HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-06-11 Aloun Farms Support TestimonyFrom:Pipanconsulting
To:Planning LPC Testimony
Subject:Waikoloa Green Support Letter from Aloun Farms
Date:Thursday, June 11, 2026 9:53:26 AM
Attachments:AFI In Support_Waikoloa Green 061026.pdf
Please see attached support letter from Aloun Farms for LPC items #6 & 7 - Waikoloa Green
LLC PL-SLU-2026-000016 and PL-REZ-2026-000096
Best,
John PipanPresidentPipan Consulting LLCOffice:(808)333-3391Cell:(808)430-1441
Aloun Farm, Inc.
94-488 Kunia Road, Waipahu, HI 96797 / 808-688-3245
June 10, 2026
Hawaii County Leeward Planning Commission
101 Pauahi Street, Suite 3
Hilo, HI 96720
Re: Letter of Support — Waikoloa Green Special Use and Change of Zone Applications
Dear Chair and Members of the Leeward Planning Commission:
I am writing on behalf of Aloun Farms to express my wholehearted support for the Waikoloa
Green project currently before this Commission. I have known the team behind Waikoloa Green
for a number of years, and I can say without reservation that they are exactly the kind of people
who should be building something like this — people who actually care about farming, who
understand what it takes to make agriculture work, and who have put that understanding at the
center of their design from day one.
Aloun Farms has operated in Hawaii for decades, and in that time, we have watched our state's
agricultural infrastructure erode in ways that have made it harder and harder for small and mid-
sized producers to survive. The problems are not new: producers struggle to access reliable cold
storage, processing facilities, and stable market outlets. Getting locally grown food from the
field to the consumer is more expensive and more logistically complicated than it should be,
and too many growers have given up as a result. The food hub model that Waikoloa Green
proposes — co-located processing, cold storage, and a farmers market on the same site as
hundreds of family farm lots — is a direct answer to those problems, and it is one that I
genuinely wish had existed when we were starting out.
The one-acre family lots at the heart of the project are the right size for working families who
want to farm seriously without taking on unmanageable risk. The ten-acre food hub parcels are
the kind of shared infrastructure investment that transforms a collection of individual farms into
a functioning local food system. And the fact that the project is designed to put all of this in a
single community — alongside workforce housing for the resort workers who will be the hub’s
most immediate customers — reflects a sophistication about how food economies actually work
that I do not often see in development proposals.
South Kohala has long had the land to support a thriving agricultural community. What it has
lacked is the infrastructure to make farming there economically viable. Waikoloa Green has the
potential to change that — not just for the families who will farm those lots, but for producers
across the island who could find a new market outlet and processing facility at the food hub.
Hawaii needs more projects like this, and I am proud to lend my support to a team that I trust to
follow through on what they have promised.
Aloun Farm, Inc.
94-488 Kunia Road, Waipahu, HI 96797 / 808-688-3245
I encourage the Commission to look favorably on this application. Please do not hesitate to
contact me directly if you have any questions about my perspective on the project’s agricultural
merits.
Mahalo for your consideration,
Alec Sou
President
Aloun Farm, Inc.