2025-02-03 Jim McMahon Testimony

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Summary This testimony is in opposition to Special Permit application PL-SPP-2024-000075 - "to host an annual four (4) —day event with overnight camping and to store up to six work vehicles on the property". Myself, along with my wife own and operate a farm across which is bisected by Indian Tree Road - a private road which the applicant has been using as the primary access to his property. For the past few years we have been having to deal with numerous unpermitted uses taking place on the dominant easement estates located Mauka of our property including the subject property. For the subject property we have filed 3 complaints resulting in the following notice of violations: 1. ZCV-2021-015E - Unpermitted Commercial Rental Business/ Base Yard within the Agricultural Zoned District 2. PL- PCV- 2023- 00567 - Unpermitted Event( Falls of Fire) and Overnight Accommodations 3. PL-PCV-2023-000567 - NOV & Order Revised Repeated Violation (Falls of Fire) Of these, the last 2 are still open/unresolved and before the Board of Appeals (BOA). However, The BOA recently voted to dismiss the appeal for the 2023 Falls on Fire event. The 2024 event took place despite several warnings from the County Planning Dept. not to do so. This Special Permit application is therefore an attempt to legitimize the previous and existing uses. Although our property is located outside of the legal 500' notification zone for Special Permit applications, we believe our property is the most impacted by these proposed uses due to containing the longest section of road located between the subject property and the main public road (H-19). It also is the only property containing a permitted dwelling that is located along this section of Indian Tree Road. In addition to numerous safety, security, liability and loss of property value concerns, we strongly believe that the proposed uses are neither reasonable use of prime agricultural land nor in keeping with the character of our farming community. We are therefore asking for denial of this application in its entirety. This request is based on the following findings of fact: 1. The applicant has repeatedly defied the County's orders not hold the "Falls on Flre" events and therefore is likely to ignore the Special Permit conditions. 2. The Special Permit application is unusual in that it requests a permit for two completely different and unrelated uses - An annual 4-day long festival and a daily commercial heavy equipment base yard. We are of the opinion that each use should have its own dedicated application.