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FUKE: You mean in terms of like whether they have the funds? I can't really speak for that,
<br /> Mr. Chair, except that there is a very narrow window within which they must secure Plan
<br /> Approval. They are going to have to do some redesign, because obviously the original design
<br /> did not work, so they are going to have to do some redesign and come back. And if they can't
<br /> comply with that, you know, within that window, they are going to have to come back before this
<br /> Planning Commission again. At any rate, like, you know, not knowing, you know, what the
<br /> commissioners' attitude or proclivities were relative to time extension, that's the reason why I
<br /> had submitted a report giving the option of either a new SMA permit or considering vis-a-vis a
<br /> time extension.
<br /> VITOUSEK: Okay. Do you know, in any case, whether it's a new, a new permit or whether
<br /> it's a time extension, you know, one of the conditions of the approval is that it will be built, and,
<br /> again, we want to know, I would like to know that the applicant has financial standing in order to
<br /> build this project as condition. Do they, where is the money coming from? Is it a financing or is
<br /> it private equity, to have the money to build it?
<br /> FUKE: Okay, Mr. Chair, can I refer the question to Mr. North or his associate? Because I think
<br /> they are familiar with the company themselves to attest or share with you a little bit more
<br /> information regarding the viability or the company to do anything on the property.
<br /> VITOUSEK: Sure, no problem. Hello, would you please state your name and the area you live
<br /> in?
<br /> NORTH: Hi, Mr. Chair. My name is Ricky North. I live in San Diego. I work with Pacifica
<br /> Companies. As Sidney has indicated a couple of times, I'm actually a new project manager for
<br /> this particular project. It's something that I'm only familiar with in the last couple weeks, so I
<br /> could only speak to my existing experience. In listening to some of the comments regarding the
<br /> market conditions, a lot of the data that you've given us is what we are seeing, but it's in
<br /> hindsight, and a lot of times when we go through things that are considered to be disruptive to
<br /> the market cycle, we question internally what we are going to do and how we are going to do it.
<br /> In terms of the construction costs, when there was a big boom of construction, typically what we
<br /> are seeingI'm seeing this on the west coast of California particularly—is that supply and
<br /> demand; it's hard to get the labor at the price that you, and material, at the price you are
<br /> comfortable with, if everybody is building. So what happens is you are paying more on most of
<br /> things that typically were budgeted for a different amount previously. I can't speak specifically
<br /> to Hawaii because I'm not familiar with this particular project or budgets that we had
<br /> beforehand, but that's something that I've seen come up here in California where we have a
<br /> proj ect.
<br /> And in terms of financing, the organization itself is able to fund this project and a project of this
<br /> size, of larger; we have a much larger project, for example, in Chula Vista, which is San Diego.
<br /> And we can finance a lot of construction independently without any financing. Typically, we get
<br /> construction loans just—money is cheap right now, cheaper than ever before—and so we do.
<br /> Sometimes if we need to, we will fund it ourself, and I don't know if you've ever done this, but
<br /> proof of funds or something, and I canI haven't got the, been given the authority to share that,
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