HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 1155.007 2004-2006
I am Cathy Perrins. My husband, Ross and I have lived in Ookala since 2001 and we have found it to be
a lovely close knit community worthy of being preserved. He teaches school in Honokaa. We have
come to ask your help in keeping our community safe from this incursion of heavy industry. We hope that
all of us together will be able to find a more appropriate location for the proposed veneer mill, a location
away from our homes. There is no reason to locate a veneer mill in a small residential neighborhood.
Our small peaceful village consists of almost 90 homes on the Hamakua Coast. Hilo is thirty miles away
and Honokaa is twelve miles the other way. We live in Ookala because of its sense of community, its
beauty and its serenity. It is currently a safe place for families and children and we would like to keep it
this way.
On the hillside above our community is a dairy. During community meetings before it was built they said
there would be no stink. They were wrong. It makes stinks. This has made our little community of
Ookala very aware of the things people say when they want to build things in our neighborhood as well
as the difficulties of relocating an inappropriate industry once it has been built. The choices we make
now will affect a lot of people for a long time.
Several past choices are still lurking in Ookala. One of these is the old mill site which is an General
(industrial zoned property in the middle of our quiet residential community. The Hawaii County Zoning
Code states: "The General Industrial district applies to areas for uses that are generally considered to
be offensive or have some element of danger." This general industrial zoning is inappropriate near
houses. If you will look at the Ookala property maps you will see that approximately half of the residential
properties in Ookala are within 500 feet of the old mill site which has the industrial zone. As we speak,
there are probably small children playing in their own front yard fifty feet away from the industrial zone!
Would you want your children and grandchildren playing near something "generally considered to be
offensive or have some element of danger'?
Don Bryan, who wants to build the mill, has said at several meetings that he wanted to live in Ookala and
would not mind living near his veneer mill. There is a nice house for sale in manager camp in Ookala
right above where they would like to put the mill. Instead, they said they bought a house miles away in
Papaaloa. Obviously, he doesn't want to live next to the veneer mill himself so why is he putting it in
someone else front yard? Why won't he live next to his own mill?
There is no reason to locate a veneer mill in a residential neighborhood. There isn't even any reason to
locate this particular veneer mill on the Hamakua Coast. The trees they have an actual contract for are
in the Waiakea Forest Reserve on the other side of Hilo. The Hamakua trees are not suitable for veneer
and have been contracted to a pulp miff - not the veneer mill. A veneer mill built next to the Waiakea
trees will keep their logging trucks from driving THROUGH HILO.
The only road along our Hamakua coast is very fragile. Park at mile marker thirteen. Walk back
towards Hilo, stand at the edge of the highway pavement and look down. How far down is that? Sixty
feet? More? Since the landslide, there isn't much left to hold up our highway. Should logging trucks be
using this road? Especially if it isn't necessary? Building the veneer mill near the Waiakea forest would
put the veneer mill close to their wood source, much closer to a shipping port, much closer to a source of
workers and there is a much larger selection of industrial properties in that area that are away from
anyone's residential neighborhood.
Since the mill is processing agricultural products, it can also be put on agricultural lands. According to
the Hawaii Zoning Code chapter 25. Forestry and "agricultural products processing, major and minor"
are allowed used on Agriculturally zoned lands. Please help us keep our community safe, there is no
reason to build a veneer mill in a residential neighborhood.
Comm. No. e'ft
v Ref. 70: is
Ref. Uate