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GRAHAM:Thank you, Ms. Meek. <br />L. MEEK:I can go sit down? <br />GRAHAM:You can or you can wait till were finished with the three, whatever you <br />prefer. <br />L. MEEK:Okay, Im too embarrassed. Im going to sit down. <br />GRAHAM:Okay. <br />L. MEEK:I talk plenty. I was trying not to this time, you know. <br />GRAHAM:Mr. Steve Meek, would you care to give your testimony? And start with <br />yournameandaddress,please. <br />S.MEEK:MynameisSteveMeek,PostOfficeBox982,Pepeekeo96783.AndI <br />would like to just, first of all, comment about what Gordon said when Mr. Domingo asked about, <br />well, if these different situations were mitigated how would you feel then. And I talked about its <br />important to mitigate the sewage problem, road problem. What I was mentioning or tried to get <br />across at that point was even with those things being mitigated theres still a problem of Urban <br />sprawl into the Agricultural land and a subdivision being surrounded by Agricultural land which <br />cannot be mitigated. So Im not saying if they did all that then, I mean, obviously if they did all <br />that then itd probably go through, I would think, without a question. But thats the point I was <br />trying to make to where thats a problem that cannot be mitigated with these types of solutions. <br />Getting to the testimony, I kind of want to address, I want to just make a couple of points. And <br />one was in regards to the affordable housing aspect of the project. And as we learned this <br />morning the original 30 lots, which is brand new news this morning, is now going to be cut down <br />by an unknown amount of lots. And if the variance is not given for the septic tank requirement <br />of having 10,000-square foot lots to be even less and, of course, theres going to be extra cost of <br />doing the drainage, my question would be how much are these lots actually going to be costing <br />when all thats factored? Because obviously if you cut the lots way back, each lot and each <br />house is going to be much more expensive. <br />And so then related to that the Planning Director in his recommendation talks about just the <br />severe crunch in affordable housing that we all know that there is a problem with affordable <br />housing. But in his recommendation he said its very difficult from Wainaku to Honokaa to find <br />homes for under $400,000. Now when I saw that, and it was right before we were going to have <br />the last meeting, I had my son pull up a quick MLS listing; and there were many, many homes <br />for less than $300,000, just from Papaikou to Honomu, which is in the general area people would <br />like to have some affordable housing. So the next day I did a couple hours drive through, and I <br />didnt even attempt the ones like in the mid-200s which these might end up being that much <br />anyhow. You know, we dont know. But I focused more on the homes in about the $200,000 <br />range, plus or minus. And I found six of them, theres a few more but I couldnt find them. And <br />there was one in Honomu, two in Pepeekeo, three in Papaikou; and you can see what the prices <br />are. These are all in the past year. And in driving through and taking the pictures, these were <br />nice starter homes, maybe with the exception of that $120,000 one which needs some work. But <br />14EXHIBIT A <br /> <br />