on this one; I think it needs to be on a case-by-case basis. So I'm here testifying today
specifically on this case from the information that I have and I know, and I believe that they
should be granted the special use permit in this situation. Absolutely, my answer could be
different, I don't know, if it was a different situation and if I had different information. But
that's beyond my scope of expertise.
VAN PERNIS: Do you realize that this application violates state land use regulations?
A. HALEY: I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I understood. Do Ican you repeat the question?
VAN PERNIS: Are you, are you aware that this application violates state land use laws?
A. HALEY: I am aware that they are doing everything in their power with all the resources they
have to come into compliance to not violate any law, and that's why they have my support.
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EXHIBIT A
Because I think that's the right thing to do. And it would have been easier for them to act out of
compliance, but that's not what they've chosen because that's not the right thing to do.
VAN PERNIS: They've gotten - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. We are going to move on, we are going to move on,
Mr. Van Pernis, to Michael Haley. Thank you, Amber.
M. HALEY: Aloha, thank you
CARR SMITH: Hi Michael.
M. HALEY: Aloha. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
CARR SMITH: Yes, go ahead.
M. HALEY: Okay. I would like to say, I, as a real estate agent, I've worked with multiple Kona
coffee farmers and many of the other amazing individuals who make up our agricultural industry
here on the Big Island. And along with everybody else during the pandemic, local farmers are
facing tough economic times in addition to the high cost of labor and by-hand production. The
most successful farmers I've worked with generally share one thing in common, and that's they
are very smart business people who have learned to diversify their farms. What Kate and Doug
Hickey have done is create a sustainable family farm that they have kept successfully running by
also turning it into a small wedding venue. Agricultural sustainability is something that we
should strive for as an island community. I've found it hard to find anybody who disagrees with
that who lives here. And our farmers are at the forefront of this movement. Having a farm that
pays its employees livable wages and offer generous benefits, like Sunshower Farms does, is
often marginally profitable at best. This special use permit will allow them to operate a small but
impactful wedding venue that will contribute enormous value to their farm operations. I truly
believe that the agricultural industry is what we as an island need to focus on to revitalize our
local economy, not to mention when people think of Kona, they think of Kona coffee. As a
realtor who specializes in green properties, I'm super excited that their plans for their new venue
include sustainable design powered by renewable solar energy. Sustainability is even built into
the way that they conduct events, like Mrs. Hickey was saying on how they compost and mulch
all of the things and literally create zero waste in a time in 2020, as we all know. I like the
way—excuse me—and lastly, the principles of malama `aina are at the core of everything that
they do. It's really an aspirational model for proper design in business sustainability. You
know, please stand with me in supporting these local farmers by approving this special use
permit for Sunshower Farms. Mahalo.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Commissioners, do you have any questions for
Mr. Haley? (Pause) Very good. Thank you. So you and Amber can drop off the call, if you
will, please, and maybe pick it up on YouTube. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to
Jessica Bruner. Jessica?
BRUNER: Okay, - - -
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CARR SMITH: Hi there. Yes, thank you, thanks for being here. Go ahead.
BRUNER: Yes, thank you. So, yeah, my name is Jessica Bruner. I'm the director of sales
operation manager for Hawaii Sound& Vision. We do event lighting, dancefloor sounds,
bands, DJ disc. So I'm speaking on behalf of our entire team here, which is about 30 to 40
people, including all of our musician partners,performers, technicians, designers. We've been
here operating on this island and neighboring islands for 20, almost 30 years now. So we've
been fortunate enough to be a part of countless events at so many wonderful venues, and I'm
including some of the previous ones at Sunshower Farms. And so, in working with Kate in more
and more, especially over the last year or two, and seeing this project become such a passion and
their evolution to try to establish their location into a legitimate venue, which is so, which we
think is essential in a lot of ways, especially in seeing spiking interest, because it is so unique and
special. And I think in hearing Kate speak about it earlier, we can all see why. As Kate had
mentioned, not only is this a place where people to come together in celebration of love and
different events that they are having, but also importantly, it's a place for the creative and driven
people for our local industry, the tourism-specific event industry that play such a big role in
driving our economy here on the island as a whole - - -with caterers, designers, performers,
florists, all these people to thrive. And especially in these times where we are seeing the effects
of COVID limiting our industry and in internal community, it's going to be so important for us
to, when the time is right, to come back into a place where we can all thrive again, and we
believe Sunshower Farms can play huge part in that process. These type of events are what bring
people to our island, provide income to our local community and professionals, and what bring
us together as human is something we definitely need. So, again—I'll keep it brief—on behalf
of the whole team here, we support Sunshower Farms for their special use permit and feel it's
very important to our island in a big way to - - -. Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Commissioners, any questions for Jessica? (Pause) All
right. Thank you, Jessica, appreciate it. Okay, our next testifier is Bre Nelson.
NELSON: Hi, good morning, my name is Bre Nelson. I'm speaking in support of Sunshower
Farm's permit, as a small business owner myself. I believe the venue will benefit the community
in several ways. When my husband and I were planning our wedding here, we searched for
venues that were affordable and could accommodate around 100 people, and we really struggled
to find something that would work for us. For a time we even considered doing our wedding on
the mainland or taking our business to another island, and eventually we settled on a venue in
Kohala, which I had now learned actually runs these same kind of events unpermitted. Do we
want to punish Sunshower Farms for opting to do things legally on their own accord, when there
are other venues on this island, which continually host these events unpermitted. As evidenced
by the anecdote that I just listed, there's already a lack of affordable venues for locals and
travelers alike to our island, and the wedding industry on this island will also greatly benefit
from Sunshower Farms operating in this capacity. Sunshower Farms not only employs local
people who work on their farm, it also benefits our wedding industry. And as a wedding
photographer, I depend on venues like Sunshower Farms, because their clients and my clients
typically have the same budget range for wedding services. Many of the large resorts cater only
to very wealthy mainland clients, which is great, but that leaves little options available for locals
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and more affordable wedding venue options. With more wedding venues available, it will create
a ripple effect that would benefit other local artisan, such as myself, florists, makeup artists,
hairstylists, local boutiques, photographers, designers, planners, videographers, rental equipment
companies, food trucks, restaurants, caterers, among others. In a time when small businesses in
our economy are already struggling a great deal, venues like this are needed. If this application
is not approved, it will be deterrent of many small business owners on this island. I understand
the potential concerns that have been mentioned, but livelihoods are at stake. So thank you very
much for your time. Aloha.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Breanna. Questions from the commissioners? Commissioner
Van Pernis.
VAN PERNIS: - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMTIH: You guys are muted. There you go. Go ahead.
VAN PERNIS: Ma'am, do you live in the Waiono Meadow Subdivision?
NELSON: No, I do not.
VAN PERNIS: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Bre. All right, we'll move on to Martin Rathbun.
KERN: Madam Chair, it looks like Mr. Vitousek was going to ask a question.
CARR SMITH: Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry I didn't see that. Mr. Vitousek, go ahead.
VITOUSEK: SureI'm not sure if the testifier is still on.
CARR SMITH: I believe, I see her- - -
NELSON:
- -NELSON: - - -CARR SMITH: She's here.
VITOUSEK: Okay. My question is, you know, with your involvement in the wedding industry,
are there any additional wedding venues that you are aware of that are legal- - -
CARR
egal- - -CARR SMITH: Did you say, "are legal?"
VITOUSEK: Yeah.
NELSON: I am not sure who is operating legally or not, to be sure, but I do know of ones that
are not operating under permit.
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EXHIBIT A
VITOUSEK: Thank you.
NELSON: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Anyone else? (Pause) Very good. Thank you. Okay, now we are going to
move on to Martin Rathbun.
RATHBUN: Aloha everyone. I'm a pastry chef and cake baker. I started working with Kate
Hickey in February of this year when their baker was on vacation. I'm a prior owner of Daylight
Mind Coffee Company, and we had a very successful wedding venue, which is now taken over
by Papa Kona, and I am the principal baker for weddings there. There are few and far between
wedding venues other than our beaches and our parks that are operating with permits and
licenses that are required. I was baker at the Four Seasons; definitely, wedding venues at the
Four Seasons, which there are five, are far too expensive for our local populations and for
visitors who are spending the money to come here on a shoestring to have a destination wedding.
I depend on business from all wedding venues and individuals. For my business, with COVID,
so many people have left the island and returned to the mainland, and I hope they've been able to
continue baking, and right now I'm swamped with business, which is great. Kate and Sunshower
Farms have provided me with substantial business. I would really hate to lose that. They are
also providing a destination wedding venue, the likes of which I have not seen. The view from
their farm is spectacular, and the reviews that they are getting for the weddings that they are
hosting are really nice. I would support their application for the jobs that they provide to our
community.
And then I also had statements from Aaron Schroeder. I don't know how that fits in here,
Ms. Smith.
CARR SMTIH: Yeah, let's, let's finish up your personal statement here.
RATHBUN: Great.
CARR SMITH: Anything else to add?
RATHBUN: No, no.
CARR SMITH: Okay. Commissioners, do you have any questions for Mr. Rathbun? (Pause)
Okay, very good. Then the next testimony is Mr. Rathbun representing Aaron Schroeder. Go
ahead, Martin.
RATHBUN: So I have a statement that was written by somebody who is not able to be with us
this morning:
"My name is Aaron Schroeder. I am a personal acquaintance of Doug and Kate, and have
worked as a caterer at their farm. I have known Kate and Doug for many years, more in a
personal capacity than a professional one. But I have worked at their farm for catering events,
and I can say a couple of things about their venue and the business in general. Like many
34
EXHIBIT A
farmers, Kate and Doug have diversified to make their farm succeed, and what I found beautiful
about their venue was the way that the life of the farm and community were so seamlessly
integrated into the events they've hosted. The dinner I worked at featured products from
Sunshower, at least half a dozen different local businesses, guests walking through the gardens
and acreage, animals, etcetera. Beautiful as Sunshower is and the events there are beautiful,
there's something, there's nothing manicured or staged about it. It's a working farm, something
truly unique, and Kate and Doug bring that identity proudly to their work as event hosts. I think
it's worth saying that farming is a profession that is challenging like few others, in part because it
leaves no room for a typical work life balance or nine-to-five commitment. It succeeds only
when farmers see themselves as intimately connected to a place, and even then, only incredibly
hard work, determination, and luck can make one succeed. I am a fifth generation farm kid from
Iowa, and my father stopped working our 500-acre land, which was entirely unsustainable cash
crops, because he could no longer make ends meet. This illustrates just how difficult was the
task that Kate and Doug undertook and why they have had to diversify. They were committed to
running a farm and a coffee business fulltime and in a sustainable way, and in order to make that
commitment financially viable, to make a profit, to pay their workers fairly, and to provide
benefits, they began opening up their farm for events. It's to their credit that they've so involved
that work in the life of the farm, and that part of what makes their venue unique is that the farm
and the events venue are so closely connected. And that's something about Kate and Doug
personally I hope you'll take into consideration. They are among the most honest, straight-
dealing people I know. Indeed, that's how they found themselves here. They wanted to run the
farm the right way, so rather than cutting corners, they started hosting events. They wanted to
run those events the right way, so rather than skirt the land use regulations like many venues,
they proactively sought this hearing. They are doing exactly the things we'd want good farmers,
good neighbors, and good members of the community, to do. For all of these reasons, I
recommend that you grant their permit request."
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Thank you very much, appreciate it.
RATHBUN: You're welcome.
CARR SMITH: Since that was testimony of someone else, we won't ask you questions
regarding that testimony. But thank you very much
RATHBUN: Mahalo.
CARR SMITH: appreciate your being here today. Next, we have Aislinn Chalker.
A. CHALKER: Hi.
CARR SMITH: Am I saying your name correctly?
A. CHALKER: It's Aislinn.
CARR SMITH: All right, Aislinn. You are going to begin by representing yourself, and then
you'll represent someone else, so start with your
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EXHIBIT A
A. CHALKER: Yes.
CARR SMITH: personal three minutes. Go ahead.
A. CHALKER: Okay. Aloha, my name is Aislinn Chalker. I'm a photographer and web
designer, born and raised here in Hawaii. I first met Kate and Doug in 2017. Kate is a member
and now a leader of a group of creative business owners here on the island. Kate took over as
leader from me just a few months ago. I just want to say anecdotally, I have a six-week old baby
but made it the point to be here the last few hours, specifically to testify and to support them
because I believe so strongly that, for this expansion of their farm business and their event venue.
From listening to beginning of this meeting, I understand that there are legitimate concerns about
road usage, potential sound disturbances, but I think it's really, really critical to remember, as
they mentioned, that for the years that they have already been running events, there hasn't been a
single complaint about these things. And I'm not surprised to hear that there haven't been any
complaints, because I know Kate and Doug so well. They are good people, they are good
neighbors, and they believe in contributing positively to the island community here on the Big
Island. As someone born and raised here—and I'm sure a lot of you who have been born and
raised here know that that's not always the case for people who moved to the Big Island. I think
specifically that they want to be able to host kama`aina events - - -not only tourists who come
here for weddings, but locals and local charities, I think that's a really, wonderful, wonderful
thing. And I want to speak to how hard it is to be a small business owner here in Hawaii, not
even just right now with COVID, but in general it's really, really hard to run your own business.
There are a lot of hurdles, a lot depends on tourism, and it's not uncommon for people to have to
need secondly income stream. My own business is tourism-based, and my husband and I have -
- - zero income for the past few months. If we had a way to subsidize our income the way that
Kate and Doug are trying to do to subsidize their farm income, we would a hundred percent be
taking advantage of that. Farming is a really legitimate income stream for Hawaii residents
that's not tourism-dependent, and I think we should be fighting ways to support those endeavors
to support- - - farmers, and not make life harder for those wanting to consciously work the land
and support the local community. Thank you.
CARR SMITH: - - -
A.
- -A. CHALKER: Sorry, I think you are muted.
CARR SMITH: Sorry about that. Commissioner Van Pernis, go ahead and pull the microphone
close to you, please.
VAN PERNIS: Ms. Chalker, are you aware of the written complaints and objections contained
by the other, by other, contained in testimonies by the landowners in the subdivision that this
commission has received?
A. CHALKER: I'm aware that they have received complaints.
VAN PERNIS: Then your statement that there has been no complaints is not accurate?
36
EXHIBIT A
A. CHALKER: My understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that prior to Kate and
Doug coming forward, sort of telling them themselves, there were no previous complaints. And
so the complaints are, were submitted as part of this, this happening right now.
KERN: Point of order, Madam Chair. Zendo Kern
CARR SMITH: You mean objections as opposed to complaints, correct?
KERN: To—point of order to say that there is complaints is false; to say that there is letters of
opposition would be correct.
CARR SMITH: Right.
KERN: I feel like some of the questioning coming from Commissioner Van Pernis is very
leading and pushing very much in a certain direction that does not lead to fairness in my opinion.
Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Kern. All right, any other questions? All right, Ms. Chalker,
you want to proceed with your testimony representing Kait Masters?
A. CHALKER: Yes. Yes, I have a written statement from Kait Masters.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Just make
A. CHALKER: "Aloha friends "
CARR SMITH: watch the timing. Go ahead.
A. CHALKER: Okay. "Aloha friends. My name is Kait Masters. I am the Community
Development Manager for Rising Tide Society, a network of small business owners supporting
each other in the spirit of community over competition. I am writing a statement in support of
Kate Hickey, one of our incredible chapter leaders who has been a selfless champion for small
business owners in the last three years that I have known her. I have seen firsthand how Kate
and Doug's business has grown over the years during Kate's involvement with Rising Tide and
the positive impact it has made on small business owners in the community as a result. Hosting
events at the farm has allowed meaningful relationships to flourish with other small business
owners in the area. From photographers to cake decorators there are on average 14 vendors
involved in the typical wedding according to the Wedding Wire. This creates a meaningful
ecosystem of referrals and relationships that help local small businesses thrive, and Kate and
Doug already have a supportive network of vendors they regularly work with who benefit from
the referrals and opportunities Sunshower provides them as an event space. The amazing thing
about Sunshower is that it's not a wedding venue that moonlights as a farm. They've built their
dream of a sustainable farm where the coffee, animals, and community are their priority.
Hosting events at their farm allows them to continue to live out their vision during a time when
small businesses and agriculture are suffering immensely. During a season of unprecedented
37
EXHIBIT A
hardship for small business owners this year, I have seen Kate step up and support local small
business owners to the best of her abilities from collaborative online markets to taking on a
bigger role in leading the Kona chapter of Rising Tide. Thank you for your time. Kait Masters."
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much, appreciate your time today, thank you.
A. CHALKER: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: All right. I'd like to confirm that we have Aesha Shapiro, Wei Fang,
Ally Brown, Lyla Mah, Donna Mah, Michael Bell, and Kelly Johnson. Can you - - -your
cameras, if you will,please, if you have
LEY: I don't think Wei Fang is on.
CARR SMITH: Okay, so no Wei.
LEY: But the rest of this list should be here. Aesha might—let me text her.
CARR SMITH: Okay, so we'll proceed without Aesha or Wei.
LEY: She's available
CARR SMITH: Oh, there, Aesha is on, I think. She's in the middle of my screen.
LEY: Okay, yeah, she's on, yeah.
CARR SMITH: So just not Wei.
LEY: Yeah.
CARR SMITH: Okay, very good. Folks, could you please show me your cameras and then raise
your right hands? And, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth before the Leeward Planning
Commission today?
TESTIFIERS: Yes (and nod).
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. All right. Aesha, you are up first,please, if you could
proceed with your testimony.
SHAPIRO: Yes, hi, thank you. My name is Aesha Shapiro. I am the owner of Aesha Rose
Event& Design . And I also own the Ladies Artisan Market Networking Group for Women.
We are an event and design business, and so one of my biggest issues living her in Kona is
finding event space that's affordable. It's, it's one of the biggest challenges that we as event
planners, and anybody in the events, the music industry, faces. So I am here in full support of
Kate and Sunshower Farms with their permitting process.
38
EXHIBIT A
The wedding industry employs so many people, bakers, musicians, calligraphers, I mean I can go
on and on. I think we are all aware of how many people that weddings and events employ here
locally. And it's just really important that we have affordable venues. We as planners can't
afford to host events at all the fancy hotels that's just not really designed for kama`aina rates.
We also look for space to help out with nonprofits and fundraising efforts for local, you know,
organizations, and that's something that Kate has already been very willing to do with their
current situation is bring in a lot of these local groups that really need help with, you know,
waiving vendor fees and whatnot. And Kate has definitely committed to helping these
organizations as—if they get their permit approved, that they would be helping a lot of local
business that are nonprofits and whatnot. So I'm in full support of their permitting process. We
absolutely have a need for more venues. It's imperative that they do something about this here
for us.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you.
SHAPIRO: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Any questions, Commissioners? (Pause) Thank you, appreciate your
testimony. All right, let's move on to Ally Brown. Allison Brown? There you are.
BROWN: Yes. Hello.
CARR SMITH: Hi.
BROWN: Hi. Thank you for allowing me to be here today on behalf of Kate and Doug Hickey.
I'm Ally Brown. I am the director of the Miss Kona Coffee Scholarship Program, and I'm also
an entrepreneur here in the community on accounting and events. I do understand the concerns
about the road use and sound disturbances; however, knowing that they, Sunshower Farms has
been operating for the last few years without complaints should not go unnoticed. This is a
testament to how Kate and Doug operate their venue. I've seen firsthand where they have
communicated the importance of being mindful of those around them, especially while on their
farm, but also when driving to or leaving the farm. I'm, as a community member that plans
events, I'm, operate, you know, a nonprofit. There are not enough venues here in Kona, let alone
affordable ones that are attempting to do things the right way. Growing up here in Kona and on
a small coffee and macadamia farm, I can definitely relate to needing to think outside of the box
to make sure that ends meet all while giving back to the community and being mindful of those
around you. As we've heard many testimony thus far, weddings and events can justify the - - -
they do employ a lot of people, and Kate and Doug go above and beyond- - - (indiscernible–
echo) I hear an echo.
CARR SMITH: Yes. (The echo continued.)
BROWN: - - -wait.
CARR SMITH: That's interesting.
39
EXHIBIT A
BROWN: Not sure what that was.
CARR SMITH: Yeah. If you could summarize, appreciate it. Thank you. Go ahead.
BROWN: You don't want me to just keep going?
CARR SMITH: We'll try and see if that continues or not. I don't know where your time is - - -
BROWN:
- -BROWN: - - -that, you know, as we've heard before, weddings and events not only do employ
a lot of people, but Kate and Doug are willing to go above and beyond to take care of not only
their couples but their vendors as well. Doug and Kate are not just caring business owners, but
they are generous and always willing to lend a hand to local businesses and nonprofits no matter
what they have going on in their lives. I had a last-minute need for chairs last, last year, and I
don't know what I would have done, if it weren't for Kate and Doug. And like I said, being a
part of the event industry, we need, we have, definitely have a need for more venues like
Sunshower Farms, especially ones that are trying to do things here on our community and take
care of our `aina the right way. So I do hope that you consider approving this Special Permit for
them and for our community. Thank you very much for your time. Aloha.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Ally. Any questions for Ms. Brown? (Pause) All right, thank you
very much for your testimony.
BROWN: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Moving on to Lyla Mah.
L. MAH: Hi.
CARR SMITH: Hi Lyla. Hi, how are you?
L. MAH: Good, thank you
CARR SMITH: All right, so you are going to provide your own testimony, and then you'll
provide additional testimony representing someone else. So we'll start with yours,please. Go
ahead.
L. MAH: Okay. Hi, my name is Lyla Mah, and I'm the owner of Lalamilo Floral Design. I've
worked with Kate and Doug for three years now. I'm in support of them getting the permit
because this permit will directly affect my business, as I am a florist at their venue. I am a native
Hawaiian, a mother of two children. I'm a single parent. So Kate has taken me on to her team
and allowed me to be a part of her team as a florist since the beginning. She allows me to still be
a farmer and a florist at the same time and a mother. With her, with the income that I have made
from her business, I have been able to support myself and my family, and I've also been able to
continue farming. So with that, you know, they've just been trying to find ways to make ends
meet, because as a farmer, I know how hard it is to pay our bills and farm and make sure that
everything is covered. And here they are trying to be in the right and get all their permits done
40
EXHIBIT A
and make sure that they are dotting all their is and crossing all their t's. I've worked there for
three years, as I said, and we haven't had any complaints about any of the events that we have
put on. I drive up and down that road a couple times a week usually when we have events, and I
have never run into any problems with any of the other residents on the road. We all are
courteous to each other and we pull over on the side and we give each other right of way as
things are neededI don't know what else to say. They support a lot of local businesses. It's
not just myself, there's other florists, other caterers, event coordinators, photographers, goes on
and on. And, you know, they have put into place a lot of—what do they call it—plans as far as
the road goes so that we are in compliance with everybody there and we are courteous, and we
would be sharing the road. Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you very much. Commissioners? Commissioner Van Pernis.
VAN PERNIS: Yes, Ms. Mah, Ms. Mah, you say you've been up and down there over three
years. You drive Mamalahoa to get there?
MAH: Yes. I live in Waimea, and I drive, I commute to come out there. So I drive
VAN PERNIS: And if you've been up and down there three years, and on Mamalahoa, where is
the closest fire hydrant?
MAH: The closest fire hydrant? I'm not sure.
VAN PERNIS: Do you know whether there's any fire hydrants on the road?
MAH: I'm pretty sure that there are fire hydrants along Holualoa Drive, but I'm not sure as far
as Waiono Ranch Road.
CARR SMITH: Yeah, I wouldn't expect the testifier to - - - question. Mr. Kern - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: - - - it's quite challenging
CARR SMITH: Zendo, could you turn your camera off maybe?
KERN: with this kind of questioning
CARR SMITH: I understand.
KERN: quite, it's quite, quite, quite challenging,just doesn't seem right.
CARR SMITH: Thank you.
KERN: Thanks.
CARR SMITH: All right. Lyla, would you like to go ahead and give your testimony
representing Kiley Kelson?
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EXHIBIT A
L. MAH: Sure. Okay, so I have her testimony right here
CARR SMITH: Just look up so you see the timing that Tracie will show you. Thank you. Go
ahead.
L. MAH: Okay. "My name is Kiley Kelson, and I am writing this testimony to show my
overwhelming support for Kate Hickey, Sunshower Farms, and their venue expansion. A little
about me: I am a mother of two young daughters, a native Hawaiian, and a business owner. I
own a small lei making floral studio here in Kona, called Hakus By Ki. I rely heavily on the
wedding industry to keep my business afloat and to put food on the table. Sunshower Farms has
been an integral part of keeping my business alive and well. I am in full support of their decision
to expand, as the expansion will support the growth of my business and many other businesses
here on the island. Since COVID-19 things have drastically slowed down, and it has been a
struggle to make ends meet, which I know has been the same for about everyone else on island,
but I think especially for the wedding industry, since we really do depend so greatly on not just
tourism, but large gatherings in general. I believe a hundred percent that the expansion of
Sunshower Farms will help bring some money back into our local economy and bring back life
to the wedding industry here on the Big Island. The amount of beautiful venues in Kona that can
hold 100-plus people are slim to none. We are in dire need for more - - -
(At
- -(At this time, around 12:05 p.m., there was an internet connectivity issue in the area where the
WebEx host was located, which caused disruption to the YouTube live-streaming and recording
for about ten minutes. Chair Carr Smith called a recess when she was notified of the situation.
Ms. Ley contacted Mr. Michael Bell and Mses. Lyla Mah, Donna Mah and Kelly Johnson, whose
testimony had not been streamed or recorded, to request that they repeat their testimony.
Mr. Bell was not able to return to the hearing; however, he had submitted written testimony in
support of the application, which had been distributed to and reviewed by the commissioners and
was on file as a public record. Chair Carr Smith called the hearing back to order at 1:03 p.m.)
CARR SMITH: Let's call this meeting back to order. And if the testifiers could - - - cameras - -
-you can stay muted,please - - - can you mute, please?
VITOUSEK: Yes, right.
CARR SMITH: So I see Brianne—is that how you say your name, Brianne?
LIMANL Yeah, it's Brianne.
CARR SMITH: Okay, Brianne, thank you. And Matt should be here, Pam and Wendy. If I
could just see all your faces, please—and Matt. There's Wendy. Okay, if there's - - -testifiers
that are in the room right now, can you turn on your camera? Or speak up to me, in case I don't
see you, but you are there? Okay. Let's go with you four
LEY: Nancy, Nancy
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EXHIBIT A
CARR SMITH: Yes.
LEY: this is Rachelle.
CARR SMITH: Yeah.
LEY: Can you still hang on one moment? I've got—
CARR
otCARR SMITH: Absolutely.
LEY: trying to get YouTube back up.
CARR SMITH: Okay. Stand by, folks, thanks.
GREENE: I have a question.
CARR SMITH: Sure. Who's that?
GREENE: This is Debra Greene. I've been having a lot of trouble getting into the system.
Could you please tell me what agenda item you are on?
CARR SMITH: Sorry, Debra, we are still on Agenda Item number 1.
GREENE: Okay, thank you.
CARR SMITH: You're welcome. J, are you on?
YOSHIMOTO: Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me okay?
LEY: Okay, Nancy, you can go forward.
YOSHIMOTO: - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: You are muted, Nancy.
CARR SMITH: Oh, shoot, sorry. I was asking J if I need to do the testifiers that didn't get
recorded first or if we can go ahead and proceed with the testifiers we have in front of us.
YOSHIMOTO: Hi Nancy, yeah, we can take the testifiers that we have before us now - - - as
long as we go back and- - -testifiers that were not recorded.
CARR SMITH: All right, very good. Are you working on that, Rachelle?
LEY: Yes, yes.
43
EXHIBIT A
CARR SMITH: Okay, thank you so much. All right. All right, so we will proceed with you
four. Please raise your right hand. Wendy, please raise your right hand, thank you. Do you
swear or affirm to tell the truth before the Leeward Planning Commission? You nod.
TESTIFIERS: (No audible response—nod)
CARR SMITH: Thank you. All right. We want to be respectful of your testimony, but I just
ask if you are repeating things that we've already heard, maybe try to limit that a little bit. And
we will begin with Wendy,please. Go ahead, unmute yourself, and then your three minutes will
begin. Thank you.
MITCHELL: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: She may have turned off her video and not on the volume.
CARR SMITH: - - -both of them are still off. Wendy, if you are there, can you turn on your
video, or at least on your, turn on your volume. You are still muted. There you go.
MITCHELL: Okay, thank you.
CARR SMITH: Go ahead.
MITCHELL: Okay. My name is Wendy Mitchell, and I live up on Waiono Meadows just below
the Hickey's property. My family has lived up here since 2005. We weren't aware that the
Hickeys had been operating a wedding venue business out of their home since 2017. We'd hear
voices and singing and music, and assume they were just social people who like to party. And
we never talked to them about it or complained when it did bother us; we were just, wanted to be
good neighbors.
I helped create the petition that hopefully you've all reviewed. I'm the person who sent it out to
all the homeowners known to us who access their property via Waiono Ranch Road. We felt it
important to notify those who would be directly impacted, should the Hickeys be granted the
special use permit. By our own unofficial and unconfirmed count, there appeared to be 31
parcels of land, the largest being Palani Ranch. Nearly every property owner contacted signed
the petition requesting the SUP [sic - SPP] be denied, and many added comments as well.
