I am writing to support my neighbors in matter PSLU-17.
Not only should the Conditional Use permit for DragonFruit Farms not be extended, it should be rescinded.
You have a permit holder who has flagrantly ignored the terms and conditions of the existing Conditional Use permit, repeatedly, and over an extended period of time.
As a result, the neighborhood has been unreasonably and negatively impacted. The only recourse available to neighbors seems to be in your hands, as you are the body that granted the permit, specified the conditions, had your conditions ignored, and are now asked to renew the permit. Repeated calls by neighbors to Maui Police is not a solution to the long term problem.
As such, you need to be made aware of the repeated violations of the use permit, so that you can make a decision on renewal and extension that takes into account the fact that the farm has ignored many of the conditions meant to protect the neighborhood.
More importantly, based upon past behavior, it is likely that any conditions you specify in a permit extension will likewise be ignored and violated, to the detriment of the neighborhood.
I am all in favor of allowing property owners to make use of their property as fully as possible, but not at the unreasonable expense of neighboring property owners. A property owner has an obligation to act in a way which minimizes the impact on their neighbors, and this property owner, who is not even resident on the property, has not met this obligation.
As examples, they have had far more special events than they are allowed by their permit, and those events have run late into the night, well beyond what is allowed by the permit. Both during special events, and throughout the week, hey have ignored limits on loud music, late night partying, and lights, etc.
All of this has been a significant burden on the neighborhood, and is in direct violation of the intent of their permit, and the explicit conditions under which the permit was to be allowed.
As such, the permit should not be extended.
I know that the easier path is to just agree to requests - saying no is more difficult But please take into account the reasonable needs and expectations of the neighboring properties and say yes to protecting their rights and investments.
I am writing to you regarding item PSLU-17. I have recently purchased a home nearby to the Dragon Fruit Farm, and having just arrived at our new home, have not yet been personally impacted by activities on that property.
However, I have had an opportunity to speak to neighbors who all tell a similar story and are very credible.
It appears that the permittee has had very little regard for the conditions placed upon them in order to qualify for their conditional use permit.
Failure to adhere scrupulously to the conditions of their permit is sufficient to not only deny an extension to that permit, but in fact to cancel the permit.
As members of the planning committee, your responsibility is not merely to permit reasonable land use when possible, but also to enforce the conditions that insure that the land use remains reasonable and does not adversely affect other properties.
You have an obligation to protect all of the neighboring property owners from unreasonable use, and failure to adhere to the permit conditions is evidence a priori of unreasonable use by the permit holder.
I would also point out that committee members should put far more weight on comments from land owners in the neighborhood. Transient young adults who testify on behalf of the applicant are... transient. Receiving a large number of comments for transients living on applicant's property should not be allowed to outweigh a group of adjacent and nearby land owners (who are not transient).
The permit requires no more than two special events per month. Neighbors indicate that in some cases special events are held multiple times more than are permitted in a month.
The permit requires that no amplified sound be used. Neighbors indicate that amplified music, often late at night, is not uncommon.
The permit requires that ALL special events be concluded by 8pm. Yet neighbors report special events, with unreasonable sound and lighting, have occurred as late (or later?) than midnight.
The permit requires that all lighting be downward and shielded. It seems unlikely that this is followed given the neighbors complaints of lights shining onto their properties.
The permit requires that house rules for the property include a requirement that sound be no louder than would be heard from residential properties during quiet hours. Applicant in egregious violation of this requirement, and Maui police has had to be called on many occasions. On far more occasions, neighbors have suffered unreasonable noise and lighting far into the night in silence out of respect for either event participants or the time of officers.
Complaints about late night noise and lights are frequent - not just related to special events. The large number of transient young adults, frequently cycling through, on a vacation on Maui, results in a frequent party atmosphere. Since the applicant is non-resident, there is no supervision to insure compliance with requirements that could protect the rights of nearby properties.
It seems likely that a permittee who shows such disregard for the neighborhood, and for the conditions that underly their conditional use permit, are likely violating other conditions of their permit or even other governmental requirements. That neighbors may not testify to additional violations does not mean that they don't occur, and blatant disregard for some rules should cause the committee to be skeptical about adherence to other rules as well.
A conditional use permit to allow activity that is unusual is a privilege, not a right. A holder of such a permit should in fact go out of their way to insure that they do not abuse that privilege. The applicant in this case has routinely disregarded their obligation to abide by permit conditions, which were put in place to insure that the permit holder's use remains reasonable and that it does not adversely affect neighbors.
