2017-01-19 Leeward Exh A (Bill 227 Draft 2 re Agricultural Tourism)

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DARROW: Sure. Thank you. So we are back on Bill 227, Draft 2; this is the bill that has been sent down from County Council. These are just some of the key points. We touched upon the change to the agricultural tourism. Commissioner, or Councilmember Wille also added in the Definitions, a section that says, “but not include educational tours sponsored and conducted by public \[or\] private schools located within the County.” We were unsure about that, but in discussion it was because this is actually permitted under another section of the Code and they didn’t want those to be combined together; agricultural education tours are a separate permitted use. There’s new added definitions for “agricultural products” and “agriculturally-related products.” Under the Plan Approval section, as mentioned earlier, there is a change. Instead of having each person come in for Plan Approval, or each applicant, only the ones that would be doing new construction or any addition to an existing structure that exceeds ten percent of the existing structure. Additionally, there has been changes to the requirement for information to be provided with Plan Approval, including, but not limited to: allowing on-street parking, if adequate; deleting the 1,000-square foot limit for facilities principally utilized for the agricultural tourism activity; and, adding an allowance to request a waiver from the Planning Director from the requirement for a site drainage plan upon certain circumstances. Under the Agricultural Tourism section, which is 25-4-15, she has removed, I’m sorry, the section has been removed, that had the requirement to provide evidence of a minimum of 10,000 dollars in verifiable gross sales, exclusive of any income from agricultural tourism activities or any other non-agricultural activities for the year preceding the commencement of the agricultural tourism activity. Additionally, the bill has reduced the maximum amount of visitors allowed before requiring a Special Permit or a Use Permit from 30,000 visitors annually to 10,000 visitors annually. Hours of operation have been changed from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily to sunrise to 6:00 p.m. daily unless otherwise approved by the Planning Commission upon a finding there will be no significant adverse impact on the surrounding neighborhood. That’s, the Planning Director’s alternative language has that being approved by the Director; for just a request to come before the Planning Commission, it should be for a Special Permit or a Use Permit or some type of permit from the Commission. Added requirement to provide adequate road and site access for fire, ambulance, police and any other vehicles related to emergency response. The deletion of the 1,000-square foot limit, as mentioned earlier. Continuing on, changes to allow a waiver process from the Director to allow additional time under certain circumstances to meet the requirement of gross revenues from the agricultural activity exceeding gross sales from agricultural tourism; sometimes there’s situations that arise, maybe your crops don’t do well or maybe you are just starting off and it’s going to take you a period of time for those trees or the revenue to build up to that level for the agricultural aspect. So there is a waiver process. This also includes a section that prohibits agricultural tourism in Waipi‘o Valley or where the property is only accessible by four-wheel drive. And it extends the compliance deadline to July 1, 2017, for existing non-compliant agricultural tourism operations. This is the process now versus our current process of Plan Approval. It would be a yearly registration, it would probably be a form with questions regarding what are the minimum or standards for agricultural tourism where the applicant would have to fill it out and identify that they meet the standards. We would have the information as far as where they are at. And that 16 EXHIBIT A