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YUEN: I just wanted to make a suggestion to the Commission that there
<br />are about 25 members of the public who have signed up to testify and it’s important that
<br />we hear from all those people. We’ve spent about 45 minutes with the first two testifiers.
<br />If the Commission engages in extended debate with each of the testifiers I’m afraid we
<br />won’t be able to hear many of these good people tonight, so that’s my suggestion.
<br />IWASHITA: Thank you. I think I’m gong to be more agreeable with the other
<br />testifiers.
<br />WATANABE: Well, okay. I trust that we’re done with that testifier.
<br />Mr. Yamada, name and address please before you begin your testimony.
<br />YAMADA: Gerald Yamada, 16-212 Melekahiwa Place in Keaau, Hawaii. You
<br />guys know me already, you know, I was born and raised here in Hilo, all 43 years. I
<br />don’t know the last speaker and I can’t speak as well as he could. But I just went through
<br />this recently and just so you know I did try to do a development on Orchidland Drive, it
<br />didn’t get through. But I thought it was a good win-win situation. We worked with the
<br />community, we had paid back for the roads. We had a bunch of, we were going to donate
<br />a traffic signal, Rene’ knows me, too. But I just kind of skimmed through this at the last
<br />moment. I don’t have a speech. I was just concerned with a couple of items. You know,
<br />I wanted to say that I thought that some of the items in here take away people’s property
<br />rights. You know, I’ll go through those items first, like amend the Grubbing and Grading
<br />Ordinance to prevent pin-to-pin lot clearing, you know, that’s one. And, you know,
<br />there’s a lot of native forests and things like that, which is good, too. But there are also
<br />other areas where, you know, people work hard to buy a lot, and not everybody wants
<br />trees or coqui frogs near their homes. Inappropriate County zoning can get adjusted in
<br />order to maintain and create the quality of life. Again, you know, if we’re going to work
<br />hard to buy a piece of property with a zoning to try and do something to get ahead, you
<br />know, we want to maintain that right. You know, we’d hate to work that hard and have it
<br />taken away by the County. Limit the size of agricultural dwellings to discourage
<br />excessive lot clearings and speculative building practices, well, that’s good. But I have a
<br />lot of friends that are farmers and some of them have big families, and they keep on
<br />adding a bedroom and a bedroom and a bedroom and the house keeps on getting bigger.
<br />And, I mean, will this restrict them? I’m not sure. Where possible reduce density and
<br />buildout within the district by various means including selective rezoning, you know,
<br />again, it takes away property rights. One of the big concerns I had where a lot of my
<br />classmates, a lot of our friends that grew up in Hilo, they have no place to go because
<br />they don’t have, they need to find affordable properties so they move out to Puna; and
<br />then to find jobs they’re driving over to Waikoloa working at the hotels, working at
<br />Kona. Not everybody but a good portion of them are driving across the island, you
<br />know.
<br />And then when I see the village centers, I mean, I think they’re small. I think they’re
<br />small. When you look at the vast amount of preapproved lots in the Puna area, I mean,
<br />it’s huge. It’s bigger than, you know, you just said it’s double the size of Hilo; and these
<br />are already approved lots. A lot of the subdivisions in Hilo, you know, we do subdivision
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