Given the repeated history of violating the permit conditions, the request for extension should be denied. Should the committee for some reason choose to favor the permit holder over the rights of numerous neighboring properties (and why would you do that??), PLEASE limit the extension to the shortest term possible and provide a mechanism for enforcement (i.e. cancellation of the permit) should violations continue.
Regarding PSLU-17 Maui Dragon Fruit Farm (MDFF) CUP extension:
I live next door to MDFF and can attest to witnessing multiple violations of the pre-existing CUP restrictions on scheduling, noise, lighting, wedding guest reception counts, tent sizes exceeding applicable fire code and on-site housing of temporary non local workforce by MDFF in RVs and tents over multiple years. Vera Sredanovic has amply documented the extensive violations on multiple communications to Council members and at least 14 neighbors have opposed the CUP extension. This long term pattern of behavior by the MDFF non resident owners is disrespectful to the community and to the form, content and spirit of the Maui County code and the intended purpose of conditional use permits.
Furthermore, I am unsure why weddings and receptions, zip lines and Aqua balls are deemed to be permissible on MDFF’s agriculturally zoned land when they are in violation of the required 51% minimum planting requirement for agricultural land. In fact, in their CUP application MDFF owners stated that they needed to supplement their farm income by operating non farm related activities, all the while having not planted the minimum required acreage for their 27.4 acre parcel. It appears their business model is to operate non agricultural businesses on agricultural land via a CUP.
For these reasons I respectfully request that the SLUC deny extension of the CUP for MDFF. Mahalo
This input is related to item PSLU-17 regarding to the conditional use permit extension for Maui Dragon Fruit Farm. I am an owner of a property/farm near the the Dragonfruit Farm. I ask that you DENY the permit due to the noise generated by the activities, events, and workers who live at the Dragon Fruit Farm. The owners of the farm have disregarded the rules and the permit should not be renewed,
This input is related to item PSLU-17 regarding to the conditional use permit extension for Maui Dragon Fruit Farm.
I own and reside at a small farm near the Dragon Fruit Farm. Especially in the pre-pandemic past, I was disturbed by noise and lighting from elaborate event activities staged on that property. More recently, the situation has been better.
If I had confidence that the restrictions required with the permit would be strictly followed, I would not object to the renewal. However, the rules of the permit have been violated in the past, and enforcement appears to have been lax, with no substantial consequences imposed for the violations. What real recourse do we have if these violations are repeated with a renewed permit? Without better assurances that county government is willing and able to constrain the activities according to these rules, I will oppose approval of the renewal.
I'd like to share my concerns re: CR 21-85 Maui Dragon Fruit Farm (MDFF) CUP extension. I live on Punakea Loop near the Maui Dragon Fruit Farm and maintain our farm of approx. 5 acres.
I ask that you deny the request to extend this CUP because they have not used the property in compliance with the representation made to the Council in obtaining the permit. This includes not being in compliance with:
- No amplified sound
- No unshielded exterior lights
- Events over by 8pm and event clean-up by 8:30pm
- Providing neighbors with info sheet with contact info and copy of the CUP
As an example, just last Friday there was a loud evening event with music/DJ and bright lights. It's bad enough to hear the people screaming from the zip line during the day.
I'm also concerned about risk of fire and highly doubt that the fire dept. has been informed of and approved of events as required in the CUP.
When we first moved to our farm on Punakea Loop full-time about 5 years ago, we were fine tolerating the screaming from the zip line, but the situation has gotten progressively worse in the last year or so since reopening and getting the original CUP.
Not to mention, they never replanted their dragon fruit after the big fire, so they aren't meeting the requirement of having 51% of the 27 acres planted as a farm. That to me is a sign of not having good intent in maintaining the land as agricultural land, but instead a sign that they are trying to take advantage of the CUP and use the land for whatever purpose they want to make money.
For these reasons, please deny this CUP extension. Mahalo.
Dear SLUC members, I tried posting this on e-comment but it looks like it is having trouble accepting attachments (I provided them by e-mail to you). Since the beginning of this year we are fully retired and live next to this property. This gave us time to see and document what is going on at the Dragon Farm. It takes a lot of effort and time to document and provide proofs so please take it into serious consideration.
