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interest on it, I look at how long it’s going to take me to go from purchasing the land to getting the
<br />requisite zoning to getting construction done before I can actually sell the lots; so I look at what
<br />does it cost me for the period of time to get to the point that I can sell and actually see revenue come
<br />back in. So the reason a lot of guys try to avoid going through a two-step process – unless you’ve
<br />got a significantly large piece of land so that it kind of makes it worthwhile to go to the Land Use
<br />Commission, because you are going to rezone, you know, 500 acres, so maybe it makes more sense
<br />– but if you are only talking about smaller parcels, because it extends the time and extends the cost,
<br />a lot of property owners try to do segments that are just 15 acres or less, and that’s because it
<br />shortens the time, it shortens the cost, it means that they are spending less money on interest, if they
<br />borrowed it, it means that there is a shorter period in which they can hope to get the money back.
<br />And also sometimes they are trying to hit that window. The economy, if you are a developer, you
<br />want to get your lots ready for sale as the economy is going up. The worst thing is you’ve invested
<br />all your money, and just as you are getting ready to sell your lots, the economy tanks, the price of
<br />land tanks. And the money that you’ve put into developing it, into bringing water, into bringing the
<br />road infrastructure up to a dedicable standard or a modern standard, is very expensive. And so guys
<br />are always looking at this, because – for one example, where we have several guys working
<br />together now to try and get water, the water system is going to cost over 13 million dollars to get the
<br />water from up mauka down to where the development is going to occur – and so guys are figuring
<br />out, well, what’s that going to cost me and, you know, how do I pay for it, when do I get return.
<br />And that’s why guys try to avoid lengthening the process.
<br />
<br />But it’s the system that we have. It’s in state law. The county can’t change the state law; the State
<br />Legislature has control. But the intent of a lot of it was to preserve agricultural land from being
<br />rezoned and developed. It was supposed to preserve the best agricultural land, which typically was
<br />considered to be A and B soils, the soils that you can actually grow something in as opposed to -.
<br />On our island we have a lot of land that’s classified as Agricultural that’s ‘a‘ā and pāhoehoe,
<br />because we have recent lava flows. The difficulty for a lot of people is that – and I’m sorry for
<br />taking up all this time -.
<br />
<br />GIFFIN: No, no, this is great -.
<br />
<br />LEITHEAD TODD: Is that both Conservation and Agriculture became kind of buckets you throw
<br />other land into. Land that you didn’t think was ready for development, some of that got thrown into
<br />Conservation. It wasn’t in Conservation because it had flora or fauna or unique features that you
<br />needed to preserve; it was it’s not ready to be urbanized, so we are going to throw some of that in
<br />Conservation. In Ag, well, you know, it’s not ready to be developed, so even though you can’t
<br />grow anything on it, we are going to throw it into Agriculture. And the state law specifically says
<br />that they recognize that there is land that they’ve put into this classification that really isn’t good for
<br />agriculture. So they created a process where you can get a special use permit, so somebody can do
<br />something else with the land, because it’s not really good for growing stuff. But for this island, 95
<br />percent of the land on this island is either classified as Conservation or Agriculture; it means that
<br />there is very little land that’s classified as Urban where you can actually have a right to build a
<br />house. And that’s because the state law also says that on agriculturally zoned land you can only
<br />have a farm dwelling. In theory you are not allowed to build a single family residence on land that
<br />is zoned, or classified, state land use Agriculture; you can only build it, if you have agricultural
<br />activity, unless your lot was created prior to 1976.
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<br />EXHIBIT A
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