Thirty-six people all of whom have a legal easement to use Waiono Road signed it. I've come to
learn the Hickeys submitted numerous letters in favor of their SUP [sic - SPP], but it's important
to note none of them appear to be property owners on our road; most appear to be potential
vendors who would financially benefit from the lucrative parties.
It's crucial you understand the road is a substandard unmaintained dangerous single-lane farm
road. On several occasions most years Waiono Road up to my property, as well as the Hickey's,
becomes a danger to cross due to heavy flooding. During those times I've been forced to turn
around and wait till the raging subsides and is safe to cross. Many of us are greatly concerned a
potential lawsuit from inebriated partygoers using our road. I believe it's fair to say that
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EXHIBIT A
anybody who's driven up and down Waiono Road becomes well aware of its deficiencies and
hazards. I was involved in an accident on the road back in late February of this year. My car
was hit and damaged by a motorcycle operated by a 16-year old unlicensed, uninsured driver
who was packing another minor-aged passenger. They were speeding downhill around the very
dangerous curve in the road. Fortunately, they weren't seriously injured. But I know for a fact
there have been other accidents and many near misses on the road.
The rule relating to SUP [sic - SPP] has required that the desired use not adversely affect
surrounding properties. The Hickey's contention that they'll mitigate the noise from upwards of
125 partygoers by containing them inside a building and closing doors and windows is just not
realistic. Who will enforce those rules?
Other concerning adverse effects include concerns over light pollution,property values and
liability issues.
CARR SMITH: I'm sorry, your three minutes is up.
MITCHELL: Okay, thank you very much.
CARR SMITH: Questions from the commissioners for Ms. Mitchell? Commissioner Newberg.
NEWBERG: Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Ms. Mitchell, for being present. I know this
may be late, as we've already had one homeowner that has testified to my knowledge besides
Ms. Mitchell; I don't know if it would be proper to offer five minutes to those who actually live
on Waiono? That aside, Ms. Mitchell, did you mention that of the 16 properties involved on this
road, that all 16 signed your petition?
MITCHELL: I said we had 36 landowners signed the petition. We did not have necessarily
everybody's contact information and names of the parcels, so I don't know I was able to send it
out to everybody. Some, some people may have gotten it and not responded, or I may have had
information that was outdated, and that they never received it. But we did receive 36 signatures
on that petition of property owners who have a legal easement on Waiono Ranch Road.
NEWBERG: Thank you for clarifying.
MITCHELL: You're welcome.
CARR SMITH: Other questions? Commissioner Van Pernis.
VAN PERNIS: Ms. Mitchell, if there was to be liability or some problem arises on road, on
Waiono Road, who is liable for it? If you know.
MITCHELL: Okay, I would say we, as it's been pointed out there is no homeowner's
association, no road maintenance agreement, we are all individual targets, and I believe this is a
reason that a lot of property owners did not want to form an association, because then there
would be one target for road that we all know is inadequate and substandard.
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EXHIBIT A
VAN PERNIS: And if the hundreds, if among the hundreds of people coming to the wedding
venue, there was an injury on the road, on the way up or down the road, who is liable in your
experience?
MITCHELL: It's a private road, so I'm not sure—I know it's not a county road. I would say
they'd have to sue everybody, or else they, if that was a partygoer, I would imagine they sue the
Hickeys. I, I don't know, I think I just can't fully answer that question, I'm sorry.
VAN PERNIS: And as you've lived there long that you have, where is the closest fire hydrant or
the fire facility?
MITCHELL: I've never seen a fire hydrant up there, Commissioner. I
VAN PERNIS: Have you seen any on Mamalahoa?
MITCHELL: You know, I'm not sure.
CARR SMITH: That's okay. - - -you are not expected to know exactly where the fire hydrants
are. You don't need to answer that.
MITCHELL: Okay, thank you.
CARR SMITH: Any other questions from the commissioners? Commissioner Vitousek.
VITOUSEK: Have you had any discussions with the Hickeys about this?
MITCHELL: No, we have not since this all came to light. They did pass around to many of the
property owners I'm toldI know we received one, and the Parkers, and the Grossmans, and the
Patersons, and others - - -that Kate or somebody delivered to homes with some - - - in there and
letters introducing their, their desire to have this wedding venue business, and for many of the
potential vendors - - - and we were asked to contact them, if we have any questions or
discussions. And, frankly, we didn't. We were part of the CPR, the 80-acre that had been
CPR'd to four parcels, and the other CPR unit owners and ourselves got together to discuss it and
see how we felt about this. So we never did. It seems so blown out to us we were just amazed
and appalled that this was being introduced, and we didn't even know there've been their
wedding venue business. I don't go out late at night, so I really wouldn't encounter all that
traffic to know what happens at 10:00 p.m. when all the cars go down the hill in a snap. A friend
of mine, my next-door neighbor, who told me she had encountered it one time and had to pull
over and there were 18 vehicles she had to wait till they went down the road, as she was pulled
over on one of the unmaintained shoulders - - - shoulder, or grassy area, 18 cars.
VITOUSEK: Right, would you guys, you know, be willing to sit down with them in some
capacity and, and try to work out a way of accommodating everybody's interests?
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MITCHELL: I, I believe it wouldn't just be good enough for myself and my family to do that; I
think in light of the fact that 36 property owners all signed the petition, that's a lot of people who
feel very strongly about it, and all agree the road just cannot accept that sort of traffic. It's just,
if you've ever been up there, you would know exactly what we are all talking about. It's so
apparent.
VITOUSEK: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Yeah, Wendy, I was curious myself regarding all the people that signed your
petition. Aren't those folks interested in improving the road? Is there any reason why you
haven't, you folks haven't come to a mutual road maintenance agreement?
MITCHELL: I'd say financially that takes a lot of money, and some people just aren't willing to
put in the money, and other people don't want to absorb what would be their share of a road, of
the road maintenance. Farmer seemed to be okay with it.
CARR SMITH: And my second question was, are you aware of any other commercial ventures
going on up Waiono Road?
MITCHELL: No, I'm not. I'm not aware of any others.
CARR SMITH: Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions? (Pause) Thank you very
much
MITCHELL: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: testimony and being here today.
MITCHELL: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: All right, let's move on to Pamela Parker. Are you- - -
PARKER:
- -PARKER: - - -CARR SMITH: Hi.
PARKER: Hi.
CARR SMITH: Nice to see you - - -please go ahead with your testimony, Pam.
PARKER: - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: Go ahead, Pam.
PARKER: Yes. Okay. I'm Pam Parker, and I am a member of the Greener Pastures
partnership. I own 20 acres on the north side of—oh, okay, can you hear me? I- - -
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EXHIBIT A
CARR SMITH: Yes, I think so. Go ahead, go ahead and try. You may cut out a little bit, but
let's, let's give it a shot. Go ahead.
PARKER: - - - okay, I, I'm a member of the Greener Pastures partners. I have 20 acres on the
north side of Doug and Kate. We share a driveway. Is this working?
CARR SMITH: Yes, go ahead.
PARKER: Okay, yeah - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: It's working from, from what I'm seeing, so please go ahead.
PARKER: Okay, can, I've, whatever I've said is replaying. Can you hear me now?
CARR SMITH: I can, yes, I can hear you now, and I heard you before. You might try turning
off your camera, and let's see if that helps your bandwidth at all. (Ms. Jackson raised her hand.)
Maija, what do you know?
JACKSON: It's possible if Pam is watching YouTube at the same time, she's hearing an echo or
a repeat. So she might want to stop her YouTube.
CARR SMITH: Are you watching the YouTube?
PARKER: I, I'm, it was, it may have been in the back
CARR SMITH: Okay, if you can find
PARKER: - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: If you can find that and close it,please.
PARKER: Yeah, okay, it's closed. Can
CARR SMITH: Okay.
PARKER: We are good?
CARR SMITH: Yeah. Go ahead.
PARKER: No - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: Pam, we can hear you, so go ahead. Tracie, you can start her now. Go ahead,
Pam. Please speak.
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PARKER: Okay, sosorry, there was an echoagain, I am a member, I'm Pam Parker, a
member of the Greener Pastures partners. I'm on the north side of the Hickeys. We share a
driveway. I submitted my written testimony that does highlight the fact that I've been in a
wedding business, I love weddings, I was a wedding photographer; I would not be one to
complain about weddings. But this special use request is a whole different ballgame. We are
talking major traffic on our substandard road. All the vendors, I mean my heart breaks for all of
the small businesses right now because of COVID and other reasons. But this, this I believe
would be disastrous to the community of Mauka Holualoa, mainly because of the road. I don't
need to extrapolate more on that; I think it's pretty clear for those who are looking at that piece
of it. We've heard the weddings. I knew they were weddings. My primary residence is not in
Waiono, so I didn't feel I would complain about something like that. However, once again, this,
this venue proposal is completely different, and I think that it would be a hazard to the
community. For the people who traverse up there for weddings, it's been a hazard. Fortunately,
nobody's been hurt. There are accidents on those roads, on that road, I should say. And,
anyway, I strongly oppose this, this request. I think it's dangerous, and I can't imagine the
Leeward Planning Commission approving it.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you, Pam. Any questions from Commissioners for
Ms. Parker? (Pause) Very good, thank you. Thank you for your testimony.
PARKER: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: All right. Matt Chalker? You are next.
M. CHALKER: Hello?
CARR SMITH: Hi.
M. CHALKER: Hi, okay, yeah, we are good
CARR SMITH: Thank you for your patience.
M. CHALKER: Of course.
CARR SMITH: - - -proceed with your testimony,please.
M. CHALKER: Lovely. So I support strongly Doug and Kate's application for all of the
reasons that have been gone over in great detail up to this point. But I'm going to take a giant
step back, and I'm going to, going to have a different point of view on things. I've been
incredibly disappointed listening to this set of testimonies because, obviously, it's very important
for the business community, for diversity, for expanding things here on the island, but it appears
to me, as a first, this is my first instance of becoming introduced to the entire Planning
Commission process, it seems obvious to me that the entire Planning Commission is dead set
against doing this initially, and there have been incredibly leading questions that have been
attacking the testifiers that are in support of the project and are trying to support and actively
lead on people who are opposed to the project. So, so I wish that we could be more neutral in it.
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And to take a further step back, I think there is always a reason to say no. We can always come
up with reasons to not do something. And Nimbyism in general, not-in-my-backyard, it's a
process of saying, hey, I don't want this new thing being built, is destroying this country. I really
genuinely believe it. It is making the rich richer and it is making the poor struggle harder. It is a
disaster in San Francisco Bay Area, and it is a disaster here right now. This is a group of people
that are trying to expand out the business community or trying to bring people into the island,
and we are sitting here nitpicking over the fire hydrants. They don't need to worry about the fire
hydrants; they have a fire suppression system built in on the farm. We are trying to find a reason
to say no when we should be trying to find a reason to say yes. And I, I can't think of a better
group of people to try and expand out the aloha and the love for the island than Doug and Kate
who are really trying to work hard and build a farm, as compared to many of their neighbors who
are generally rich retirees who don't actually use their land for agricultural purposes. So if we
are going to sit here and attack Doug and Kate for trying to expand their business and trying to
use the land to be able to do new things, we should also be questioning the motives of the people
who don't use the land, who are just sitting on it, because they have money. And I think that
that's really, really hurtful to the small business owners who are trying to make it work. But if
we are just going to say no to everything, why, why even have a planning commission? Why not
just have a, you know, executioner squad that's going to shut off everything new and just leave it
be the way it always has been. So I support it. I know I'm spinning a little bit of hot fire. And
that's it. If anyone have any questions, I'll be happy to answer.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Matt. Commissioners, do you have any questions for Mr. Chalker?
I see none, so thank you very much for your testimony, Mr. Chalker. All right, Brianne, you are
up next. Brianne Limani.
LIMANL Hi.
CARR SMITH: You are going to testify on behalf of yourself to begin with, and then you are
going to represent two other people after that, correct?
LIMANL Yeah.
CARR SMITH: Okay, you can go ahead with your testimony,please.
LIMANL Okay. So I'm Brianne. I'm a local business owner, entrepreneur. I'm speaking in
support of Kate and Doug because they've done so much to support all of us. And as was
mentioned earlier, Kate helps host monthly meetings for small business owners, and she's helped
my business in so many ways both in and out of these meetings. And I know that she's also
helped many others building their businesses also. She really wants to see people in her
community succeed, and she goes the extra mile to help make that happen. So, for example,
when COVID came, Kate and Doug offered all these jobs at the farm, if anybody needed extra
money. Also, anytime my business is slow, she gives me the opportunity to work some shift at
the weddings, which I've done several times. I can attest to how special they are for everybody
who attends. So these are some examples, but it's evident how much they actually care about
their community. And I believe their community involvement is an extremely valuable asset for
all of us. And I can honestly say I wouldn't be where I am today without all of her help. So you
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can see by the sheer number of testifiers how many people respect Kate and Doug, and I applaud
them for going about this the hard, very hard, but legal way. I think it's setting example for all
of that have been on this call. And I hope that you don't punish them for trying to do the right
thing. So therefore, I ask you support them, like she has, like they have supported all of us.
From the testimonies here, you see how many people are really relying on this venue. You've
heard - - - depend on their business to feed their families. So to me it seems pretty crushing that
something as trivial as traffic or road inconvenience could prevent it from coming to fruition.
I've heard a lot of these and it's kind of almost infuriating to hear some of the neighbors; I can
understand that it'll increase traffic, it might be a bit of inconvenience. But I know how
respectful Kate and Doug are about this entire process, so I know they would do everything in
their power to make this as an easiest transition as possible. So I'm in full support of them, and
really hope to see it work out.
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. Are there any questions for Brianne, Commissioners?
Seeing none, could you please go ahead with your testimony representing Aranda Gillum?
LIMANL All right, so, this is for Aranda: "Aloha, my name is Aranda Gillum, and I was an
employee of the Sunshower's for the last year before recently leaving to pursue a career in
nursing. My job at Sunshower was primarily animal care, but I also worked as staff at a number
of the events and weddings. I am in full support of this new venue and was hoping to continue to
work events periodically to help pay my way through school. Doug and Kate are good
community members and farmers who deserve the commission's help. I have seen examples of
this firsthand when they have taken in stray and needy farm animals with nowhere else to go.
And despite the animals not being a profitable part of their business, they pay for feed and their
health expenses. When the volcano was erupting, Doug and Kate took an entire herd of sheep
from another farmer in Puna because ash had covered their pasture. That is just one example of
many of how they are active and essential farmers in the community. I feel proud to be working
weddings with so much respect for the island. Being a farmer, you are always looking for more
avenues to make money because it is so hard to make ends meet. This commission should be
doing everything in its power to help farmers like Kate and Doug and should approve their
permit. Thank you for your consideration."
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Now you can proceed with your testimony representing
Madeline Short and Malia Marks.
LIMANL All right. "Aloha. Our names are Madeline Short and Malia Marks, and we are
stylists at Beauty Lux Salon in Kona. We both have been working in the wedding industry for
decades and can tell you from experience how hard we have been hit by the COVID pandemic.
