2005-04-22 TPlanning Director4-22

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wouldnt require a special permit frankly. So thats the kind of line, in my mind, of where, what I would draw here. Yes, if you had 4 or 5 a day you would exceed the numbers that were talking about and you would have to get a special permit. GALDONES:Maam is your testimony going to belong? Im trying to determine if I want to take a break now or later cause weve been sitting for 2 hours. MONTGOMERY:Well weve been here since this morning ourselves. Ill be fast very fast. GALDONES:Okay, can you please; I need to have you sworn in. Could you please raise your hand? Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission? MONTGOMERY:I do. GALDONES:Could you please state your name and your address and you may begin yourtestimony. MONTGOMERY:Yeah,itsMarcyMontgomeryandIm83-5294PaintedChurchRoad. Im the Executive Director of Heritage Ranch which is a non-profit organization. Were doing a variety of projects here but I also represent about 20 different farms who are trying to get together to do an Ag Tourism project. Im not going to express an opinion but I just wanted to express a concern on their behalf. When you think these things through and you try and make these definitions youve gotta think in terms of the fact that some of these farmers only have 2 acres. And if theyre making 6,000 an acre on coffee and so theyve got a 12,000 income they may find that theyre making more than 50% of that through an Ag tourism program once they really get it going. So Im worried about all of these restrictions like the other farmers are saying is that you have to think in terms of all scales of farms and make sure that were not somehow crippling the small, small farmer who has the potential to do some really excellent things in Ag tourism. And I know that youre talking 30,000 above and then it goes into Planning and thats fine for the big ranches but what about all those little farmers. YUEN:When you say that they might make more than 50% from tourism, what would they be- If they sell their own products to the tourists we dont count that as Ag tourism income we count that as farm income you see. MONTGOMERY:Well, there are- YUEN:So what will their Ag tourism income be? MONTGOMERY:Well there are some farms that have been talking about maybe offering like a cooking class and a variety of other types of things that, like we said, maybe we havent even thought about yet. You know, there may be things that spin out of this that are really quite wonderful and do really good things for the tourists who visit and also kind of regenerate the local economy. So Im just expressing a concern, not to put so much restriction on this that the small farmers arent able to be creative and also somehow they look at their tax forms and all of a sudden they see that number creeping up to 50%. Are they then supposed to cut back and not 14 EXHIBIT E