2009-07-01 THI JOHNS - Laserfiche WebLink

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dealt with them, they really do. It’s clean, it’s tidy, it’s professional, it’s not a fly-by-night. They’ve always been respectful of us; and it is tough times right now. Running a business is challenging; and everyone is on the brink of falling off. And I think we need a little stimulus for small businesses. So I’m getting emotional now, too. I think it would partially be detrimental to pull the rug out underneath the bottom of this business at that location in this economy right now. I would support an approval of it with some sort of time limit on it or when the CDP is brought into place which will identify more potentially industrial light, light industrial land that could be used in that area. So I just wanted to say that I support it, and they’re good people, and they need help. Thank you. GONZALEZ: Mr. -? WOODWARD: Yes, sir. Yes, go ahead, Mr. Gonzalez. GONZALEZ: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to point out for the Commission, thanks to the brains of the Department, that if the Commission is planning to not follow the recommendation of the Department that this request should be denied and instead wants to contemplate approving it, that the Commission does not have the final authority to approve this permit in this case. Pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 205-6, subsection (d), this is a special permit for lands, the area of which is greater than 15 acres or -. This is what’s applicable, lands designated as Important Agricultural Lands shall be subject to approval by the Land Use Commission. Therefore, I would like to advise the Commissioners that, if you’re contemplating going against the Director’s recommendation, any motion that you make should state that this motion, is that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation to the Land Use Commission for the request for a special permit based upon the public support, the public benefit, and the testimony presented at the hearing today. Thank you, Mr. Chair. WOODWARD: Thank you, counsel, very valuable information. I would just like to kind of echo what Commissioner Kern said. It seems to me that, and I believe Mr. Melrose made a good point, this is not irreversible use of agricultural land, and they’re not asking to be able to have this in place forever. I think a reasonable approach would be to suggest a 5-year, well, in this case the Land Use Commission would have to issue that, but we suggest that the Land Use Commission give them a 5-year permit with a potential 5-year extension. I do agree that you want to protect prime agricultural land, but this is a special circumstance. And I would suggest that if we’re going to recommend that to the Land Use Commission there’d be certain conditions. One would be that there be no permanent structures created, that there be a limit of 5 years on this with at most one extension, with the idea being that we do want to get this back into agricultural use at some point without unduly burdening the business that is currently there. That should give them plenty of time to find an alternative site. So that would kind of be where I’m coming from; and I do appreciate our counsel’s, Mr. Gonzalez’s, input. It kind of gives us an idea of where we might want to go. And that being said, anybody else have any comments or would we, is there a motion that somebody would like to entertain? 9 EXHIBIT A