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area are already in orchards. I’ve seen citrus orchards and macadamia nut orchards that I can <br />recall off the top of my head. A lot of people who live in that area also have nurseries where <br />they grow orchids and other tropicals, container culture (in pots).As a matter of fact, one of <br />them is named Watanabe, Marge and Yoshi Watanabe. And so I don’t think that looking at the <br />soil quality alone is going to tell you whether or not you can engage in farming on a parcel. <br />That’s number one. <br />Last time we were talking about the State Land Use Urban District right next door. And I <br />noticed that although it has been quite a while since it has received that designation, no one has <br />applied to subdivide any of those parcels. They are still good sized large conforming parcels. <br />And so I think that should tell us something about the desire of the community to keep a certain <br />size. Also, Commissioner Watanabe last time had said that, well, maybe people haven’t done <br />that, gone through that process to subdivide because the process is intimidating; and I would like <br />to differ with that because I believe that we would not have such long meetings here every time <br />if the process was intimidating. People are always applying. And in that case if people are <br />already in the State Land Use Urban District, it shouldn’t be an intimidating process at all. It <br />should be, you know, pretty much of a slam dunk. So I think that basically what you’ve got here <br />is a very old, very stable community; and it is a very quiet community. You do not find gangs of <br />roaming teenagers, you know, committing vandalism. You do not have a whole lot of police <br />reports coming in on domestics and things like that. The minute you start opening this up to <br />subdividing it into smaller parcels, and then more and more smaller parcels, that’s when you start <br />creating change in the community. And change is stressful, and then all the other stuff starts <br />happening. So I don’t feel that we should set the precedent. <br />Mr. Nakamura has other options available to him. For example, he and his siblings could <br />continue to hold the property, you know, each one having, I think it’s three of them, a one-third <br />share. They could hold it as tenants in common, and then each one could still pass on their one- <br />third share to their heirs. That’s one possibility. One of the siblings could buy out the other two, <br />and then that sibling would have the land to pass on, the other two would have the money to pass <br />on. Or all three could sell to a completely separate third party and divvy up the money between <br />them. So I think Mr. Nakamura has quite a few options available in terms of passing on this <br />inheritance to the next generation. But I do not think it is fair to impact the whole character of a <br />community, of an entire community, just for the convenience of one family. So my concern is <br />that we’re looking at the greatest good for the most number of people. And on that basis, I’m <br />going to very strongly object to this application. <br />ALAMEDA: Thank you, Commissioner Siracusa. Commissioner Watanabe? <br />WATANABE: Well, I think we’ve heard testimony that the revised General Plan already <br />includes that second subdivision as part of Low Density Urban. So when you’re speaking to the <br />greater good, I would assume that the General Plan is addressing the greater good. In addition, <br />you know, I find this quite interesting that on one hand we’re arguing that history has shown that <br />there is no demand because no one has come in or only one application has come in for a <br />rezoning; and yet we’re also arguing that we’re concerned that once we set the precedent there <br />will be a flood of applications coming in and everything will change in this neighborhood. The <br />two don’t coincide together. It doesn’t make sense. You know, if you don’t have demand, then <br /> EXHIBIT A 7 <br /> <br />