2023-06-15 Exh A (Public Testimony re Item 1&2 Kaupulehu Land LLC)

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testimony dated June 13, 2023 that if you take a look at it, I'm not [Unintelligible crosstalk]. I'm not going to go over all details, but I just want to highlight that the project is not in compliance and not consistent with the General Plan and the South Kohala CDP and I've outlined all the reasons why in there. So, I'm not going to go over the specific reasons. But one of the main concerns is what this project is bigger than it is that should be in this particular section. Mr. Kawano spoke about the traffic. I say that the traffic assessment is unrealistic from a Honolulu firm that did it and from someone who lives right down the road the traffic is horrendous at times and this is only increased traffic in this area. But in particular why this is not consistent with the General Plan is that first of all part of the General Plan talks about protecting the agricultural lands in Hawaii and on this island. And that particular parcel is one of the prime agricultural lands in all of the islands in particularly in Waimea. The reason why is it's not just the soil but it's the climate and elevation, but it's protected from the wind in this particular area. That's why that was and still is a prime agricultural land and it was a prime agricultural land prior to being acquired as such. So, I listed all the reasons why the goals and policies and courses of action are inconsistent with this particular project. In addition to that when you look at also the General Plan has to do with commercial development. There's certain things why it's inconsistent with commercial development as such. One of things this project is, is this project as such is when you look at in the General Plan 14.3.5.6.2 Courses of Action. It says the County and the Planning Commissions are to "establish controls to insure orderly development and minimize speculation of commercially zoned lands". This project is purely speculation a project. As you can see the project was once zoned before Commercial and then it was Ag and then the owner took it out and put it in Ag to reduce his taxes, which isn't against the law. But in the [indecipherable] he wasn't really trying to get; he was just trying to reduce his taxes in agricultural under agricultural zoning knowing that he's going to come back and build a bigger project here. So, that's purely speculation, this project is pretty speculation and when you go to the CDP, the South Kohala CDP and you look at Page 2 at the bottom. There's a Policy No. 2 that says, "Responsible Growth": Moderate the Pace of Growth and Change in Waimea". One of the things that doesn't meet as such it says that one of the strategies is 2.1. It says, " The County shall carefully evaluate and condition, as appropriate, any rezoning that would negatively impact important agricultural lands or culturally, visually and environmentally important open spaces or resources in Waimea". This is not consistent with the South Kohala CDP and in addition it also says and go to Page 3 at the top. It says, private lands that are currently zoned A-5a, and so forth should retain their current zoning. That's not the case here. Another concern of course is that if you look at, if you actually know the property in Waimea, there's actually a map, a satellite picture of it. This proposed project is being sandwiched in between the historic Ranch houses of Parker Ranch and other houses on the east side. So both on the east and west side there's residential homes, historic residential homes and this project is trying to sandwich itself inside between the two of them. So, all the other reasons listed on why this project should be not approved. This project is once again proposed solely for speculation purposes. This proposed project will adversely increase traffic congestion near this area. The 4 EXHIBIT A