2005-04-22 TPlanning Director4-22

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YUEN:Well certainly what youre saying is really valid. Scale is everything. Scale is really important and what we are- this is the balance that we looked at and this is what- at some scale its not a big deal. On another scale it may have a significant impact. Tourists are pretty much in every region now to some extent. North Kohala, you know tourist do go to Polomu. They go through the little towns Kapaau and the like. The impact is likely to be right on the immediate neighbors of the Ag tourism project. And it is true, the downside of this is that you might be on a little road thats 12 feet wide and its just 6 or 7 people on the road and somebody makes an Ag tourism operation and therell be cars going back and forth. That is an aspect or the downside of this. The other part of this though is that were, we want to have an agriculture and I think what we heard from people in agriculture is this is one of the things they need. Or many of them need to be competitive and be successful. GALDONES:Questions of the Director? Seeing none, I have listed here 5 individuals who have signed up to testify on the subject matter and I would like to call them forward. Howard Yamasaki, Sandra Scarr, Deepa Alban, Howard Conant and Joe Alban. Okay, I would need to have you sworn in, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Hawaii County Planning Commission. Sir. YAMASAKI:I do. D.ALBAN:Ido. J.ALBAN:Ido. CONANT:Ido. GALDONES:Thankyou.Pleasestateyournameandyouraddressandyoumaybegin your testimony and I would like to start with the gentleman here on my far left. YAMASAKI:I am Howard Yamasaki, 84-5095 Hawaii Belt Road, Captain Cook. I am the President of the Big Island Farm Bureau and I have submitted testimony previously to this particular Commission. Actually I submitted it way back when, after the first two cancelled hearings. And so some of my testimony that I submitted at that time which I was remiss in revising for todays hearing, is that in the meanwhile the Planning Department had made a change on the square footage allowed from 500 square feet to a thousand and that was one of our recommendations. So you will see that in my report asking for that change but you dont need to make that change because its already been changed. However, I will not read my whole testimony I just want to elaborate on certain issues. Number 1, as part of the Plan Approval application requirements I see that there is no notification of your neighbors as to your future endeavor. And if, lets say I live on the end of a thousand foot road, which I do, actually I live on the end of a mile and a half road and Ive got probably about 80 neighbors and if I allowed lets say 50 cars come up there everyday, theyre going to think whats going on. So, my thing is that we dont have to do a Special Use Permit type hearing process but at least there should be a notification process of those within the vicinity who may be impacted the most and since you already have a vehicle under Chapter 25, Section 25-2-4, which allows for notification but 4 EXHIBIT E