Please see the attached word document as proof that the vast majority of CUP conditions are being violated (1st attached file-embedded in this e-mail-since it is too large-let me know if you can't open that file and I will e-mail it in pieces). 2nd file has a short video clip that shows extremely high amplified sound, past 8pm and unshielded lights wedding. 3rd attached file shows RVs at the property over 1 year ago-Crystal stated at the county's September meeting that she had it on the property for only a few days.
ZAED investigation didn’t look into CUP violations, it only looked into illegal housing and illegal structures. ZAED found that no RVs remained on the property, but as you can see in the attached document there is a van on the property as of 11/17/21 and it is used to accommodate some of those 10-15 transient, unpaid, young, off-island workers. This same van was between 2 RVs that are now removed from the property. The van is tucked away so that it is only visible from the air.
The fact that CUP conditions are violated is sufficient to revoke this license, changing the language of the CUP conditions from "shall" to "must" will not make non-compliant owners become compliant. They have a long history of conducting weddings without permits and violating CUP conditions. They also have a history of misrepresenting the facts to the authorities and neighbors (please see an image of text from Crystal where she gave me incorrect information on how many events they can have-part of 1st file).
Original CUP presentation given by Crystal Schmidt misrepresented the percentage of the land planted, by reducing the actual plot lines to make it appear like over 50% is planted (please see attached document with a proof-1st file). Owners of MDFF also stated on the farm plan that almost 15 acres are planted but they never had more than 5 acres planted (please see Maui county historical pictometry and Google earth images provided as proof-1st file). This should be more than sufficient grounds to void this CUP.
The parcel size is 27 acres and according to HRS 205-6 is subject to LUC approval.
If people are allowed to repeatedly violate the law and CUP conditions that then perpetuates bad behaviour and creates problems for the community and the county.
Mahalo for your careful consideration of the provided data and for doing the right thing.
Aloha, I am writing from a next door neighbors perspective. I have had first hand experience in dealing with the loud music and endless partying on a nightly basis. In addition to loud music and partying the high volume of traffic in and out of the dragon fruit farm at all hours of the night. Motor scooters, old loud vans, and dirt bikes in and out constantly. I would like to add that the use of drones coming from the dragon fruit farm over my head on numerous occasions flying low and invading personal privacy. The nonstop partying and loud music is almost every night with no consideration to surrounding neighbors. Please make it stop
I am writing to support my neighbors in matter PSLU-17.
Not only should the Conditional Use permit for DragonFruit Farms not be extended, it should be rescinded.
You have a permit holder who has flagrantly ignored the terms and conditions of the existing Conditional Use permit, repeatedly, and over an extended period of time.
As a result, the neighborhood has been unreasonably and negatively impacted. The only recourse available to neighbors seems to be in your hands, as you are the body that granted the permit, specified the conditions, had your conditions ignored, and are now asked to renew the permit. Repeated calls by neighbors to Maui Police is not a solution to the long term problem.
As such, you need to be made aware of the repeated violations of the use permit, so that you can make a decision on renewal and extension that takes into account the fact that the farm has ignored many of the conditions meant to protect the neighborhood.
More importantly, based upon past behavior, it is likely that any conditions you specify in a permit extension will likewise be ignored and violated, to the detriment of the neighborhood.
I am all in favor of allowing property owners to make use of their property as fully as possible, but not at the unreasonable expense of neighboring property owners. A property owner has an obligation to act in a way which minimizes the impact on their neighbors, and this property owner, who is not even resident on the property, has not met this obligation.
As examples, they have had far more special events than they are allowed by their permit, and those events have run late into the night, well beyond what is allowed by the permit. Both during special events, and throughout the week, hey have ignored limits on loud music, late night partying, and lights, etc.
All of this has been a significant burden on the neighborhood, and is in direct violation of the intent of their permit, and the explicit conditions under which the permit was to be allowed.
As such, the permit should not be extended.
I know that the easier path is to just agree to requests - saying no is more difficult But please take into account the reasonable needs and expectations of the neighboring properties and say yes to protecting their rights and investments.
Deny the extension...
I am writing to you regarding item PSLU-17. I have recently purchased a home nearby to the Dragon Fruit Farm, and having just arrived at our new home, have not yet been personally impacted by activities on that property.
However, I have had an opportunity to speak to neighbors who all tell a similar story and are very credible.
