2005-12-08 TLava Kuakini - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Once this part is over and we call you and after testimony when we call you back, pretty much when you come back thats our opportunity just to ask you questions. And for you not to state any comments so now is your chance. Mr. Lim go ahead. LIM:Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. Steven Lim from Carlsmith as the attorney for Lava Kuakini LLC the applicant. Seated to my left are Kevin Blalog and Mr. Barry Crivello both of whom are members of the Limited Liability Company. The, first of all I guess who is Lava Kuakini LLC and its somewhat unusual for all of us. We are and myself included are all members of the developer entity Lava Kuakini LLC. We got together oh about a year ago and started to talk about the fact that were all you know kind of in the real estate business in some form or another as is most people on the island. And other members with us are Mr. Ed Rapoza who youve probably seen in other applications and Mr. Phil Tinguely whos the principal of Tinguely Development. We were looking for development opportunities and discussing you know what it is that we wanted to do as project developers. WevedoneityouknowforotherpeoplemanytimesandwethoughtinprimarydrivenbyI think Kevin and Barry that we wanted to do something to give back in some small way that we could to the community. So we chose to enter into the sale contract for this 14-acre piece. Weve since closed about approximately 2 months ago now from the Tomono Trust. So this 14- acre piece is not the same ownership as the surrounding property. So Lava Kuakini LLC now owns the 14-acres. So as we you know proceeded through looking through the various opportunities for development I think what came up strong was everybody felt that they wanted to do something that they could give back to the community like I said. And the best way that we felt would be to try to develop a project that would be helping one of the, what we see as one of the great needs is the affordable housing need in the County of Hawaii. I think everytime I go to talk with Mayor Kim these days I, I get the standard speech about the fact that theyve got thousands of people that are either homeless or you know basically homeless, just one or two nights away from going on the street. And so while that may not help that segment of the population I think the thing that were seeing is that the market level housing and the prices that are going with those things are going up so high that the normal guy cant afford to buy a home in Kona. So, thats why we looked at this site. Its one of the better sites we think for affordable housing. Its right in the urban core and planned for urban growth for many years. We did know that the sewer line ran in front of it and thats partly why we purchased the property. And it would be the same sewer line as is being used by Suffolk and the properties. Pualani, Suffolk coming, coming in a northerly direction toward the wastewater treatment plant. The, I think the, I know Mr. Yuen explained to you somewhat what the affordable, how the affordable housing game is played. We could choose to do it one of 2 ways. One was to develop, Im going to use round figures 50-units at the 80 percent and below for sale to that bracket. Get 2 credits for every one that we sold and so we would have you know a hundred roughly, which would be 50 percent of the project. We discussed this as you were having that discussion on table. And I think its always been our intent that unless market trends significantly show us that that is what the market wants were going to be doing the 50 percent of the total units proposed which is 106 out of the 212. In order for us to get one for one credits for each sale, we would have to sell those at the 120 percent median price. Just to give you kind of a idea on what that might be for a family of 4 under the current sales guidelines for the, that the Office of Housing and Community Development uses for family of 4 at a mortgage rate of 6 percent the sales price to 120 percent family would be up to $258,100. We dont know, and what were intending to do with Mr. EXHIBIT B 12