An entire year of weddings have been postponed and cancelled and all vendors, ourselves
included, have felt the financial impacts of that loss. Venues like Sunshower Farms are essential
to reviving our industry and providing jobs for many. Furthermore, Sunshower is unlike any
other venue on our island. Unlike the hotels, they are so careful to support local businesses
through their vendor recommendations, which should be apparent based on this outpouring of
support. Please support them like they have supported so many of us. We read in the paper this
morning that the Planning Department gave this permit a negative recommendation, and we were
shocked. Businesses like Sunshower who are trying their best to follow the rules and contribute
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to our local community should receive the county's help as much as possible. The county could
surely find solutions to any issues with Sunshower's application, if they would just try. This is
too important to so many of us to tie it up in bureaucracy until Sunshower gives up or runs out of
money. Please do the right thing for our island and approve this permit. Mahalo."
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Thank you for all that testimony, appreciate your time.
LIMANL Thank you.
CARR SMITH: All right. Rachelle, do we have any of the other folks before we go back to
Lyla? Do we have Leilani, Jamie, Johan or Kris?
LEY: I don't think soI'm trying to locate them now.
CARR SMITH: Okay. All right, so we will go back to Lyla right now. Hi, Lyla, again.
L. MAH: Hi. I'm, am I just reading Kiley's statement?
CARR SMITH: If, I think, I don't know exactly where it dropped off, whether it was yours or
when you were reading Kiley's, so
L. MAH: I'll just—
LEY:
ustLEY: We've got hers, we do, got Lyla's.
CARR SMITH: You did get Lyla's, okay.
LEY: Yeah.
CARR SMITH: All right, then go ahead and read the testimony from your friend,please. And
thank you for being back here - - -
L.
- -L. MAH: - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: - - - already sworn in, so - - - go ahead.
L. MAH: "Aloha kakou. My name is Kiley Kelson, and I am writing this testimony to show my
overwhelming support for Kate Hickey, Sunshower Farms, and their venue expansion. A little about
me: I am a mother of two young daughters, a native Hawaiian, and a business owner. I own a small
lei making floral studio here in Kona, called Hakus By Ki. I rely heavily on the wedding industry to
keep myself, keep my business afloat and to put food on the table. Sunshower Farms has been an
integral part of keeping my business alive and well. And I am in full support of their decision to
expand, as the expansion will support growth in my business and many other businesses here on
island. Since COVID things have drastically slowed down, and it has been a struggle to make ends
meet, which I know has been the same for just about everyone else on island, but I think especially
for the wedding industry, since we really do depend so greatly not on tourism, but large gatherings in
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EXHIBIT A
general. I believe a hundred percent that the expansion of Sunshower Farms will help bring some
money back into our local economy and bring life back to the wedding industry here on the Big
Island. The amount of beautiful venues in Kona that can hold 100-plus people are slim to none. We
are in dire need for more, and Sunshower Farms recognizes the need and is trying to provide this to
our community the right way by getting this permit. Lastly, I have driven up to Sunshower Farms
many times, both as a vendor and a guest of an event, and I have never had any issues with making it
up or down the narrow road. And I've always gotten a smile and a shaka from neighbors as we pass
each other going up and down. I honestly don't see any reasons to withhold granting Sunshower
Farms its permit. Kate and Doug are great people trying to breathe life into our Kona community by
providing a service that is much needed. My family and my business are counting on this permit
approval. Please take that into consideration. Mahalo piha. Kiley Kelson."
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Lyla.
L. MAH: And then I have my mom - - -
D.
- -D. MAH: - - - from the farm.
CARR SMITH: Good, there you are. All right. Donna Mah, if you could please give us your
testimony.
D. MAH: Okay, I just wanted to say, you know, I am, I'm the co-owner of J& D Farm. I've been
farming in Waimea for 37 years. And it's not easy. For them to think of diversifying and having
this venue to help support their farm is awesome, because their farm is exactly that; they, they
mostly - - - farm. And I've known them since they first started, and they struggled. They came to
the Keauhou Farmers Market, and they hung in there. And, you know, I think there is a lot of
vendors that are counting on them making it through this process, and it's, I know that they'll
accommodate whatever, whatever needs need to be met. That's the difference, and they've been
accommodating. So, honestly, I don't see any real problem in this, and I've seen a lot of illegal
activities on Ag land. And, you know, my question to those that are against this is, how many of
them actually farm? How many of them farm fulltime? Because it's not easy, and you have to be,
you have to be progressive and adapt to the needs of what your farm needs. And I think this is one
of the ways. So, yeah, so, you know, thank you for your time, and I'm glad I could make it back in
time to testify, it's been a circus today, but, mahalo.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much, Donna, appreciate it. Thank you both. Thank you for
coming back. All right, so I don't think Michael Bell or Kelly Johnson are back. Is that correct,
Rachelle?
JOHNSON: I'm back. Kelly
CARR SMITH: Oh, Kelly is here.
JOHNSON: Johnson is back.
CARR SMITH: There you are. Thank you, Kelly, for coming back, appreciate it-
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JOHNSON: You're welcome.
CARR SMITH: Yeah, sorry about- - -
JOHNSON:
- -JOHNSON: Yeah, I ditched my notes, but if I can add a little bit.
CARR SMITH: Sure, sure. Sorry that you, too,just didn't, it went off for a while, so we just need
you to give us an idea of what your position is here. Go ahead.
JOHNSON: Okay. We have been farming in Kona for more than 30 years now. We've always
played by the rules of the road. I think the biggest concern is the, the vibe of the neighborhood,
essentially. It's a very small road; it's essentially a shared driveway. That Waiono Ranch Road is a
private driveway that doesn't have any kind of a maintenance agreement on it, and is a shared
resource with all of the neighbors in Waiono Meadows. It's only 10 feet wide at certain parts. All
of the residents know the quirks of the road, the various blind spots, narrow corridors. To add 250
automobiles or trucks every single week, in addition to all the support services that a wedding venue
of that magnitude may have, may need, is just, it's, it's an incredible amount of traffic, you know,
consumer traffic that's going into a place that's zoned strictly for agricultural use. The fact that
other people do illegal operations on agricultural land has nothing to do with this whatsoever. I
mean this is, this is about setting a precedent; if you allow this to go forward, that means that every,
every farm up there would be able to have a wedding venue or a circus or any other kind of, of retail
activity, and that's not what it was zoned for. There is a wedding venue right across the street. At
the bottom of our farm is the Mamalahoa Highway; every single car that goes up that road passes our
farm. Right across the road is a beautiful wedding venue, the Holualoa Inn. I've been there, I've
seen it myself. I don't see any lack of ability. I'm not trying to deprive anyone of their economic
opportunities; I'm simply saying that this is, this is specified an agricultural community, and I'd like
to see it maintained that way. If, I, as a property owner, I really am concerned about the safety
issues, the owner's liability issues. If a wreck happens on that road, we don't even know whose
liability it is. When the road gets potholes and gets washed out, the residents have to come to the
rescue and fill the potholes. It's not like the county does that for us. I don't even know if
emergency services can get to the top of that hill. I just don't think it's an appropriate venue for a
commercial operation of that magnitude. Thank you very much for your reconsideration. And I'm
genuinely grateful that you are listening to a wide range of opinions on the matter, but I just don't
think you can sanction that kind of activity.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much, Kelly, appreciate your coming back and joining - - -
JOHNSON:
- -JOHNSON: Thanks for inviting me
CARR SMITH: Yeah, thank you.
JOHNSON: not as eloquent but, Chairwoman.
CARR SMITH: Mr. Newberg.
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NEWBERG: Just quickly. I think Mr. Vitousek had an interesting and poignant question, and
maybe we can come back to all the homeowners that may not be still present after testifying to just
ask and see as a matter of conversation if they are willing to sit down and speak with the Hickeys
regarding this matter. Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Did you want to respond, Kelly?
JOHNSON: I'm happy to sit down and speak with anyone.
CARR SMITH: Okay.
JOHNSON: Open dialogue is always the best course of action.
CARR SMITH: Sure. All right, thank you very much. I keep losing you, Mr. Vitousek Hi,
Pamela, do you mind dropping off the call, please, so that we have more room for other windows?
You just have to close the red circle with the X in it. If you can leave the call, Pamela Parker,
please. Thank you. All right. So I will just make note of the one of their testimonies that may not
been recorded was Michael Bell who was in favor of the Special Permit. I think that catches us up to
date. And, Amber Haley, are you back with us?
A. HALEY: Yes, I'm here.
CARR SMITH: Hi Amber.
A. HALEY: Hi.
CARR SMITH: I swore you in earlier. You still swear to tell the truth before the Leeward Planning
Commission?
A. HALEY: I do, I will tell the truth.
CARR SMITH: Okay, very good. I know that you have written testimony that you are going to
read from several people
A. HALEY: Yes.
CARR SMITH: so I just ask you to be as brief as you can,just with consideration of where we
are at this point. So I believe you are going to begin with Aly Dove.
A. HALEY: I'm actually beginning with Kris Adair, but I can switch the order that Rachelle gave
me, if that's what you want.
CARR SMITH: Oh, you are doing Kris Adair? Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. Go ahead.
A. HALEY: Okay. "Aloha. My name is Kris Adair, and I am a local coffee farmer in Holualoa. It
is so hard to make it as a farmer during the best of times, much less now with the pandemic. The
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commission should not limit the ways in which farmers are able to support themselves unless it
harms the land or the community, of which this application does neither. Sunshower farms is a
model for sustainable agriculture. Sustainable farming is not profitable, but they are supporting their
mission through a second income stream, which is something that this commission should
wholeheartedly support. The reason we have a planning commission and permit hearings in the first
place is so that a body of local community members can understand all facets of a request before
making a decision. I sincerely hope that you will take my testimony, and all of this community
testimony to heart and vote to approve Sunshower Farms' application. Their farm is a community
treasure and losing it would be a loss for us all. In a year with so many losses, please do not face us
with another one. Mahalo for your time."
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Go ahead with Aly Dove.
A. HALEY: Okay. Aly Dove: "Aloha, Hawaii County Planning Commission. My name is
Aly Dove, and my business is Aly Dove Photography LLC based in Kona, Hawaii. I support
Sunshower Farms LLC's application for a special use permit for a wedding venue because it attracts
clients for local small businesses like mine. As a former employee at Sunshower Farms, I gained
experience in the wedding industry and learned what it takes to run a small business in Hawaii as an
assistant coordinator for Kate Hickey. I was then able to start my own business photographing small
weddings here on the island. Sunshower Farms not only helps bring clients to local businesses like
mine, but Kate and the Sunshower team truly want other local businesses to succeed. Having
worked with Kate, I've seen her go above and beyond to mentor other small business owners, as she
prioritizes the hiring of local vendors. From the florists to the caterers, the musicians, and the
officiants, Sunshower Farms supports local farms and small business owners here on the island. In
doing so, they provide their clients a holistic experience uniquely tailored to their couples while
helping them experience the aloha spirit here in Hawaii. I also support Sunshower Farms' venue
because it attracts both local and destination wedding clients. Most of my clients are interested in a
venue where they can have a smaller, more intimate wedding with family and friends, rather than a
large wedding at a resort. Sunshower Farms is a prefect venue for these clients, and they can fit a
variety of budgets for couples looking to get married in Hawaii. They are also using sustainable
practices in both their farming and event planning,which is an important value to many of my
clients. Kate and the Sunshower team truly care for their clients, as well as the local vendors they
host at their venue. I fully support their application for a special use permit."
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. Now your testimony for Ann Ferguson.
A. HALEY: All right. Ann Ferguson: "Aloha, Hawaii County Planning Commission. My name is
Ann Ferguson, and my business is Ann Ferguson Photography LLC based in Waikoloa, Hawaii. I
have been a wedding photographer on the Big Island for the past four years. I support Sunshower
Farms' application for a special use permit. I think they provide a valuable and beautiful space for
both destination and local weddings on the island. Wedding venues are an important part of my
business as a wedding and elopement photographer. Wedding location is a major decision factor for
weddings and events. Sunshower Farms provides an amazing location for weddings in Kona,
especially for couples looking for wedding venues beyond the hotels and beachfront homes. They
have hosted many weddings with raving reviews supporting their impeccable service. More
importantly, more wedding venues or increased wedding and event capacity for venues on the Big
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Island translate to more revenue for many vendors who are currently facing unprecedented financial
struggles. Sunshower Farms also offers an affordable wedding venue on the island, particularly for
local weddings. With the widespread financial effects of COVID-19, local couples need more
venues that can meet their needs going forward. Lastly, Sunshower Farms values sustainability. I
am so excited that the proposed new venue is designed to be carbon neutral. That combined with
their other sustainability initiative are so important for our island now more than ever. This
commission should be doing everything they can to support and protect businesses on the island who
are voluntarily undertaking sustainability initiatives. For all these reasons, I fully support the special
use permit."
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. I believe you will now read the testimony of Karlie Austria.
A. HALEY: Karlie Austria: "My name is Karlie Austria, and I am a local resident and small
business owner. I support Sunshower Farms special use permit for a wedding venue. As a business
owner in the wedding industry, first as a creative assistant and now as a photographer, I've
experienced firsthand all the jobs a wedding venue creates for our local economy, as well as the
money it brings into the state and county. As we've quickly learned from COVID-19, it's extremely
important to stimulate our local economy, and a huge contributor to our local economy is small
business. Sunshower Farms provides work to many farm employees, as well as other small business
owners, such as freelance photographers like myself, hair and makeup artists, florists, bakers,
caterers, officiants, musicians, and on and on and on. Doug and Kate are amazing community
members who should be supported by this commission. Please do the right thing and give them a
permit to continue contributing to our island economy and our wedding community for years to
come. Mahalo, Karlie Austria."
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Next is the testimony of Sarah Gehman.
A. HALEY: Sarah Gehman: "My name is Sarah Gehman, and I'm the owner of Sarah Gehman
Photography. I have photographed a number of- - - I love it there. I cannot imagine not having
Sunshower as an option for weddings in the future. It would be a huge loss to our community.
Because of our limited amount of wedding venues on the Big Island, I love being able to confidently
recommend such a beautiful, unique coffee farm venue to my clients. It's intimate, unique, and
gives visitors a chance to see another side of what our great State of Hawaii has to offer. And
Sunshower Farms and all of their staff do a beautiful, respectful job at giving that experience to their
clients. Plus, their prices are actually affordable and reasonable for couples coming from all over
and for local couples, too. Affordability is one of the missions of their business, which I probably do
not need to tell you is something that is not very unique to the wedding industry, something that is
very unique to the wedding industry. I love working with Kate for so many reasons. She cares so
much for the local vendor community and is thinking of others so often. When I moved to the island
two years ago, she welcomed me, she did not withhold knowledge, she showed kindness, gave me
fruit from her farm whenever I went to visit, and the list goes on. She thinks local. She acts local.
