2010-04-01 TMOOERS - Laserfiche WebLink

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MOOERS: Okay, my name is Greg Mooers, I’m the applicant; and, also, a representative of the owners. My mail box is PO Box 1101 in Kamuela, Hawaii. B. ANDERSON: Brian Anderson representing my sons, Cord and Brad, the landowners. My address is 64-5085 Kalaki Street, Kamuela. J. ANDERSON: Joan Anderson representing my sons also, Brad and Cord Anderson; and same address as Brian. Thank you. WOODWARD: All right, very good.Mr. Mooers, did you want to begin? MOOERS; Yeah. First thing I would like to point out when you asked the question about the distance, the distance between the arena and the closest residence is about ¾ of a mile. Okay, I believe staff said 1200 feet, I don’t believe that’s accurate. We have reviewed the background report and recommendations from the Department and have no objections to any of the conditions. As you’re well aware we did have a contested case filed; and we were able to meet with the Intervenor, Mrs. Frederick, and her attorney, Dave Higgins, and discussed the concerns that she had. We have actually submitted to you some proposed conditions that in addition to the12 that the staff had come up with we agree to some additional conditions to try to address some of the concerns that she had. We agree on some. And there are a couple of issues that are pointed out that we disagree on that we’ll leave it to the Commission to address. Primarily what we tried to do is, we don’t want to have a negative impact on our neighbors, so we’re looking at issues like noise, traffic, things that would in some manner negatively impact. In this regard, I think staff pointed out that this is a unique facility. I don’t know how familiar you folks are with Waimea and the physical improvements in Waimea. It is a very rural area. Right now as far as a facility for social events, you are limited to Hawaiian Homes Hall, and there is a town hall. But the town hall which was given to the YMCA by Parker Ranch a couple of years ago is now up for the sale. So there are a limited number of venues. So while this is a working equestrian arena and there are regular equestrian events there, people in the community do recognize this facility as having potential to provide other services. And it started with the Country markets that the Andersons have hosted for a while now, and there have been special events such as the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. So it does provide a unique venue that does not currently exist in Waimea. At the same time, again, we don’t want to negatively impact the neighboring properties. The special permit requirements address several criteria related to impacts on the existing property and surrounding properties and the use and character of the neighborhood. And I’ve tried to address all of those issues in the application. The staff reviewed that and they agreed with the conclusions that they were consistent with the criteria. The types of things that we did add to the conditions or had recommended we add to the conditions was to look at the types of impacts that we could avoid by avoiding what we felt were kind of unwarranted fears. So we’ve put in language and said we agree that there will be no concerts or tourism activities. This is not designed to be used for luau shows or musical events, something that would create the huge traffic and a lot of noise. All right, so we’ve suggested that that condition be placed in the conditions. One of the things you need to understand about the uses, since this is a working arena, when the arena is being used for equestrian events, it must be plowed, it’s soft. All right? But for non- equestrian events, like the market or any special events, you’ve get to get in and you’ve got to roll the arena so that the floor is hard. So this is not the type of facility that you can have a 3 EXHIBIT D