2013-06-20 Leeward Exh A - Vipassana

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GIFFIN: Okay, I’m going to call you Sophia. Any questions of Sophia? Hearing none, thank you. There are members of the public who have signed up to testify this morning, and so if I may ask you two to please step back so that we have enough chairs. YEH: Thank you. GIFFIN: And I’ll call you back up, Tom. Thank you. Will Beth Thoma Robinson, William Bennington and Charles Oldfather please come forward. Okay. You have access to the microphones. Will you please raise your right hands. Thank you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Leeward Hawai‘i County Planning Commission? TESTIFIERS: Yes, I do. GIFFIN: Thank you. Beginning with you, ma’am, your name? THOMA ROBINSON: My name is Beth Thoma Robinson, and I’m the one who interrupted you Commissioners and Director with the long written remarks; I figured I had a lot to say, and so it might be easier to give it to you in written form. GIFFIN: Thank you. Why don’t you begin your testimony. THOMA ROBINSON: Thank you. So my comments today are based in two different perspectives, one of which is that I am a licensed Realtor-Broker with Hawai‘i Life Real Estate. I practice in the Kohala area, and very specifically, I was engaged in 2009 by the Board of Vipassana Hawai‘i to sell a noncontiguous parcel of theirs. So I’ve been involved with them, and involved in sales in this area. I mentioned that there have been seven parcels sold between where the retreat center would be and Kapanaia Bay since that time, since 2009. I was at least one side of the transaction of five of those sales. So I do think I have a good sense of what neighbors think from a real estate perspective, because obviously one of the disclosable items is that there is a special permit for a retreat center by this organization on these adjacent lands. I can say without doubt that every buyer has viewed that as a positive thing. What they don’t want to see, because they are attracted to this area, which is incredibly beautiful, historic, full of cultural resources, recreational resources, what they really don’t want to see is another cookie cutter subdivision going in. So the fact that Vipassana Hawai‘i, as the staff mentioned, owns not only this 80-some acre parcel where the retreat center, but actually the lands that go all the way makai to the ocean, as well as to the west; this means we have a large landowner who is committed to stewardship rather than development. So I can say from a real estate perspective buyers and the community view that very positively. I’m also a member of the community, and have participated in our North Kohala CDP process in 2005 when we had our first meetings. So I know that there are at least three areas of the CDP that this touches on. Two of them are in fact addressed by the conservation easements that the attorney just referred to. It’s really rare to have an opportunity that you actually have a landowner giving up easements to make sure that these areas do get protected in terms of both agriculture and the shoreline public access on the shoreline parcel. The No. 1 priority area in the CDP for enhancing the public shoreline access is from Kapanaia Bay to Ainakea, and Vipassana Hawai‘i’s parcel is about a mile long stretch of that access. So this is really significant for our community. And then the final thing, which, you know, it’s kind of amazing the change in tenor between 2000 and now, but even between the time of the CDP and now with respect to the issue of overnight 6 EXHIBIT A