Her impact is local. Doug and Kate are respectful to the land of Hawaii. They care for their land,
for their animals, for their people. I've met and worked with their employees; they are happy, they
are happy, supported and enjoy their jobs. Doug and Kate truly do care for their people and their
local community, and it starts right there on their farm and the aloha flows out. Please lend an ear to
all of the stories and all of the testimonies today about all the good that comes from Sunshower
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Farms. Our highest hopes and prayers are that it would remain open for weddings, and that it would
continue to be a farm that brings business, blessings and aloha to the Big Island community. God
bless you, and thank you for your time."
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Next would be the testimony of Kristen Bradish.
A. HALEY: "Aloha. My name is Kristen Bradish, and I am a local resident. I worked for
Sunshower Farms in 2016 doing farm work, mostly vegetable gardening and animal care. During
my time there, Kate and Doug were struggling to make ends meet. The year I worked for them, I
think they had four or five different agricultural businesses going on at once, from farmers markets
to large-scale vegetable production to microgreens to coffee, and it was still a struggle. I was
present for their first event ever, a farm-to-table dinner that a local chef hosted at the farm. And
even from that first event we all knew that Sunshower was a special venue. Ever since then, I have
dreamt of one day owning my own, having my own wedding at Sunshower. They truly offer
something unique to our community both setting and through their sustainability efforts. I have
always been a little wary of weddings because they are so expensive and often so wasteful for just
one party. But Sunshower's events are different; their commitment to affordability for kama`aina,
creating as little waste as possible, and carbon neutrality are what I want for my wedding. Really,
it's what I want for our island, and what we should be encouraging in all of our local businesses.
Now, I understand that some of the neighboring properties are in opposition to this project, and I do
understand their worry. They don't want any changes near their homes and they do not want any
more traffic on their road. But, quite frankly, I feel like the good of this project far outweighs these
potential impacts. And these potential impacts are overblown at best or just complete fabrications at
worst. For the last three years, Sunshower has been operating as a venue, and there has never been a
complaint before. Their suggestion to limit the traffic to 20 vehicles per event and a max of 100
events per year is, at its maximum, only an extra 2,000 cars over an entire year. Finally, it should
not be lost on you that Sunshower could have just continued to violate their zoning indefinitely, and
they made the right choice voluntarily and without prompt. I urge you to strongly take it into
consideration that the impact of denying this application would be an encouragement to other farms
to remain in violation of their zoning, rather than just come into compliance. There are many
Ag-zoned properties on this island that violate their zoning in this same way, and denying an
applicant who is trying to go about everything legally would only create an incentive to other farms
to not be transparent and to run under-the-table for-profit venues on agricultural property. Mahalo
for your consideration."
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Sorry, was that Kristen or Becky?
A. HALEY: The last one is Kristen.
CARR SMITH: Okay. All right, so the next testimony is from Becky Ringler?
A. HALEY: Yes. Becky Ringler: "I have known of Kate Hickey and Sunshower Farms in a
professional capacity for several years, getting to know her and her work and her mission well
through a professional organization we belong to together. What Kate and her husband, Doug, do
for the larger community, and specifically for the wedding community, are so important, and I hope
you will take the following into consideration today: I have owned and operated a beach wedding
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business here in Kona for more than five and a half years now, and although I primarily plan and
officiate weddings down at the beach, I do help couples plan and coordinate intimate weddings up
and down the coast. And I can tell you from experience there are almost no wedding venues set up
for small - - - and other than private rental homes or one or two restaurants at the beach, there are
only a handful of venues, many of whom are operating in violation of their zoning, that serve smaller
parties that are not right at the beach. Sunshower Farms not only fills that small venue hole, but it
also provides an affordable and beautiful option for couples, both local and from off-island. The
kind of venue they provide is something that is desperately needed here, even more so now that
COVID-19 has changed the landscape of how weddings will be in the foreseeable future, offering
the ability for couples to have a smaller wedding, but still get the benefits of an actual wedding
venue. On top of providing a venue for couples, Sunshower Farms is also a supporter of the local
economy. They employ permanent local employees, as well as hire a number of free-lancers in the
wedding community, many of whom I work with on a regular basis, photographers, other officiants,
planners, caterers, and they as a farm have gone above and beyond to try to keep their workers
employed throughout this COVID-19 crisis, even offering part time farm jobs to those of us who are
wedding vendors and are out of work. Speaking of the farm, which is located in an Ag zone, is
unlike some of the other neighbors who are in opposition to this permit, an actual working farm, and
that is their primary function. And as farmers, they do need other streams of income to be able to
support themselves. Offering weddings is a supplement to their farm; it just provides extra income
while also filling a glaring gap in the venue market here in Kona. On top of all of this, both Kate
and Doug are spectacular human beings, always willing to jump in and support their local
community. It's time we support them as well. So I urge you to consider today that Kate, Doug, and
Sunshower Farms are critical to the health of both the wedding and farming community and
economy. And to approve their permit will essentially, to not approve it will essentially be
punishing them for choosing to voluntarily do the right thing and apply to becomes a legal venue,
when there has not been a single complaint filed over the three years they have been doing
weddings. That's shameful. Please do the right thing and support this community-minded couple by
allowing their venue to remain a part of our community. By doing so, you are helping the entire
industry, as well as helping those that bring light and health into the larger Kona community. Thank
you for your time."
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Amber. All right, the next testimony would be from Karen Loudon.
A. HALEY: "My name is Karen Loudon, and my business is Karen Loudon Photography, based in
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. I've lived on the Big Island of Hawaii for 16 years, and I started my small
photography business 10 years ago. I support Sunshower Farms' special use permit because
Sunshower Farms has helped me to support my business for the past three years. Sunshower Farms
does not collect compensation or commissions from me when I work there like the big chain resorts
do. And I pay business tax on my income received from working at Sunshower Farms. The farm
contributes to the overall economy on the island,particularly to the Kona area and the town of
H61ualoa, and offers an alternative type of wedding venue to the big beach resorts on the coast.
COVID has hurt so many businesses, including mine, and I think the greatest priority for our county
should be supporting any business that's going to help us recover. I hear all this talk nowadays
about supporting local business; well, this is a prime example of a farm and a local wedding business
that is surviving even though they compete with big resort chains. Let's support it. Sunshower
Farm is exactly the type of farm that should be on agricultural land and deserves the county's
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support because it's an actual working farm that is dedicated to agriculture where the coffee and
animals are essential. Some of the neighbors who are opposing this permit are living on land that is
also zoned as agricultural land and enjoying all of the benefits of that, including subsidized property
taxes; however, they are not farming themselves. Why don't the rules apply to those entitled
neighbors? They should be the one having to defend themselves here. If those in opposition to this
permit were actually farming, they might realize just how hard it is to do, and they would empathize
a little more with other farmers trying to diversify their income streams however possible, as
Sunshower Farms does with weddings. Supporting farmers in Hawaii needs supporting
diversification in the farming industry, it's as simple as that. Kate and Doug are valuable
contributors to community. They volunteer time and their knowledge in many ways. Kate has been
doing that with a working discussion group every month that supports local entrepreneurs. They
have also encouraged local middle schools and high school kids to visit and learn about the coffee
farming process, including seasonality, growth patterns, ripening, harvesting,pruning, orchard
maintenance and pests, including the opportunity to meet and feed the weed control, which is their
herd of sheep and goats. It's clear how much Kate and Doug love and value their land and this
island, and they are keeping the H6lualoa coffee farm industry alive while sharing it with the
community and with the guests. Please consider expediting the Special Permit process for
Sunshower Farms and allow them to host weddings and share their wonderful slice of old Hawaii
history with many more guests. Thank you for your consideration."
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Amber. Next would be testimony on behalf of Dawn Eicher?
A. HALEY: "My name is Dawn Eicher, and Amber Haley is reading my testimony in support of
Doug and Kate's special use permit. I wish I could have made it in person to the hearing today, but I
am currently homeschooling my kids, and I want to make sure my testimony is heard by the
commission in support of this project because it is so very important to me. First of all, a little about
me. I am a wedding photographer based in Kailua-Kona, and a busy one at that. I photographed 116
weddings last year, so I'm heavily involved in the wedding industry here in Kona. I can speak from
experience that wedding venues here in Kona are in short supply, especially affordable ones.
Sunshower Farms is the perfect wedding venue for many reasons. First of all, it offers the unique
experience of being married on a coffee farm, and there are not very many venues that offer lush
surroundings and that immersive experience, and couples who want something other than the beach
love this location. It's beautiful, it's quiet and the perfect spot for a small, intimate wedding. It has
a warm, home-spun ambiance, while being professional and organized. It's been a pleasure working
with Kate and Doug, and hope to continue to do so in the future. As you know, COVID has changed
all tourist-based industries, including the large wedding industry. Further disruption to venues
would also hinder our industry, including florists, farmers, caterers, videographers, calligraphers,
hotels, etcetera. We must have venues to have our weddings. I personally have weddings at
Sunshower on the books that have been postponed due to COVID. Having to face future
cancellations is devastating to a small business like mine, especially now. If this venue goes away, I
will also not be able to connect with future couples or book future business, which we all desperately
need. I depend on referrals. I depend on the size of wedding that Sunshower Farms offers, and
would not want to see another source of wedding leads dry up. This has been a devastating year for
us, and professionally I want to see as many options open to us as possible. Having less weddings
here in Kona impacts us all, as tourism dollars fund so much of our infrastructure and public
funding. We need to protect all main arteries that fuel this industry. We also need to ensure that
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there are affordable venues for our locals, too. Sunshower offers kama`aina discounts for local
couples. Every little bit helps our local community afford a beautiful day. Above and beyond all of
this, Kate and Doug are great community members. They truly care about our town and about
sustainability. They offer a venue that is environmentally conscious. I love that they make sure all
leftover food is composted and they even bought a special chipper so that cardboard and even paper
plates and wooden forks would be chipped and used on the farm as mulch. I love that it's an actual
working coffee farm. Many people buy parcels of land and only farm a tiny bit to get the tax break,
or they don't even farm at all. Sunshower is a working farm and they sell coffee to wedding guests,
which in turn generate more revenue and tax income for our state. Vendors like, venues like this
support our local economy, create jobs and employ dozens of vendors. We are incredibly grateful
for their presence here, and I hope you will grant their proposal. I would love to see Sunshower
build a dedicated venue so they could host more events. Although I know their main focus is
agriculture, having them be able to expand would be great for everyone here in Kona. Thank you for
your time, and please think of the future and the big picture as you make your decision. I know that
with any project you review there are pros and cons, but it is clear that the pros far outweigh the cons
in this situation."
CARR SMITH: Thank you. All right, next you can read in Kayla Jensen's.
A. HALEY: All right. Kayla Jensen: "Sunshower Farms is a really special place to me and
something I think is really special to our Kona community. I have lived here for seven years and
know Kate and Doug both personally and professionally. I have a fulltime job not in the wedding
industry, but in order to make ends meet, I usually have a second, and somethings third job. I served
at Holuakoa Cafe, before it permanently closed due to COVID, and I have worked on and off as a
server for private event catering. Though I am friends with Kate and Doug, I have also worked for
them a number of times on their wedding staff and feel like I can give some insight into their events.
Weddings at Sunshower are so special. The space is beautiful due to its natural setting and creates
once in a lifetime memories for their guests while also contributing to the whole Kona community.
Kate's been so intentional with her collaboration with local vendors, including catering companies,
bakeries, florists, and on and on. And they provide primary and secondary jobs to people who lived
in our community like me. I know that traffic and parking is a fear of the neighbors, and therefore
an issue for this permit, but I do not think it should be. Every event I have worked, Kate has been so
diligent in making sure the staff carpool, and that the road is kept clear. She is mindful of any
impact on the neighbors and takes care in keeping the noise from the events to a minimum. Overall,
I just really support Kate and Doug receiving a permit to continue moving forward with having
weddings in this space, because not only does it allow people to have these memories of such a
beautiful and special place in H61ualoa, but it is also elevating and contributing to our local economy
and community in a multitude of ways. Thank you for listening, and I hope you take to heart what a
special place and special business this is. Aloha."
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Amber. All right, next is Kate Lyness. Down to two for you, I think.
A. HALEY: I have—okay. Kate Lyness: "I'm a resident of Pepe`eke6 and am also an entrepreneur
doing business on the Island of Hawaii. Mrs. Hickey and I are members of the same entrepreneur
group where we meet regularly to support each other's businesses and provide information and
resources to help each other succeed. I have seen firsthand how much thought and care the Hickeys
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continually put into their business and farm. I have witnessed the efforts they have made to build
their business alongside and with the community, taking into account its role and effects on the
environment, other community members, and local businesses. First and foremost, I know that it is
their desire to continue building a thriving business that is in alignment with what is best for
everyone and to live and work in a community in which all members feel heard, supported, and
respected. Secondly, I strongly believe that this commission and every other body of government in
community should be doing everything they can to support small businesses on this island in the
wake of tremendous economic hardships we have recently faced. Farming is not an easy business,
especially for small family farms on this island. Recently, I've been volunteering my time and
experience as a financial analyst and business consultant with the business advisory services of The
Kohala Center. I have become more and more aware of just how difficult it is for farmers here to
build a financially sustainable business model. So often the ones who are able to succeed at this
have done so by finding creative ways to diversify their revenue streams and do so in ways that
support other local businesses at the same time. The Hickeys have done just this. It is my
observation that the Hickeys have very thoughtfully and thoroughly offered solutions to address
every potential objection to this permit being approved, and more so are willing to continue to
address any additional objections brought to their attention. It is entrepreneurs and community
members such as the Hickeys that are going to help improve the island economy in the coming
years, and I hope that this commission will approve their application so that they may do so. Thank
you. Kate Lyness."
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Next is Tracey Gapol.
A. HALEY: Tracey Gapol: "I humbly ask that you would please consider the approval of Kathryn
Hickey's permit for the following reasons: I first met her at a community group that was put together
to help other creatives in the wedding industry. Kathryn, or Kate as we all know her, poured so
much of herself into our group. Sharing with us above and beyond ideas of how we can all do better
and serve people better. Kate is always a people-first kind of person and has helped me and others in
our group on so many occasions. Kate really does make this a better place by how she helps. I have
had the honor of working as a vendor at her property. Kate gave us a glowing recommendation as
we were starting out a new venture within our current company. Kate again showed a people-first
attitude for everyone involved. She made sure everyone's needs were met, and that we were happy
as vendors, and the client was very happy with the result. I am grateful to know and work with Kate
and look forward to more events on her property with this permit approved."
CARR SMITH: Very good, thank you. And I believe the last testimony that you will read is from
Jane and Sara Morrill?