It appears that the permittee has had very little regard for the conditions placed upon them in order to qualify for their conditional use permit.
Failure to adhere scrupulously to the conditions of their permit is sufficient to not only deny an extension to that permit, but in fact to cancel the permit.
As members of the planning committee, your responsibility is not merely to permit reasonable land use when possible, but also to enforce the conditions that insure that the land use remains reasonable and does not adversely affect other properties.
You have an obligation to protect all of the neighboring property owners from unreasonable use, and failure to adhere to the permit conditions is evidence a priori of unreasonable use by the permit holder.
I would also point out that committee members should put far more weight on comments from land owners in the neighborhood. Transient young adults who testify on behalf of the applicant are... transient. Receiving a large number of comments for transients living on applicant's property should not be allowed to outweigh a group of adjacent and nearby land owners (who are not transient).
The permit requires no more than two special events per month. Neighbors indicate that in some cases special events are held multiple times more than are permitted in a month.
The permit requires that no amplified sound be used. Neighbors indicate that amplified music, often late at night, is not uncommon.
The permit requires that ALL special events be concluded by 8pm. Yet neighbors report special events, with unreasonable sound and lighting, have occurred as late (or later?) than midnight.
The permit requires that all lighting be downward and shielded. It seems unlikely that this is followed given the neighbors complaints of lights shining onto their properties.
The permit requires that house rules for the property include a requirement that sound be no louder than would be heard from residential properties during quiet hours. Applicant in egregious violation of this requirement, and Maui police has had to be called on many occasions. On far more occasions, neighbors have suffered unreasonable noise and lighting far into the night in silence out of respect for either event participants or the time of officers.
Complaints about late night noise and lights are frequent - not just related to special events. The large number of transient young adults, frequently cycling through, on a vacation on Maui, results in a frequent party atmosphere. Since the applicant is non-resident, there is no supervision to insure compliance with requirements that could protect the rights of nearby properties.
It seems likely that a permittee who shows such disregard for the neighborhood, and for the conditions that underly their conditional use permit, are likely violating other conditions of their permit or even other governmental requirements. That neighbors may not testify to additional violations does not mean that they don't occur, and blatant disregard for some rules should cause the committee to be skeptical about adherence to other rules as well.
A conditional use permit to allow activity that is unusual is a privilege, not a right. A holder of such a permit should in fact go out of their way to insure that they do not abuse that privilege. The applicant in this case has routinely disregarded their obligation to abide by permit conditions, which were put in place to insure that the permit holder's use remains reasonable and that it does not adversely affect neighbors.
Given the repeated history of violating the permit conditions, the request for extension should be denied. Should the committee for some reason choose to favor the permit holder over the rights of numerous neighboring properties (and why would you do that??), PLEASE limit the extension to the shortest term possible and provide a mechanism for enforcement (i.e. cancellation of the permit) should violations continue.
Thank you...
Dear SLUC members
Regarding PSLU-17 Maui Dragon Fruit Farm (MDFF) CUP extension:
I live next door to MDFF and can attest to witnessing multiple violations of the pre-existing CUP restrictions on scheduling, noise, lighting, wedding guest reception counts, tent sizes exceeding applicable fire code and on-site housing of temporary non local workforce by MDFF in RVs and tents over multiple years. Vera Sredanovic has amply documented the extensive violations on multiple communications to Council members and at least 14 neighbors have opposed the CUP extension. This long term pattern of behavior by the MDFF non resident owners is disrespectful to the community and to the form, content and spirit of the Maui County code and the intended purpose of conditional use permits.
Furthermore, I am unsure why weddings and receptions, zip lines and Aqua balls are deemed to be permissible on MDFF’s agriculturally zoned land when they are in violation of the required 51% minimum planting requirement for agricultural land. In fact, in their CUP application MDFF owners stated that they needed to supplement their farm income by operating non farm related activities, all the while having not planted the minimum required acreage for their 27.4 acre parcel. It appears their business model is to operate non agricultural businesses on agricultural land via a CUP.
For these reasons I respectfully request that the SLUC deny extension of the CUP for MDFF. Mahalo
This input is related to item PSLU-17 regarding to the conditional use permit extension for Maui Dragon Fruit Farm. I am an owner of a property/farm near the the Dragonfruit Farm. I ask that you DENY the permit due to the noise generated by the activities, events, and workers who live at the Dragon Fruit Farm. The owners of the farm have disregarded the rules and the permit should not be renewed,
This input is related to item PSLU-17 regarding to the conditional use permit extension for Maui Dragon Fruit Farm.
