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FUKE: And again for the record, Mr. Chairman, my name is Sidney Fuke, planning consultant.
<br />My address is 100 Pauahi Street, Hilo, Hawai‘i.
<br />HOUSEL: Would you like to -. Have you received the background information?
<br />FUKE: Yes. We’ve received the background report and the staff’s recommendation, and we
<br />found them to be very comprehensive. And the applicant is also agreeable with the proposed
<br />conditions.
<br />I would just kind of like to give you a little bit of background as far as who really is the
<br />applicant. The parent company, Douter Coffee, is based in Japan. It owns and franchises over
<br />1,000 coffee shops and restaurants primarily in Japan, although they do have some in other parts
<br />of Asia. I guess they will be the equivalent of, like, the Starbucks of America, but they are like
<br />the Starbucks of Japan. Back in 1980’s, the early ’80’s, they purchased, they began using Kona
<br />coffee as part of their overall production, and they found a need to purchase and get direct access
<br />to the coffee beans. So in 1989 they purchased about 60 acres of land, and they had, like, about
<br />40,000 trees, and then in 1985, 1995 rather -. Eighty-five, yeah?
<br />MIYAOKA: Ninety-five.
<br />FUKE: Ninety-five, I’m sorry, 1995, then they acquired an additional area, which includes the
<br />subject property, which is about 107 acres. So all told today what they have is, they have control
<br />of about, like, 90,000 trees. They have a coffee processing mill, the drying facilities, so on and
<br />so forth. And what they want to do is, you know, the owner comes here every once in a while
<br />and so – I think the staff is kind of passing out, like, what the, there is a photo of the building and
<br />it has, like, a lot of historic things within it – and kind of want to make it available to the general
<br />public through these limited type of activities. If there are any questions the Commissioners may
<br />have, we’ll be more than happy to answer.
<br />HOUSEL: Commissioners, do you have any questions of the applicants? I had one question.
<br />How many people live fulltime on the property?
<br />FUKE: Mr. Miyaoka and his wife live adjacent to the house where they want to have, you know,
<br />this special events function. So basically, they are like the caretakers. There are also, like, four
<br />additional dwellings on the site that are currently used intermittently for farm labors.
<br />HOUSEL: And they are fulltime residents?
<br />FUKE: They are seasonal, right? I’m sorry. Why don’t you answer that?
<br />MIYAOKA: Fulltime residents, like, three or four people. And for the picking season, we have
<br />ten to 15 residents.
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<br />EXHIBIT B
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