A. HALEY: Okay, there's, yes, okay. "This is Jane Morrill, and along with my husband we are the
owners of American Sportsman Series Fishing Schools here in Kailua-Kona. We are always looking
for ways to enhance the experiences and economy of our local community. We thoroughly support
other local businesses, which look to do the same. The Big Island has long been a popular spot for
two things: fishing and weddings. We believe that there are more creative and sustainable ways to
fulfill these demands for both visitors and kama`aina alike than what is currently offered.
Sunshower Farms has created an organically beautiful and sustainable environment for agriculture,
as well as a sacred space for hosting weddings. This business supports many local residents
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financially and has been a five-star rated venue for countless weddings and receptions. We fully
support Sunshower Farms' application for a special use permit for a wedding venue to enhance their
ability to provide for their clients, which will be a win-win for the whole community. Our local
business men and women have been hit harder here in Hawaii than almost anywhere else in the U.S.
Many will not survive. In fact, many have already closed down, which will only further delay our
collective economic recovery. It is beyond important to support the local businesses that have
shown exceptional strength and fortitude. Sunshower Farms has been shown, has shown an
incredible ability to flex with the demands that this year has brought, and it is in the best interest of
us all to see them continue to survive and thrive in the coming year. Mahalo." And that's Jim and
Jane Morrill, and if you want, I can move right into Sara Morrill.
"My name is Sara Morrill, and I worked at Sunshower Farms for wedding events and on day-to-day
farm tasks before leaving the island to travel in January. I support their application because I truly
believe in the work they are doing to empower local businesses and employees and create a truly
locally inspired family-run business. Sunshower Farms was an incredibly enjoyable and vibrant
place to work. One thing I always appreciated about working directly - - - employees - - - loyal to
them, she made sure they were taken care of, and moreover appreciated, whether that meant
personally packing a to-go piece of wedding cake to make sure every staff member took one home,
ensuring we were compensated for the extra fifteen minutes we came in early to set up, encouraged
to take a break when things got busy, and overall just appreciation for a job well done. Apart from
the individuals that Sunshower Farms directly employed, each event supported a number of local
vendors, including caterers, musicians, artists, florists and officiants - - -. I know that Kate has the
same kind of loyal, personal relationships with most of these vendors. Having worked many events,
I know how important it is to Kate and Doug to build a new space for events. They want to have a
space designed for weddings; a space that insulates for noise so that they are sure to not disrupt
neighbors; a space that with ADA facilities so that people of all ages and abilities can visit the farm
and enjoy the beauty of their venue; a space that compiles with all, complies with all local laws and
regulations —something that I know is very important to Kate and Doug. After all, that is why they
are applying for this permit. Finally, I hope you will consider that Sunshower Farms is an incredibly
important community business and part of the Big Island wedding industry. I hope my testimony, as
well as the numerous other testimonials you have heard today impress upon you how far-reaching
the impact of your decision will be. There are so many of us who depend on Sunshower Farms."
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much, Amber, appreciate you representing all of those folks and
providing the testimony. Thank you.
A. HALEY: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: All right. We're going to move on to, I believe our last two testifiers.
Mr. Paterson, you can turn your camera on, and Claire.
LEY: Hello?
PATERSON: - - - on audio.
LEY: He just has audio, Mr. Paterson.
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CARR SMITH: Okay,just audio. Okay. All right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
before the Leeward Planning Commission today?
PATERSON: Yes, I do.
MASON: Yes.
CARR SMITH: All right, thank you. So, Mr. Paterson, I believe Leilani was planning on
testifying, and you, she's not available, so you're testifying on her behalf. Is that correct?
PATERSON: She's my wife, so.
CARR SMITH: Okay, okay. Joint testimony.
PATERSON: Yep.
CARR SMITH: Okay. Go ahead, please.
PATERSON: Okay. I'm an owner up at Waiono Ranch Road. I believe it all comes down to
the road, the road, the road. Over the past few years, I put more than four tons of asphalt down
on the road. I'm the guy that goes down on the road and fills the potholes and makes sure the
brush taken out so, you know, as bad as it is, you know, takes some of the hazards away. I see a
lot of the people coming up and down the roads. It's not a conducive environment for hauling
cattle trailers, horse trailers and then have people basically maybe from the city areas, things like
that, coming up, not being used to a road like that,not really knowing what to do. Downhill
traffic has to yield to uphill. People pulling trailers up the hill have cars right behind them; you
get off the road and stop, you'll roll back into those people. So even that little thing, what is very
unclear to, you know, the majority of people, we have to put signs up so that they can see it and
they can read them. I'm not opposed to these people trying to make a living. In fact, I support
them, I can, you know, I condone it. But I think they need to think outside the box. I think one
of the ways of looking would be Hula Daddy, which is right up the road from down where they
have built their processing plant and a showroom, and they have activities also down on the
lower highway. It's been a great investment for them. It's grown double since they bought it.
But yet the farm fields up below, up above, are just that, farm fields, so they don't have tourist
people. They still can sell their coffees. You folks, they could have farm tours, I imagine, if
they want, but, you know, it just would be a danger. I want them to continue with their business,
I hope they flourish. It sort of sounds like they're doing pretty good with the wedding venue.
Real estate, it would be a heck of an investment for them; buy a parcel down below, it'll do
nothing but go off,put the venue down there, have tours up on the farm, if people attending the
wedding want to see what the farm's about, so be it. But it just comes down to the road, the
road, the road. And it's too dangerous. It's, you know, you get people that aren't familiar with
it, and it's just not a good situation. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Thank you, appreciate that. Any questions from the
commissioners for Mr. Paterson? No. Okay, thank you very much.
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PATERSON: Thank you.
CARR SMITH: All right, Clair Mason is going to read written testimony on behalf of Johan
Forsberg. Do I have that right, Clair?
MASON: Yes, hi. Sorry, I just, he ended up having to text it to me, so hopefully it's all good.
Okay. "Hi, it's Johann. I'm the owner of HiCO Hawaiian Coffee, a new cafe in the Brew block.
I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my company. HiCO is a Hawaiian coffee collective where
we source coffee from across the islands of Hawaii. I have had the opportunity to meet many
farmers and understand firsthand how difficult it is for farmers to stay profitable. Now more
than ever, all businesses, especially farmers must be creative to keep their businesses afloat.
Even at our cafe, COVID has led to hard times and we're doing our best to keep our employees
paid. We need the support of our local government for all businesses right now. I've worked
with Kate very closely for about a year, and I love their coffee. We'll actually be featuring it
next month at our cafe. I want to be able to continue to support her and build camaraderie with
farmers here. We depend on farmers for our coffee and continue to serve Sunshower coffee
now. We have business, or my business partner and I have been to their farm as well, and it is
exemplary of organic farming in Hawai`i." Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Okay, I think we're at the end of our testimony. Thank
you everyone who did testify. Thank you for everyone who has been listening. So, at this point
I'd like a motion to close public testimony please.
NEWBERG: So moved.
CARR SMITH: Is there a second?
KEALOHA: I'll second.
CARR SMITH: Okay, so Commissioner Newberg made a motion to close public testimony. I
heard Mr. Kealoha seconded it. All in favor?
COMMISSIONERS: Aye.
CARR SMITH: Anybody opposed? (Pause) All right, public testimony is closed. Okay. How
are we doing? Everybody doing okay? We're ready to move into a motion for action, and then
we'll have some discussion about that, unless anybody has something else prior to that. Go
ahead, Maij a.
JACKSON: Thank you, Chair Carr Smith. I just wanted to note one correction to the planning
director's findings before a motion is made. On page 9, number 3, Mr. Kern had pointed out that
we incorrectly referenced a section of the zoning code related to income generation. And so I
want to say that he is correct, and explain that section of the code a little bit.
CARR SMITH: Go ahead.
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JACKSON: The agricultural tourism section of the zoning code says that if you are going to
have weddings on your working farm, or special events, or operate ag tourism activities after
6:00 p.m. daily, or if your gross revenues from the ag tourism will exceed the gross revenues
from the farming activity, those are all criteria for applying for a special permit. And as
Mr. Kern mentioned, we do look at these on a case-by-case basis. The application submitted
referenced the Doutor Coffee property, and that property is located about a mile north of Waiono
Ranch Road intersection with Mamalahoa Highway. The property is on the mauka, it's just
mauka of the highway, and they came in in 2010 for a Special Permit to allow weddings and
special events to be held in an existing farm dwelling. So, there's a few differences between that
Special Permit application and the one before you that I want to point out. The Doutor property
access was directly off the highway; there was no private road, no private substandard road to
access the property. The applicant improved the access and recessed the gate in compliance with
what Department of Publics, Department of Public Works had asked for. The other major
difference is that the Doutor property was about a hundred acres in size. On that property they
had 50,000 coffee trees. So, they were, they were also offering farm tours on the property in
conjunction with the special events and weddings. And—let's see they, they met with
neighbors prior to submitting the application, and due to that, they limited activities and hours so
that there was no amplified music after 7:00 p.m. So those are the main differences between the
current application before you and the Doutor application, which the Department did support 10
years ago.
I also just want to point out two other areas, or reiterate two other areas, of concern. The revised
site plan, revised floor plan that was provided to you also did not show any sliding glass doors;
there's still a very large open area, so we're not, there's still a question of how the events will not
affect surrounding property owners related to noise when there's a good portion of the structure
that's open and, and won't be enclosed.
And then lastly, the, quite a few testifiers referenced the current operation that had been
occurring over the last three years, and that there was no impact to surrounding property owners
or no formal complaints submitted to the Department. But I do want to point out that
Ms. Hickey mentioned they had 50 weddings in 2019, and the current proposal is for 100
weddings annually. So we're looking at a 50 percent increase.
CARR SMITH: Thanks, Maija. Do you have a comment, Commissioner Vitousek?
VITOUSEK: Just a question. I'm just wondering if the county is aware of any other additional
permitted wedding venues in the vicinity, besides the ones mentioned.
JACKSON: The two permitted facilities we're aware of are the H61ualoa Inn and the Doutor
Coffee property.
CARR SMITH: Thank you. Maija, did you want to address any other of, of Mr. Kern's
comments? Or did you feel like that those have been gone over? I wasn't sure whether you
were going to address that at some point.
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JACKSON: Yeah, I think those have adequately been gone over other than we would want to
change the findings, the first finding to correct that statement should the commission vote to
deny the permit.
CARR SMITH: On Item number 3.
JACKSON: Yeah.
CARR SMITH: Okay. Commissioner
KERN: Madam Chair?
CARR SMITH: —Van Pernis. I'm sorry? Go ahead. Go ahead, Zendo.
KERN: Sorry, I just, I'm hoping we'll have a chance to provide one more round of comments
based on the testimony etcetera per the usual.
CARR SMITH: Sure.
KERN: Until then I'll yield.
CARR SMITH: Yeah, thank you. I was getting a little rummy and I was going right to that, but
then I realized I shouldn't. Thank you. Commissioner Van Pernis, go ahead.
VAN PERNIS: Yes, I'd like to make my comments now. Having been a recent resident of
H61ualoa, I'm aware of other wedding venues in addition of those mentioned by Ms. Jackson.
There is H61ualoa Inn, the, there's a restaurant in H61ualoa, which has a larger venue for that,
and also this is a large property, which I believe this was approved by the county, and the Duarte
property has good roads right up to it, big wide roads
CARR SMITH: That's what Maija shared with us already.
VAN PERNIS: Not Doutor, Duarte is an addition to Doutor.
CARR SMITH: Oh.
VAN PERNIS: Now, the issue here is the road, and out of all the testimony, every lot owner,
every person living out there was opposed to this basically because of the road. I think the, there
should be no chance of this illegal activity continuing unless the road is dealt with. There's no
association, so it falls on the applicant to fix the road or arrange to fix the road. Now
CARR SMITH: Okay, thank you very
VAN PERNIS: I want to, I want to point out that this is a simple matter. We're a government
of laws, not of people. The issue is not whether Ms. Hickey is a good person or contributes to
the community. If that was the case, then every Special Permit would be to heck with the law,
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just analyze the person whether they're a good person or not, whether I, I'm a wonderful person,
with exuberance, you know, you'd have the judgment. It's not a matter of judging people. It's
not a question of how many people they might employ, or what a good recycler they are. We're
a government of laws. The law is, the state land use law is, as the planning director has stated,
this cannot be allowed under the present law, under the state land use law. And thus, if we start
this precedent, regardless of how nice a person Ms. Hickey might be, if we start this precedent,
every agricultural property, every Land Use Agricultural classified property will be able to go
commercial.
CARR SMITH: Okay, thank you. Zendo, why don't you go ahead and add any thoughts at this
point?
KERN: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Just to, I guess, respond to the last thing from
Mr. Van Pernis, it sounds like - - - have special permits in general,period. To say that this is
illegal is, is wrong. To say this is illegal, with you being an attorney, is surprising. This is the
legal process in which to obtain operating illegal business on the property. Thus, we're here
going through the process and really trying to do it right. It's quite tricky because as you're all
very aware, there's, there's, this is not a simple issue; this is complicated from farming, small
business, neighbors, etcetera.
I will say that Kate reached out to the surrounding property owners, especially her immediate
ones in the CPR right away at the very beginning with a care package and a letter explaining
what we're, what we're doing there. She can explain further on to that, but the goal was to really
sit down with the neighbors, the surrounding property owners and, and talk story about what,
what's going on here. I've also reached out multiple times outside of the normal notices to
surrounding property owners as required by the county code by way of letter as well as email,
seeing if we could sit down and, and talk, and address some of these concerns because part of
what we have going on here, as you've seen, is the sky's falling, we're going to have 250 cars up
and down that road, this is, this is just too much, that's 250 cars going up and down the road all
the time. That's not even close to the truth. We, we proposed to limit it to 20 cars. We, there
might be a maximum number of that many people, which could be limited as well. - - -today
was the possibility that we could maybe talk story with the neighbors and for them to reach out
instead of saying, instead of- - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: You're breaking up a little bit, Zendo.
KERN: Oh. How - - -better? - - -ish? You know, it's a sensitive subject and I think, I don't
want to—can you hear me okay?
CARR SMITH: I think so.
KERN: Cool. I certainly don't want to create negativity. I'm always trying to garner
collaboration and bring in folks together, and that's what we were hoping we could do with the
neighbors. On that note, we are open to continuing the hearing and sitting down with the
neighbors and talking story and finding a way to mitigate the issues. And bringing something
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that actually is, everybody has the same kind of mindset around. I think we do need to adjust a
few of the requests. Can you - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: Go ahead.
KERN: Okay.
CARR SMITH: Yep.
KERN: We know we do need to adjust, I, I think, some of the numbers just to make it a little bit
more finable and every- - - I think it's clear that there's some things that are just not being seen
correctly here, such as the 250 cars - - -that can be addressed. We're dealing with a lot of
Specula- - - and either, either the neighbors didn't know about it, which would be a testament to
how well the Hickey's run their event or they did - - - about it and still no complaints would still
be - - - running their events. We have, we do have, there's - - - I know times getting on so, you
know
CARR SMITH: Yeah.
