2005-05-12 TWORLD - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Their application, if you read it carefully, has a lot of inconsistencies, contradictions, and doesnt answer the basic questions required by a special permit in a lot of cases. Im not going to go over all of them, but I have to go over some of them. According to Section K of their application, the assumption is made that traffic will not increase because the buses are already going to Akaka Falls. Clearly, the Garden is not at Akaka Falls, it is about 3 miles further north and off the highway some, and it will add significantly more traffic on the highway. Come on, 1200 people a day? On pages 5 and 6 in the application the applicant explains that the use of Ag land for a botanical garden is allowed and that the Visitors Center (sales of food, gifts and plants) will create cash flow that will help promote the garden, therefore the Visitors Center should be allowed. Lets be clear, a botanical garden is allowed now but a visitors center is not allowed now; and they are claiming that it is. In our opinion, this does not constitute a justification for sales of good, gifts and nursery items that are not produced on the garden property. They claim that they have made long neglected waterfalls visible by removingimpenetrableweedsandgrasses.WehavebeentothesefallspriortotheWorld Garden and do not consider them neglected nor the weeds impenetrable. On page 6 they claim that clearly the Visitors Center is an allowed use. Actually, a visitors center with sales of the proposed items is not allowed and the resulting traffic will likely have detrimental effects to agricultural activities in the area. They claim that they have pristine forest in a sugar cane land in a gulch. I mean if youve been in there its full of, and, you know, new species. Theres very few ohia and other native plants. And they claim that they will have 30,000 species of plants. This is not pristine forest and Hawaiis fragile ecosystems are not the place for a contest for the most species. Their approach seems to be really to get the most tourists and make as much money as they can. The application claims that the garden will create jobs. Most development creates jobs, including agriculture. This land can support a variety of agricultural endeavors that will create jobs and that will not bring lots of tourists and traffic. But, more importantly, in a rural area the impact of tourists and traffic outweighs the benefit of any jobs created. Please remember there are negative impacts to tourism. We must find a balance, and that balance is already close at hand with the World Botanical Garden. After reviewing the application, Anthony Ching, the Exeuctive Officer of the State of Hawaii Land Use Commission states in his letter dated March 9, 2004, this is in the file, Given the large-scale, commercial nature of the tours, there is the potential that they may impact or detract from these existing agricultural activities by generating noise, air quality and traffic impacts. He also states, We also suggest that as the feature attraction and the reason for the proposed improvements, consideration should be given to include the entire 300-acre botanical garden under the special permit. We believe that inclusion of the 300 acres would also be consistent with recent circuit court decisions affirming the comprehensive and integrated manner in which developments should be reviewed. He also states, the application should include an assessment of the proposed use in relation to each of the ten objectives of the Coastal Zone Management (CZM) program. World Botanical Gardens attorney, Sherrill Erickson, responded to these concerns with a letter dated April 12, 2004. She downplays the projected number of visitors to the garden, but then includes the World Gardens mission statement that says large visitor center and the species 24EXHIBIT C