2009-11-06 TMALA MOHALA - Laserfiche WebLink

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I’m here essentially to submit testimony recommending the denial of this special permit. I had a prepared statement which I submitted in writing and they’ve asked me to not repeat that. But I’m going to try to get catch some of the major issues as well as some of the ones addressed in the previous testimony. Most importantly as the Planning Director pointed out is when we run into this situation with building unpermitted structures, typically it’s with a residential application. This is a business, okay? Businesses, it’s a whole other thing. They’ve got to be on the up and up. Their website proclaims that they charge $450 a day for these students. They’re making money at this. They need to be compliant with the laws. They’re making money, they have the income to be able to follow the rules that the rest of us have to. So, anyway, that was one of the main things, that this is a business. It’s not a, it’s not just your average Joe building a house and a little shed and a greenhouse. The main points that I’d like to cover quickly, summarizing, is that they purchased this property knowing full well that it was zoned Agriculture. What they’ve done is they’ve essentially gone ahead and done whatever they wanted to do.They’ve housed a bunch of people there. They’ve put up a latrine; and that was a, actually that was a serious concern of the previous Commission. They were concerned about the possibility of the latrine leaking into Waiabata Cave and damaging the archaeological significance of that cave. Has this been addressed? Is that latrine even on their property? I don’t know. Do the applicants know? I don’t know. They’ve continued to not have building permits as they’ve already discussed. But probably the most important issue that I see is the water. Where is the water going to come from? I sit on the Board of the Water Cooperative. We’re a public drinking water system. And if you’re serving more than 25 persons more than 60 days a year you fall under the purview of the EPA and the Department of Health as a public drinking water system. Now if you have water running to one tap in a kitchen and there’s 25 people living there more than 60 days a year, you’re a drinking water system. You’ve got to test it, you have to have an operator. It’s incredibly involved and it’s a whole new facet that they haven’t even addressed in their plan. They are essentially, they should be running a public drinking water system as well as their youth retreat camp; otherwise they’re putting their students at risk, at a health risk. So water is definitely a much larger issue than they proclaim. They will need to do some form of treatment. They will need to do some form of filtration. And they’ll probably have to have a licensed certified operator managing the system and on record with the Department of Health. The other main issue that they have in their application is they claim that the property will be farmed and gardened much like the surrounding properties. There is not a home for five miles. We’re talking about something that’s the density of Hilo or Puna in the middle of an agricultural land. It’s productive land. It’s being actively used. And they’re essentially proposing a huge residential development in the middle of that land. And I do want to read the final statements in my written testimony because I think that it really sends the message home. “Mr. McKinney, Mr. Kaiser, Preacher Creek LLC, Pacific Quest, and now Mala Mohala have acted with impunity, disregarding the rules the rest of us have to follow. When the Planning Department acted to protect their neighbors - me included and actually I 21 EXHIBIT B