KERN: I think we're open to mitigating. Sound, we are open to mitigating. Working out the
road impact, super open to mitigating. We kind of came forth with these elements to help
mitigate this, and that would be our, our hope is to be able to continue that- - -to you know,
hand this over to Kate. I see Commissioner Newberg probably has a question for me first—
CARR
irstCARR SMITH: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: I'd like to forward- - - Kate, Doug the opportunity to get some, one point in here.
And then - - - couple things - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: You're breaking up, Zendo. I don't know if its afternoon internet or what, but.
KERN: Young farmers are very challenged. Is that any better?
CARR SMITH: No, go ahead.
KERN: If I smile, is that better?
CARR SMITH: That helps.
KERN: Young farmers are challenged. If you look at the actual numbers, there's not many of
them. I think we should be supporting them. And lastly—I'll leave it with this this property
does meet the requirements for agricultural tourism. With agricultural tourism we could do an
administrative action on that, and there could be as many as 30,000 cars annually up that road,
with no mitigation measures. I don't think that's necessarily the right idea; I think mitigating
things and finding a reasonable solution, and maybe even solving some of this road problem
would be very positive. So, I'm hoping that, that there is some open mindset and some open
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thinking to that, or at least push toward some collaboration with the surrounding property owners
because that, I think, is the first thing, and we have been trying to do that. We can't force
anybody to do that, though.
CARR SMITH: Yeah. That's, I would like to ask Kate to speak to that briefly, if you can,
please. What was the response when you reached out to the owners and, the surrounding
owners, and did you have any discussions with them?
K. HICKEY: Yes, I'd be happy to talk on that. So, the first thing I'd like to say is that all the
neighbors are not against us. We submitted three letters of support from, one of the properties
that is in support is the direct bordering property to the, to our mauka side
CARR SMITH: What's the - - -?
K. HICKEY: Alison Naito.
CARR SMITH: Okay.
K. HICKEY: And then the other letters of support from neighbors were from Sara Moore and
also from the Thortons, the Thorton family. And all three of them were in support of our, of our
permit. We also have another neighbor
CARR SMITH: - - -
K.
- -K. HICKEY: I'm sorry, did you have a question about that?
CARR SMITH: No, go ahead.
K. HICKEY: Okay. We also, we also had another neighbor, Dave Wilkinson from Kona Star
Farms, and he sent me a letter that he wanted me to submit on his behalf to the commission and I
did not, but—and I'll explain that in a second—his letter said that he supported us, and that he
supported this venue, and that he wanted one condition on the permit, which was that no more
than two cars could come up the road at a time in a caravan so that like at the bottom of the road
we would have an employee not allowing more than two to come up at once, so there would
never be a situation with 18 cars, like a neighbor had said had happened to them. I was ready to
submit it to the commission, and that day is the day that Wendy Mitchell, who you heard from
today, submitted her petition to all the neighbors. That petition severely mischaracterized the
permit. It said many times about how many visitors would be up at the farm, like, that there
would be 250 to 500 visitors, which is true, that is what we applied for at the absolute maximum;
however, we are doing an average, what we're hoping for is to be approved for 100 weddings a
year at most, with 20 cars per event. So, that's an average of two weddings per week of 20 cars
each, so, that's 40 cars a week. The hundreds of cars is a complete mischaracterization of our
application, and it, what ended up happening is our other neighbor called me and said, you know,
I don't want to be for it and I don't want to be against it, I want to just be completely neutral,
because he didn't want to get on the bad side of any of the other neighbors. So, also, her
assertion that we had 36 neighbors and 36 property owners were in support of her opposition,
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that is not- - -true at all - - - 36 properties on Waiono Ranch Road. If you look at the Tax Map
Keys, there's not that many properties. So, I think, you know, there, we're in a situation where
there's multiple people signing - - - home.
And to back up and really answer your question, Nancy, did we talk to the other neighbors? Yes,
we sent around our care package, we sent the letters. The letter, I think, should have been
included in your materials. I don't know if Zendo, if that was submitted. In it we were very - - -
in asking for their support of this and saying we would come together and put in any mitigation
strategies for any of their issues. And I received one call back from that. That was from Pam
Parker on behalf of all of the units of our Greener Pasture CPR, and she said very clearly to me
that there was nothing we could do that she would support this, that there was no circumstance
under which she would support us to get this Special Use permit. She said that it would, that I
said, well, what if we limited the number of cars, what if we limited the number of people, what
if we limited the number of events—and she said there is nothing you could do. So, you know,
at this point we just feel like we are up, up - - - insurmountable odds. You know, we're really,
really trying to make it work. To be clear, the Mitchells aren't, Wendy Mitchell and Tom
Buckner hasn't, they don't farm. Pam Parker, she is not a farmer, either. Audrey Grossman and
Steve Grossman, they are not farmers, either. Nancy Capri and Gary Capri, they are not farmers,
either. The people who are in opposition to this have bought agricultural land and do not farm it.
And yet the Planning Department is worried that our farm that is actually farming is going to be
changing the character of the community. I personally believe that people who are getting
subsidies for their ag land, tax subsidies, should be, should have to farm. And if they're not, then
they should support those of us who are trying. We are trying our very best. And I would really
ask the commission like, if you're not going to approve this, please tell me what else can we do?
What else can we do to make it as farmers? Do you want us to just have to be rich and sit on our
land and not let anybody else up here? Like, how is it possible to be a farmer in Hawaii, if we
cannot diversify our income streams? And, you know, that's, that's all I'd like to say. Thanks.
CARR SMITH: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: You're muted, Nancy.
NEWBERG: You're muted, Nancy.
CARR SMITH: I was wondering if Director Yee has any comments at this point, since we like
to provide you with opportunity after public testimony, if you have any changes in the way you
feel.
YEE: - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: I can't hear you, Michael. I don't see a mute, but I can't hear you. Time out.
He's got a new computer. Does anybody else have anything to say at this time? Faye,
Commissioner Faye.
YATES: Yes
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KAY: He's right here.
YEE: My, my apologies. Can you hear me now?
CARR SMITH: Oh, hold off, Faye. Yeah, go ahead, Michael.
YEE: Yeah, don't know what happened; we did sound check earlier, but now the microphone is
not working on my laptop. Anyway, so, quick reflections. A, in terms of somebody operating
illegally, we've heard a lot of comments around, you know, punishing somebody who's coming
in for a permit. I want to be clear that we, we are complaint-driven in our zoning violations
division, so when we receive a complaint we go out and investigate. So, I do not want to have an
impression out there that the Planning Department looks the other way when we receive
complaints. We deal with applications that come with us, that come to us. Certainly, generally
speaking, whether or not this application would have come to us prior to them beginning
operations, we would be viewing it under the same criteria. So, wanted to just close that gap
there.
I think, clearly, we've heard a lot of testimony around the applicant, the quality of characters that
they are, and that's good. I think, I do want to, as just personal advice, I could start hearing some
of the testimony run into a direction of trying to throw other people under the bus, and that
doesn't, does not serve anybody well at this point when we're trying to find some common
ground. And I know people may be frustrated, but I would forewarn folks not to go in that
direction. I think that early on as Zendo has come in to consult with us, there has been a lot of
questions around what may or may not be acceptable to the community. You certainly have
heard disconnect between the community and the applicant, and, you know, if there's room for
more discussions, we certainly encourage that. I've heard comments from testimony that
somehow the Planning Department is responsible for like leading those conversations. And, and
we are not. At a certain point Zendo brought an application with, with what the applicant
wanted, and we have got to analyze it for that. If the applicant wants to bring in something
different or works out something differently with the community, then we address that, but it's
not the Planning Department's job to go out and try to figure out a scale necessarily. We can
certainly advise based on our experience, but it's not our job to figure out what's the exact
application, you know, what you can do that's going to get you there with your neighbors, right?
And that work has to occur between the neighbors and the applicant. So those are my reflections
for now, Chair Smith.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else? Faye, go ahead.
Commissioner Faye, go ahead.
YATES: Okay. Can you hear me okay?
CARR SMITH: Yes.
YATES: Okay. I just, you know, it's like, I'm trying to understand the question; I'm not trying
to be a commissioner to make things rough for anybody. But I was just wondering, for
Ms. Hickey, I don't know how much money you're planning - - - spend to bring it up - - - do
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what you're wanting to do up there, but, would you not be able to find anything where you could
spend that money and do it in a commercial area where, you know, you don't have to deal with
roads and neighbors who are disgruntled? Also, I kind of feel like, you know, for, you know,
based on the rulings that they have about people owning property, being farmers, and not
farming, and whatnot, it also could be because some of them are older, they're not able to farm.
And also, I was reading this - - -that says, "The `agricultural tourism' section of the Hawaii
County zoning code provides that weddings, parties, and catered events can be established on a
working farm with a Special Permit. To do this, the income generated from the agricultural
tourism cannot exceed the income generated by the farming activities," and if I heard you
correctly to begin with, last year it sounded like, I think you said your bottom line was like $80
or $90,000 and your farm was $30,000, so I'm just trying to understand all of this. And so, and
then I also felt, you know, it would be kind of rude of any of us to, you know, if the people who
owned property there don't want that, I would kind of be upset if somebody came along and
changed the zoning and then kicked me under the bus. So, I'm just sharing. Thank you.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Faye. Commissioner Newberg.
K. HICKEY: But, I'm sorry, one second
NEWBERG: - - -
K.
- -K. HICKEY: do I, am I allowed to respond to the question? Or no?
CARR SMITH: Sure, go ahead, Kate.
HICKEY: Okay, so, one of the things that you mentioned was the, the code requiring the venue
to make less money than the farm. That is only the case if we were pursuing an agricultural
tourism permit and not a special use permit. The reason we are applying for special use permit
specifically, is because it makes more money than the farm, and also because it's a wedding
venue. So, that, that's why we applied for this specific permit.
As far as, you know, my perceived difficulties with the neighbors, I would really ask the
commissioners to put yourself in my shoes. I've been trying for, you know, we've had it really -
- -with them for almost eight years now. We've been good neighbors. And when I say we've
never had a complaint, I mean we've never had one even to me; no one has ever texted me, or
called me, or emailed me. All of my neighbors have those contact information to say that they'd
had any issue with these events. In fact, some of them have posted on their Instagram like,
another beautiful wedding, we'd love to see what you're doing up there. So, you know, I go
from that, and we felt like we were growing a really sustainable, great business. And I find out
that we're zoned incorrectly. That is my fault. I'm very, very sorry about that. But since then,
we've been trying so hard to work with everyone and comply with every single rule. And when
we tried to do that, we were met with resistance with people who wouldn't even talk to us, who
we've reached out to many times that have said specifically, we do not want to talk to you, we're
going to bring it to the hearing. And now we're in a situation where our whole livelihoods are - -
-because - - - against us. And I want to ask you,what would you do? Like, I really want to be
respectful to everyone. If you read through this documentation, you'll see - - -that. We have
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been trying to work with everyone this whole time. We want to be good neighbors. We really,
really do. I've, I'm, I'm imploring you to ask yourselves what I could have done differently to
have brought them to the table to appease their issues. And if the answer is that there is nothing
that I could have done differently, then I would please ask that you take that into consideration.
Thank you.
KERN: To touch on that real
CARR SMITH: Commissioner Newberg
KERN: Ms. Carr, could I add real briefly to that? Super short—
CARR
hortCARR SMITH: Sure, go ahead.
KERN: With the, with the question of, you know, could she have found a commercial location
and the ag won't, won't go together, so it be separate, so, I think it's important from the
standpoint of the testifiers, some of that have worked, been here for a very long time farming and
saw Kate, this happened naturally and organically; they started out farming, they were working
farming, how do we, you know, offset our income a little bit, okay, got a few weddings, to the
point of like, oh, this is actually kind of working, coffee's working, the farm's working, and now
here we are. So, it's very much organic. It wasn't like, to my knowledge, they didn't come in
saying we're going to do weddings, you know, right off the bat. It was, it was a natural
evolution. That, the other testifiers long-standing community - - -thank you.
CARR SMITH: Understood. Commissioner Newberg.
NEWBERG: Thank you, Chair. Just trying to review everything as best as can. You know,
very emotional subject, and from what I can glean - - -venues are needed. I wanted to speak to,
if I could get information from either Zendo, Ms. Hickey or, or perhaps Mr. Thuy on the process
because I'm trying to square two different things. One, as the word was just said, organically
grown into weddings when you went from a few weddings in 2017, 40 in 2018, and now 50 in
2019 last year, I don't think you're trying to continue business as you have been; you are
wanting to build a 3,500 square-foot venue and make this your primary business. So I'm curious
if that's what triggered reaching out to the neighbors or, or if it happened prior, or how this got to
this point for this application?
K. HICKEY: Yeah, I can speak to that. So, the, when we say like organic growth, what I mean
by that is we never advertised anywhere for our weddings. So, we are, we have our website,
we've never done any sort of paid advertising. It's just that the demand has - - - far surpassed
the supply, I mean, what we can comfortably host. And so, at that point we wanted to build a
bigger venue. To be clear, the space that we initially submitted was 3,500 square feet just
because we thought that was just a conceptual drawing. I had no experience in this before. We
hired a designer, and I specifically went over with her what we were looking for, which was a
venue that ideally seats 50, seats 50, so for seated dinners you would only have up to that many.
And when we went over that, we realized we can make it actually far smaller than what we
applied for. So at that point, we adjusted and resubmitted. So the current venue design is 2,700
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square feet, but only 1,400 of that is14, I don't know 15, something like that—is under roof
space. So, a lot of it is like porches, and, and ADA ramps, and decks and stuff, so, you know, it
is a much, much smaller venue than what we applied for. Yeah, and also previously we were in
our home, and we really wanted to get out of our home. So we reached out to the neighbors for
the first time about this permit when we were applying for it. To be honest, I—and Zendo can
attest to thisI had no idea that they would have any problem with this. I thought, you know,
we've been doing this for years, they all know about it, there's never been an issue, and so I just
thought, you know, of course they're going to support us. And I thought we were friends. I
thought that we all got along great, and that there would be no reason why they would oppose
this. And when we found out that they would be in opposition, even though they wouldn't talk
to us, we did everything we could at that point, including making the venue small, reducing the
amount of bathrooms, limiting the cars, planning the decibel meters. The new plans do, in fact,
have sliding pocket doors around the dance floor so there will not be any - - -possible noise
escaping. So we are working very hard to meet all the conditions of the neighbors, even though
they have not been willing to meet with us. Does that answer your question, Commissioner
Newberg?
NEWBERG: It does, and just to clarify, so, when you decided that you wanted to build a venue
and propose this as, you know, a, a solid business plan, is that when you started reaching out to
the neighbors for their input?
K. HICKEY: Yes.
CARR SMITH: All right. Commissioner Van Pernis.
