2006-12-06 tmartinage-nunn - Laserfiche WebLink

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ALAMEDA: All right, thank you. FARWELL: Thank you. ALAMEDA: You’re welcome. Final closing arguments, Mr. Director? YUEN: Just briefly. As I said a couple of minutes ago, I understand the problem that’s being discussed here, and I have to say on balance we would still stick with our favorable recommendation. The only condition that I would suggest is a condition that advertising emphasize that it’s on a working farm, that there may be noise from that and from neighboring agricultural activities. The Commission makes a decision as to whether the proposed bed and breakfast has an unreasonable effect on surrounding properties. This is a little bit unusual because it’s not really being argued that the bed and breakfast itself is incompatible, but that it might lead to complaints about adjoining properties. I think that is a valid concern of the neighbor. I do think that these issues are things that need to-, they are supposed to be worked out. The right-to-farm law does protect the adjoining farmer as long as he operates within certain standards, which are also set by law and which you are supposed to comply with in any event. The final comment I’d like to say is, though, we generally have supported bed and breakfasts as a way of people, as an individual, sharing directly in the tourist oriented economy. We do -, it is important that they operate -, that they not interfere with agriculture. We would look certainly at this area and say that continued agricultural activities, including necessary processing activities like husking macadamia nuts that are in fact allowed in agricultural areas, abide the zoning laws that are, the zoning laws simply permit. And for understandable reasons, they simply permit agricultural processing to occur, that that is a primary activity in the area. And if the Commission does feel that they are incompatible either in this case or in general, then the decision would be made to support agriculture. We haven’t had this as a -, this doesn’t necessarily come up as an issue because there is an existing farm. I mean, we have allowed bed and breakfasts in areas where potentially there could be a farm next door, and the farm next door would also have legal protection if it started later. But we haven’t -, very often we’ve approved bed and breakfasts where theremay be actually good agricultural land around, but it’s fallow at the present time. So this is something that can come up in those kinds of circumstances. I think this is the first one we’ve dealt with where a working farmer next to a bed and breakfast has been concerned about approving it. ALAMEDA: All right. Let me see if we can ask questions -. WATANABE: I have a procedural question. ALAMEDA: Go ahead, Commissioner Watanabe. WATANABE: My procedural question is for Mr. Torigoe. I’m wondering, you know, cause we are talking about this condition, and if we close the hearing, I don’t believe we are going to add anything new to what’s already been there. Would this be an appropriate time to introduce the condition about potential farm noise in the advertising on the record? EXHIBIT A 30