2010-01-08 THERNANDEZ - Laserfiche WebLink

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The applicant is requesting a special permit to legitimize the establishment or a naturopathic retreat center situated on 3.11 acres of land. This is called the Pacific Naturopathic Retreat Center. The facility will include a retreat center. There was a site plan that was submitted with the application. It’s referred to as Building A on the site plan.It has a large meeting, offices and kitchen. And I need to make a correction, this would be two bedrooms for overnight accommodations. There is a detached bedroom and a bathhouse identified as Buildings B and C on the site plan, these are for overnight accommodations, an herbal and vegetable garden area, fruit orchard, and meditation meeting and education area, as well as a parking area. The facility will offer the following: Health related seminars, these will include small gatherings of approximately 10 to 12 people focusing on topics such as balancing blood sugar with diet, using native, Hawaiian native plants as medicine, strong bones, etc., they would be held no more than twice a month. Health and wellness consultations, these would be more one-on-one types of consultations, and I believe they say that there will be no more than five people at any given time. Overnight accommodations, again, three units will be used for this with no more than four people. And, lastly, agriculture educational tours of the property, and they will be no more than one time a week for no more than 8 to 10 people at a time. They say no other activities would occur on site at the same time since the applicants would be leading the tours. This is a copy of the site plan. Again, we see Building A which is the main retreat facility. B is the owner’s residence; and C and D are the bath house and the one unit overnight accommodations. Some site photos. This is from the highway looking in. This would be the front parking area, and the entrance to the facility. The facility is just to the left there. This is an overall view of the property looking at the agricultural activity that’s occurring. This is, it was difficult to get a photo of the retreat facility so I just had to go where I had. This is the area where the seminars and the office consultations would occur. This is the bath house and this is the detached bedroom. The Planning Department’s recommendation is that the request be denied. The main reason is that the proposed request is not consistent with certain goals and policies of the General Plan and it should be located in an Urban core, such as Honokaa. We’ve had numerous submittals since our last meeting. A majority of them are letters of support. We’ve also received some building permit information legalizing, in the process of permitting the bath house and the detached bedroom. And then this morning we had received from the applicants a petition from their surrounding neighbors; and so I’d like to pass that on to you. With that, that concludes our presentation. Are there any questions? WOODWARD: The Commissioners have any questions for planning staff? IWASHITA: I have. WOODWARD: Commissioner Iwashita. 2 EXHIBIT A