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primarily in different berries, whether itÓs strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. Adin Hester, on
<br />the other hand, is more like in the operating and the managing, the processing and marketing of
<br />farm coops. And, particularly, right now, as he mentioned in the Visalia area their specialty is
<br />really like in olives and making olive oil, and so on, and so forth. So between them they do have
<br />quite a bit of, both direct and indirect, experience in the farming and the marketing of products.
<br />What they really want to do is Mr. Hester, Ellis Hester, as he indicated lives on the property, has
<br />lived on the property for over two years; but over the last 3 or 4 years what theyÓve been
<br />systematically doing is trying to resuscitate the land to make it a little bit more arable. And their
<br />goal really to try to create more affordable smaller farm lots, more manageable sizes, much more
<br />than what the present zoning would allow which is 20 acres in size. And so they came up with
<br />this plan or, recognizing further that they do need to have some water system, you know, to make
<br />it really more successful, because Pahala is, not withstanding todayÓs weather, is relatively dry.
<br />So theyÓre, they wanted to create a little bit more, varied sizes of lot sizes. So the original plan
<br />called for, as the staff had indicated, a creation of 25 agricultural sized lots, ranging from about 5
<br />to 12 acres in size.
<br />The Planning Director is recommending that it be capped to like 17 so that you would have an
<br />average density of 10 acres; and the applicant has no objections to that, you know, with the
<br />understanding that, I guess, some of the lots may be as small as 5 acres. But, for the most part,
<br />theyÓll average 10 acres, because Mr. Hester, both of them, I think, intend to have like a number
<br />of lots that would be definitely, that would be more than 10 or 15 acres in size. So that cap as
<br />proposed by your Director is not objectionable.
<br />Over the last few years, as I mentioned earlier, they have been trying to not only resuscitate the
<br />land but theyÓve constructed like an irrigation system on the property. They have, thereÓs like a
<br />Alii well at the top which is currently used by the Department o
<br />supplements the water system here, and probably Jeff knows more about this than anybody else,
<br />but this supplements the water system here in the Pahala area. But the Water Department is in
<br />the process of terminating that well, not the well, but itÓs a surface water. Because in compliance
<br />with the EPA requirement they have one of two options, either to establish a plant on the
<br />property or, alternatively, drill a new well, and then terminate that source. And so the
<br />Department, based on our discussion with the manager and his deputy, the DepartmentÓs plan
<br />right now calls for the termination of that well and constructing a new well that would be right in
<br />the vicinity of the subject property, but slightly more makai, which would service the Pahala
<br />area. What the Hesters have done is theyÓve been using like a,
<br />this overflow water and theyÓve constructed two, letÓs see, two 45,000-gallon steel tanks, you
<br />know, right adjacent to that reservoir, that open surface water area; and theyÓve also constructed
<br />an open reservoir which from, cause thereÓs a lot of water that comes in through this system. So
<br />they use, they first capture it through these two 45,000-gallon tanks and then whatever overflows
<br />from that goes into this real big open reservoir area which has a capacity of about 1 ½ million
<br />gallons; and theyÓre in the process right now constructing irrigation lines from that system that
<br />would service all of the proposed lots.
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