2006-05-26 TGP_Amendment - Laserfiche WebLink

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it was, you know, two wrongs dont make a right; and to me thats the bottom line. It shouldnt have been done the way it was done back in 1997, you know. Everything should have been done in a more cohesive, well-thought-out way for this community. And it wasnt, the factthat, again, two wrongs dont make a right. We cant keep going down this road. ALAMEDA:Thank you. Other Commissioners would like to put your opinions on the table as we consider all perspectives? Seeing none, maybe we could move to, lets see . YUEN:Okay. We move now to some of the Kona amendments. ALAMEDA:B-6, B-7? YUEN:These are amendments that are just a line between Important Agriculture and Extensive Agriculture in the area between Keauhou, roughly, and the Hokulia development onHalekiiStreetonthesouthsidehere,roughly.Whatitis,justtoexplainforaminutethe significance of Important Agriculture in the General Plan versus Extensive Agriculture. The General Plan contains some policies for Important Agricultural land that are, one of the most significant would be that in looking at rezoning applications for Important Agricultural land, the Council and the Planning Commission should not rezone them to lot sizes too small to support Commercial/Agriculture. Important Agriculture is meant to be a base area for Commercial/Agriculture and for farming. What is a lot size thats too small? Thats going to depend on the economic conditions of the time, the kinds of crops that people are growing, what kinds of farming thats being done. Its a guideline though of what should be considered. And, you know, the idea is that when you fragment agricultural lands, suppose you take it to the smallest lot sizes allowed in the Agricultural district of one-acre lots, there are a few things that you can grow commercially on a one-acre lot. They may be greenhouse-type or hothouse-type specialties, but you greatly reduce the range of most of the crops that can be grown economically. So that was something that we now want to do on the areas that are designated Important Agricultural land. On the other hand, theres no such policy with Extensive Agriculture. It doesnt mean that you would rezone Extensive Agricultural land necessarily. It just means that you look at other considerations. And there would be things like do you want to put that density of population in that location, what are the traffic issues, are the water supported, are there open space considerations? Those would still come into play but not the agricultural, the commercial- agricultural potential. So what happened in considering this in 2005 is that the Council adjusted the line based on testimony from some of the landowners; and the line currently zig-zags around based on the ownership of the property. It doesnt, it isnt really based on soil types, or rainfall, or anything like that. So to adjust the line to make a consistent line across, we wanted to do an Interim General Plan Amendment to make a consistent line across this area. Rainfall generally does depend on elevation, the ability to grow crops; and here it does depend a lot on rainfall. The original proposal which went out to a workshop was to draw the line at the 700-foot elevation. The testimony was mostly against that at the workshops. People were suggesting a higher elevation, and testifying that there had been very little, if any, history of people successfully growing crops at a lower elevation. 8