2012-05-03 Windward Transcript Circus

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So when we began our special permit process, I’d like to tell the Commission here that our neighborhood was a very different place from what it is today. At that time, there were about 50 homes in Sea View. And when we came before the Planning Commission then, both the neighbors with nearby homes came to testify on our behalf. Well, in the decade that followed, big changes occurred. Sea View expanded to the estimated 260 homes that exists today, and all along the Red Road development brought hundreds of new people to our community. When SPACE opened on November 1, 2007, we were the only community facility for 14 miles away, apart from Kalani Honua. And our first deviation from our Special Permit was the farmers market which, quite honestly, in our naivety we believed was a legitimately permitted activity on agricultural land. Soon after that, we opened our facility to 36 kids from a charter school that were suddenly evicted from a non-compliant facility. And later we were asked by residents to use SPACE for weddings, memorials and for community and family events. So, rather than having them go to Pahoa, we allowed them to use our SPACE facility. Now regarding public performances, Hawai‘i’s Volcano Circus and the Hiccup Circus have hosted private performances, weddings, memorials, graduations, and similar community events at Bellyacres since 1987. It has always been the primary gathering place for Sea View residents and the location for Hiccup Circus camp shows, fundraising, performances. We never had any problems with neighbor’s complaints because they almost all attended and were appreciative of high quality local entertainment and for what we were doing with the kids. We did not ask for a public performance permit in 2001 because, prior to that, our performances had all been provided without public advertising. We made the assumption, perhaps incorrectly, that unadvertised performances for parents, friends, and neighbors did not constitute a “public performance”. Once SPACE opened, the amount and the type of performances expanded. Some of the performances that have been subject to complaints have been our long-standing Hiccup Circus presentations, similar to those that all schools have on a regular basis, to my knowledge, without any special permits needs or requirements. Others were a result of us opening our facility to community members for them to host their own events. And we wish to make it clear to the Commission that, as a result of neighborhood response to these activities, and our dialogue with our neighbors, we are clear about what activities are appropriate for our facility and which are not. This will be apparent in our amended special permit application where we are specifically not asking permission to rent our facility to community members for performances, and chose to limit it to HICCUP circus performances and those specifically related to our performance arts training educational activities, and this would amount to no more than 24 in a year. th We also are very happy to report that just this week, at the 11 hour, we received a $30,000 grant to enable us to sound proof our SPACE pavilion and to eliminate the noise impacts which have affected our neighbors. And we don’t deny that during our early period there were permit violations and there were impacts on our neighbors from activities at SPACE. But we want you to know that when neighbors came to us and have been willing to talk to us, we’ve been able to create workable solutions for the future; 17 EXHIBIT B