2020-11-05 Exh A Ikaika Ohana (Amend REZ 09-103)

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support the Applicant and their position, they are a proven affordable housing developer in the State of Hawaii. So, Mr. Rock will be making the presentation on behalf of the Applicant. RAFFIPIY: Thank you ma'am, Mr. Rock go ahead. ROCK: Can I confirm, I may ask is it 3 minutes for an introduction or for the entire discussion? RAFFIPIY: Mr. Rock, I take it back, go ahead and make your presentation. ROCK: Alright, thank you very much. My names is James Rock, I am here on behalf of Ikaika Ohana. We are the developers proposing the project Kaiaulu O Kapi`olani. Few things I do want to thank everybody for having us here today and I do want to thank the Planning Department. It's been a pleasure working with them thus far on the project. I understand we have a few disagreements currently in the recommendations but overall, it's been great to work with them. A way of quick background, Ikaika Ohana is a mission driven affordable housing developer. We currently have about a hundred and eight, a hundred and eighty (180) affordable housing units within the County. Last week we secured all of the financing for sixty (60) single family homes in Kona that are going to start construction this week. We have another project in Waikoloa that's an additional 60-units that we hope to start construction in the first quarter of next year. As far as the proposed project, in general there is a couple of things we would like to highlight. The first is that for affordable housing we can use affordable housing as a tool to help address issues within the County. Some of these issues will be directly discussed in this presentation but overall, our view of the world is that affordable housing can be a net contributor. We can make our residents better, we can make our neighborhoods better, and we do encourage just the feedback and participation with the various groups to make the project the best project possible. For our project, the way that we've looked at our site we try to take holistic approach. We do want to balance multiple concerns both the number of units that we are able to provide but also parking requirements, open space, landscaping, the livability of the site and the tenant experience. There are a lot of factors that we consider and so, when we start working on our development it is a balancing act. It is input from multiple parties, it's review processes from multiple agencies, State, Federal, County, and so bring in all of these things together into a successful development. It does take time, it takes consideration, and it's a pretty deliberate process. So, ultimately what we kind of a goal for this is that for affordable housing development what we would like to do is maintain flexibility where possible. So, that as we go through the process of formalizing our designs and coming up with sort of the final plans. We do want to have room so that we can make practical adjustments so that the project can still move forward. The County still can get the 64-units of affordable housing that it desperately need, and that we don't necessarily have to over burden the Planning Commission or any of the other groups and coming back for repeat approvals. So that if something is described with the hard and fast rule today it EXHIBIT A 8