2008-09-19 TGREENWELLFARMS - Laserfiche WebLink

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MELROSE: Let me say a quick response on Commissioner Domingo’s comment. The context for creating social buildings is, there are the buildings on the property they can do that. But you really don’t want to and we don’t want to from a neighborhood perspective become a place where that kind of partying goes on on a regular basis. Certainly it’s going to happen and there are some places, there’s some greenhouses and other things that people can gather in and hang out and talk story, you know, later into the evening that are away from the houses so you don’t disturb the workers. The other thing that Tom has allowed in that – what’s the, explain the religious ceremony. There is a religious ceremony, actually, a cross set upon the farm today that many of the workers from around Kona come to celebrate. Tom, just -. GREENWELL: It’s called Santa Cruz Day, and it’s celebrated in Mexico. And my foreman basically asked me if they could build a cross, and it’s turned into a ceremony. Every rd year they take it down on May 3. We fix the cross up. They built this little hill that they walk and pull the cross up to put it back up. And the reason, one of the reasons I really agreed to it is – other than, you know, I’m helping them out – is that the cross is there to help them, protect over the harvest of the coming year. So it kind of was real fitting. But yeah, we have now about a little over 20 guys who show up.It’s a religious ceremony, so it’s real quiet and what have you. And there is already a volleyball net in the middle of those three orange things. So they are enjoying, too. WATANABE: Mr. Woodward. WOODWARD: Let me ask Mr. Melrose. The concern I have is not that we are being asked to extend the special permit to allow 50 workers; it’s that we are being asked to – and the Special Permit doesn’t say this and it really should – we are being asked to approve a farm management corporation, because as we’ve already heard, the original three structures are enough to take care of the picking of the subject property, and the rest of this is largely going to be farm management corporation. So the special management permit (sic) ought to be for establishment of a farm management corporation with associated structures. MELROSE: I think I’d refer first to the State Land Use Law, which says that farm worker employee housing is an accepted and allowable use in the State Ag Land Use District. We were, when we took that to the Planning Director, he said, okay but only on that property. So that interpretation was an interpretation we followed for the first section of that. The Kona Community Development Plan, which you guys just passed, says very clearly, distinctly that this kind of use is an acceptable use in the Ag District because of the importance of this labor to the industry. So we are not creating a farm labor corporation, per se; this is Greenwell Farms trying to meet the needs of Greenwell Farms business plan and both their fields and the fields that they manage. So when we’re trying to provide the best kind of housing for the kind of labor that is already there, and we are just trying to make everything up and up and set a new bar in terms of how it’s done. WATANABE: Mr. Housel. HOUSEL: Mr. Greenwell, I want to commend you as a fellow Kona coffee farmer myself. One of the biggest challenges we know is adequate farmer worker housing. I’ve seen a EXHIBIT B 18