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Draft Hamakua CDP Comments Submitted Online or by Email During the March 15 — June 15 2016 Review of the Draft Hamakua CDP *tending to farming activities on a daily basis; *establishing a channel for distributing production; *accepting the restrictions of living on agricultural land. Working a small farm is not an easy task. Since 1981 when Section 19-57 was enacted, thousands of families have agreed to provide these benefits of small-scale agriculture and invest their money to create small-scale agriculture based on their reliance on the County's representation that any agricultural use within Section 19-57 would allow them to receive a small tax incentive. Today about 10,000 families are in the Section 19-57 program. The Section 19-60 program is fundamentally different than the Section 19-57 program in that it targets large commercial farming operations; offers a more generous tax incentive; has different goals than the Section 19-57 program (see above); and enrolls about 500 businesses. Essentially Section 19-60 rewards larger farms with an incentive for maintaining industrial -size agricultural operations. It is worth considering that both Section 19-57 and 19-60 were enacted in 1981. This shows that the County viewed these two programs as being different and equally justified. Both programs provide public benefits; and both have provisions to address non-compliance and rollback. Also, both programs are probably equally "dedicated" since Section 19-57 program farmers tend to continue their agricultural operations for many years. A Bill (317) has been introduced which if enacted would establish a 3 or 5 year dedicated incentive while simultaneously phasing out Section 19-57. Upon phase-out the Code would be left with two tax incentive measures that differ primarily by the length of the dedication but not otherwise. Bill 317 would disqualify at least 500 Section 19-57 farmers from the Bill 317 program based on acreage criteria alone. Also, because the Bill 317 program is modeled on the "industrial -oriented" Section 19-60 criteria, it would likely disqualify many other small scale Section 19-57 farmers based on administrative decisions about their scale of production. And during the transition period Bill 317 would phase out the incentive for Section 19-57 farmers that could force more Section 19-57 farmers off their land or out of agriculture. The CDP should support kokua policies such as the Section 19-57 and the Section 19-60 programs which support a wide range of agricultural endeavors and preserve the agricultural nature of the Hamakua Coast. The Section 19-57 program has gotten some bad press because a few people have been accused of "gaming" the system by "taking advantage of the agricultural exemption without growing crops" according to some commentators (West Hawaii Today, November 18, 2014). In fact this appears to be the only criticism of Section 19-57 when the other benefits are considered. But even if some people in the Section 19-57 program have acted irresponsibly does this justify repealing the entire Section 19-57 program for all 10,000 families in it now? That would be like taking away drivers licenses from everyone because a minority of drivers are irresponsible. To list a few points about how small-scale agriculture is typically regarded: Draft Hamakua CDP hamakua@hawaiicounty.gov www.hamakuacdp.info 13