VAN PERNIS: Yes, first of all, isn't it true that your neighbors have a right not to agree or
oppose
CARR SMITH: Mark, could you please take off your mask and grab your microphone? Thank
you.
VAN PERNIS: Thank you. Your neighbors have the right to oppose your application or not talk
to you, right? They don't have to agree or compromise with you?
K. HICKEY: Of course, of course they have that right—
VAN
ightVAN PERNIS: All right, thank you.
K. HICKEY: I hope that this commission will understand that they have in front of them a
community, a community member, a small business owner, someone who is trying their best to
make it in Hawaii, and they have on the other hand, a handful of people in opposition, an
opposition to that just because they don't want it. So, of course they have the right to oppose it,
but you also have the right to decide what's the best for our community, and I'm hopeful that
you'll find in favor of us.
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VAN PERNIS: And isn't it, you, you asked what else could you do. Well, the answer is
obvious; improve the road. That's where the opposition is based. Why don't you
K. HICKEY: Yeah
VAN PERNIS: —agree to improve the road?
K. HICKEY: With all due respect, with all due respect, Commissioner Van Pernis, I would love
to do that. Since we moved in, we have wanted a road maintenance agreement so that we can
improve the road. The problem is, is that the neighbors want to - - -
VAN PERNIS: I'm talking
K. HICKEY: neighbors who are in opposition to this - - - sorry, can you not hear me?
VAN PERNIS: I'm talking about you improving the road, not a road maintenance agreement.
K. HICKEY: Right- - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: - - -
VAN PERNIS: That would involve everybody who would have to pay for your extensive use of
the road.
K. HICKEY: Right. Yeah, so, to be clear for one second, what I'm talking about again, to
reiterate, is 40 cars a week. That is not extensive use of the road. We, and every other coffee
farm on this road have 20-plus pickers every single picking day. We pick three or four days a, in
a row, every two to three weeks. So all of the properties on this road who grow coffee have
more cars than this proposed use would even be. This is a very small amount of cars. But I do
agree with you; it is more cars than we are currently using, and it is, would require us to do more
road maintenance. And we are open to doing that. We would love to sit down and talk to the
neighbors. I had talked to Zendo, maybe we take $100, or $200 off of every event and put it in a
fund for road maintenance, maybe we can do, you know, certain amount of mowing, or repairs
throughout. The issue is it's hundreds and hundreds of thousand, of thousands of dollars to
widen the road. Not only that, we don't own the road. We don't have permission to widen the
road. We can't do those things unilaterally. Would I be willing to do a lot of maintenance?
Yes. I'm begging you guys to ask me to do that. If you will approve it, and I can do that, I will
do that. I will do anything
VAN PERNIS: Have you or Zendo asked the road owners for improvement
CARR SMITH: Mr. Van Pernis
VAN PERNIS: or the right to improve?
CARR SMITH: Mr. Van Pernis, you cut her off and so it wasn't clear
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VAN PERNIS: I thought she was done and she was
CARR SMITH: will you please finish your last question, please?
VAN PERNIS: Okay, I will. Did you or Zendo approach the other easement holders or the
landowner with any plan for your, I'm talking about your, not an association, your improvement
of the road?
K. HICKEY: We have approached them many times
KERN: We would love to have that conversation. - - -yeah, no, we're saying the same thing
VAN PERNIS: - - - have you approached them?
KERN: Yes
VAN PERNIS: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: Commissioner Van, Commissioner Van Pernis
CARR SMITH: Noriko, could you please mute? Go ahead.
KERN: We've approached the neighbors multiple times, are still more than open and willing to
having those conversations. That is like one of the, other than allowing the Hickey's to continue
operate their business, that's kind of like one of the primaries, is to get with the neighbors so we
can talk story about that.
K. HICKEY: I would just like to say I think that you can tell from all of our testimony that we
are caring community members. We do not want to be fighting with our neighbors. We would
do anything to bring them to the table to meet with us to discuss the issues so we can come
together for a solution. They are unwilling to meet with us because they know that if they just
dig in, or they hope that you commissioners will vote against our permit. They think that if they
won't meet with us, then you will just say no. And I'm begging you to give to require them to
meet with us, I don't know to consider the fact that they won't meet with us and just to take
that into consideration. We are trying to do whatever we can do to get this. Please, I'm begging
you to consider this.
KERN: Yeah, one of the sad things about, sometimes, these types of applications can kind of
tear into the community. My hope would be that we could have a ho`oponopono with the, with
the surrounding property owners, reach out, talk story, and, you know, if we come back to the
table with the same situation, at least we really did try our very best, as we feel like we've done
now. But it would be very important to afford that opportunity, and you can't force anybody but
at least encourage others around to do that, and we'll happily send out new meetings, host via
Zoom. There's not many reasons these days that we can't get a meeting, especially with the
change of behavior with Zoom.
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CARR SMITH: Thank you. Well, my comments are that I'm very impressed by how many
people stood up for you. Obviously, you're of strong character and I, I was very impressed by
that. You should feel good about that. I completely support small business owners, especially at
this time, so I understand all the people testifying in support of this. It affects a lot of people, I
understand that. I totally understand that the idea of diversifying your agricultural practices as
well, and it's, it's not easy to be a farmer, and I understand how you're looking for that. That
makes total sense to me. And you're out here, you're trying to do the right thing. You're to be
commended for that. I get all of that. But it seems to me like you need your neighbors, because
this is not going to happen without your neighbors. I don't know whether that involves, you
know, limiting, maybe you have one wedding a week, or whatever; there's many things that
could perhaps be adjusted. And maybe you do have a proposal for them as to what you could do
to improve the road to make it safer. But it seems to me like that's what you need to do is, is get
with them and try to find a solution that's a win-win for everybody. Does anybody else have any
comments?
THUY: May I be recognized briefly?
CARR SMITH: Mr. Thuy.
THUY: Thank you. I just, very briefly, the question about fixing up the roadway, instead of
beating a dead horse on that, I think we talked about that quite a bit, it, it's owned by a whole
different entity, so our clients haven't that, they wouldn't have any rights to do that legally,
really. But I wanted to refer something that has not been discussed, and that is the original
county background report on this. I think it was done shortly after the application came in, in
about May, or before the findings, and this whole question about impacts and traffic impacts and
what the access would be, were made part of that report, and they both were affirmative
recommendations made by staff at that time. So, I think there certainly is another side to this,
maybe that hasn't been really presented in the full, in the fullness of what could be presented to
the commission. So I think that would be another reason to follow through on what Mr. Kern
indicated, might be some additional outreach to these folks to see about if there is some logistic
way that traffic impacts could be reduced. But there are some speculation on there being, you
know, safety issues, although we haven't really seen it. You know, we got decades of use of the
roadway without any indication that that has been a dangerous roadway with the current use, and
then there were three years of use by the Hickeys, which did not result in any safety issues of
which we're aware. And maybe we can get some input from the Police Department or other
reporting agencies to see if that has been an issue. But as of right now, the findings of fact,
which were presented to you folks for today are quite different than the traffic impacts, which is
under section 3J and 3K of the environmental report, which was submitted earlier by staff. So, it
certainly seems that there's more of issues there. And that's all I have to add.
CARR SMITH: Thank you very much. I don't know, Mr. Van Pernis, I'm hesitant to go to you.
I haven't really appreciated your line of questioning today, so I'm not sure what you have to say
at this point. But I'd like to move to a motion, if, or if anybody that we haven't heard from
Mr. Vitousek, Mr. Kealoha, Ms. De Franco, do any of you have anything to add at this point?
Go ahead, Commissioner Vitousek.
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VITOUSEK: Yeah, I mean, the discussion about the traffic impact analysis, a lot of that depends
on, as Zendo pointed out, the results of the traffic impact report. Is that something the applicants
would be willing to prepare, if we were to move towards a deferment?
KERN: I believe
K. HICKEY: - - -
KERN:
- -KERN: Kate, you want to speak to that? But I do believe - - - go ahead.
K. HICKEY: Yeah, yes, we would certainly be willing to do that. The, my only kind of concern
on that is that the traffic is certainly a lot lower right now than usual due to COVID; I'm not sure
how accurate a traffic study would be, if it was done right now. But I certainly would support
that. I would like all, all the evidence for you guys to look at that you possibly can have, so, yes.
KERN: And, and with that, there's possible for a, you know, traffic management plan like we've
done for schools in the past. There are ways to work through this. I do think it comes back to
talking story with the surrounding property owners and coming up with some, you know,
numbers, and I mean traffic counts and car counts, as we've kind of already tried to do, that are
reasonable for both sides. And at that point, one of the conditions would be to have a traffic
engineer look at that, or some part there, I think we'd be more than open to do that. So far, I
haven't seen Kate and Doug not be willing to just do anything they can to maintain.
KEALOHA: - - -
CARR
- -CARR SMITH: Commissioner Kealoha, did you have something to add?
KEALOHA: I was going to save it for after the motion was made but, to the applicants, you
know, to me what you're going through right now is a microcosm of society in general. You are
doing everything that the state says we need; we need to diversify our economy, they are looking
at farming as a way of getting away from tourism, and you are trying to sustain your business.
And I respect all of it. Our community is changing as we speak, and our laws and ordinances
haven't caught up with our current environment just yet. So, unfortunately, I think this may be a
little premature at this time. That, I don't, I don't know that your request is evolved enough. I
do see the risk on that road. I've been up that road in the past, I mean it's a very narrow road
made for ranching that was somehow converted to farming. If I was a homeowner, I'd be afraid
of the liability, if somebody were to drive drunk down that road and I end up in a lawsuit. So,
that's a tough one to overcome. I don't know how you mitigate that, through insurance or what
have you. But I do think that the request is a little premature at this time.
CARR SMITH: Commissioner Vitousek. Thank you, Perry.
VITOUSEK: I just want to agree with Commissioner Kealoha on that one and say that I
personally agree with many aspects of what Mr. Kern, the applicants, and the members of the
public who testified in support of this application said. I believe that commercial use in
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Agricultural district should be allowed on a case-by-case basis through special permitting
process. That's why it exists, you know? I did some research and according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, nationwide median farming income for farming household, median
income for farming households is $83,000 in 2018. Most of these households have dual income,
non-farm and farm income sources. And in 2018, median on-farm income was minus $1,735.
So that's a clear indication that farming needs to be diversified in their income streams to
survive. You know, nation-wide it's very difficult to make a living in farming. Hawaii, it's
even more difficult, because real estate prices are driven up by wealthy people coming in from
the mainland and buying agricultural properties as kind of a retirement or novelty at a value that
far exceeds the agricultural revenue of those properties. We can't change the perception of
value. Property is always going to be expensive. But we can understand that farmers will need
to supplement their income. I really think that having venues like this that are reflective of the
agricultural character of our island is important. It's the part of our island that I would rather
share with visitors than the resort, which could be anywhere in the world. And I believe that the
percentage of farming income versus non-farming income should be irrelevant when considering
a Special Permit. I also, I don't personally care if visitors to the property have complaints about
agricultural uses in an agricultural area, you know, from where I'm concerned, they can try not
to step in the cattle guard on the way out. Based on that, we have to consider the merits of the
individual application. And it's up to the Planning Department, the Planning Commission, to
consider the merits of the individual application based on the criteria that exists in the current
regulations. I believe if you look at this case, we see that this case is a good concept put forward
by good people, but the location is problematic. Like Perry said, you know, I've been up and
down the road many times. I understand how hazardous it is. And until a Traffic Impact
Analysis Report can tell me that I'm wrong, I believe that it's a matter of when, and not if,
there's a bad accident that would be associated with intoxicated wedding guests coming down
that road late at night. So, for me, you know, I hope that the Hickeys will be able to use that
same ability that they have in putting together this entire group of people who came out to
support them, to work within their own neighborhood to reach a consensus on how you can
move forward in agreement with your neighbors. So to me, I would, I would be comfortable
with a deferment on this, and giving them the opportunity to work it out with their neighbors.
Hopefully, they'll be willing to come to the table. I, I think the problem is that so many people
are unwilling to find the middle ground. I think, Kathryn, with your ability that you've
demonstrated here, I think that you can do that; I think that you can find middle ground with
your neighbors and you can come back with an application that people support. With that, I
guess I'll make a motion to defer this agenda item.
CARR SMITH: Got a motion on the floor
KEALOHA: I'll second.
CARR SMITH: Mr. Vitousek.
VITOUSEK: Uh-huh.
CARR SMITH: Was that you, Perry?
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KEALOHA: Yes.
VITOUSEK: I think it was Mark.
CARR SMITH: I heard Perry. Okay, we've got a motion on the floor to defer from
Mr. Vitousek and a second from Mr. Kealoha. Is there any other discussion about this?
Commissioner Newberg?
NEWBERG: Yes,just to mirror both Chair Smith and Commissioner Vitousek, and I think
everyone here, you're doing all the right things, and I think if there's any solace to be taken out
of this, is, a deferment I think would be good, a good approach to try and find consensus
amongst your neighbors, or possibly something else to, to open up to you folks that seem to be
doing the, the right things by your circle, yet it's a difficult venue location. So, you know,
hopefully, this deferment, should it move forward, give that time for the gears to link up for you
folks.
CARR SMITH: Thank you, Max. Faye, go ahead.
YATES: Are we on?
CARR SMITH: Go ahead, Faye.
YATES: And again, I would like to ask Ms. Hickey if you may consider, you know, if all of this
is, you know, difficult and the neighbors are, they are not willing to come to the table, then
maybe you consider another venue, which you can spend your money and, you know, have one
of these because, like Commissioner Vitousek said, you know, you have all this support behind
you, that, you know, that may be an avenue.
CARR SMITH: Yep, thank you. I support the motion for deferment. I think it gives you an
opportunity to, to look at this again after hearing all of this today and see whether there's another
approach. Anyone else? (Pause) Maija, could you do a roll call vote,please?
JACKSON: Yes, thank you. So the motion is to defer this Special Permit application.
Commissioner Vitousek?
VITOUSEK: Aye.
JACKSON: Commissioner Kealoha?
KEALOHA: Aye.
JACKSON: Commissioner De Franco?
DE FRANCO: Aye.
JACKSON: Commissioner Newberg?
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NEWBERG: Aye.
JACKSON: Commissioner Van Pernis?
VAN PERNIS: Aye.
JACKSON: Commissioner Yates?
YATES: Aye.
JACKSON: And Chair Carr Smith?
CARR SMITH: Aye.
JACKSON: The motion carries, seven-zero.
CARR SMITH: Very good. Thank you all - - - hanging in there all these hours and—did you
want to say something, Zendo?
KERN: I just- - - all and apologize for the laborious hours that this has taken and to leave you
guys with still one item on the agenda. Sorry
CARR SMITH: That's all right—
KERN:
ightKERN: Thank you, though.
CARR SMITH: Thank you.
The hearing was adjourned at 3:17 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Noriko Sauer, Secretary
Leeward Planning Commission
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