I own and reside at a small farm near the Dragon Fruit Farm. Especially in the pre-pandemic past, I was disturbed by noise and lighting from elaborate event activities staged on that property. More recently, the situation has been better.
If I had confidence that the restrictions required with the permit would be strictly followed, I would not object to the renewal. However, the rules of the permit have been violated in the past, and enforcement appears to have been lax, with no substantial consequences imposed for the violations. What real recourse do we have if these violations are repeated with a renewed permit? Without better assurances that county government is willing and able to constrain the activities according to these rules, I will oppose approval of the renewal.
Council Members,
I'd like to share my concerns re: CR 21-85 Maui Dragon Fruit Farm (MDFF) CUP extension. I live on Punakea Loop near the Maui Dragon Fruit Farm and maintain our farm of approx. 5 acres.
I ask that you deny the request to extend this CUP because they have not used the property in compliance with the representation made to the Council in obtaining the permit. This includes not being in compliance with:
- No amplified sound
- No unshielded exterior lights
- Events over by 8pm and event clean-up by 8:30pm
- Providing neighbors with info sheet with contact info and copy of the CUP
As an example, just last Friday there was a loud evening event with music/DJ and bright lights. It's bad enough to hear the people screaming from the zip line during the day.
I'm also concerned about risk of fire and highly doubt that the fire dept. has been informed of and approved of events as required in the CUP.
When we first moved to our farm on Punakea Loop full-time about 5 years ago, we were fine tolerating the screaming from the zip line, but the situation has gotten progressively worse in the last year or so since reopening and getting the original CUP.
Not to mention, they never replanted their dragon fruit after the big fire, so they aren't meeting the requirement of having 51% of the 27 acres planted as a farm. That to me is a sign of not having good intent in maintaining the land as agricultural land, but instead a sign that they are trying to take advantage of the CUP and use the land for whatever purpose they want to make money.
For these reasons, please deny this CUP extension. Mahalo.
Dear SLUC members, I tried posting this on e-comment but it looks like it is having trouble accepting attachments (I provided them by e-mail to you). Since the beginning of this year we are fully retired and live next to this property. This gave us time to see and document what is going on at the Dragon Farm. It takes a lot of effort and time to document and provide proofs so please take it into serious consideration.
Please see the attached word document as proof that the vast majority of CUP conditions are being violated (1st attached file-embedded in this e-mail-since it is too large-let me know if you can't open that file and I will e-mail it in pieces). 2nd file has a short video clip that shows extremely high amplified sound, past 8pm and unshielded lights wedding. 3rd attached file shows RVs at the property over 1 year ago-Crystal stated at the county's September meeting that she had it on the property for only a few days.
ZAED investigation didn’t look into CUP violations, it only looked into illegal housing and illegal structures. ZAED found that no RVs remained on the property, but as you can see in the attached document there is a van on the property as of 11/17/21 and it is used to accommodate some of those 10-15 transient, unpaid, young, off-island workers. This same van was between 2 RVs that are now removed from the property. The van is tucked away so that it is only visible from the air.
The fact that CUP conditions are violated is sufficient to revoke this license, changing the language of the CUP conditions from "shall" to "must" will not make non-compliant owners become compliant. They have a long history of conducting weddings without permits and violating CUP conditions. They also have a history of misrepresenting the facts to the authorities and neighbors (please see an image of text from Crystal where she gave me incorrect information on how many events they can have-part of 1st file).
Original CUP presentation given by Crystal Schmidt misrepresented the percentage of the land planted, by reducing the actual plot lines to make it appear like over 50% is planted (please see attached document with a proof-1st file). Owners of MDFF also stated on the farm plan that almost 15 acres are planted but they never had more than 5 acres planted (please see Maui county historical pictometry and Google earth images provided as proof-1st file). This should be more than sufficient grounds to void this CUP.
The parcel size is 27 acres and according to HRS 205-6 is subject to LUC approval.
If people are allowed to repeatedly violate the law and CUP conditions that then perpetuates bad behaviour and creates problems for the community and the county.
Mahalo for your careful consideration of the provided data and for doing the right thing.
Sincerely, Vera Sredanovic
Aloha, I am writing from a next door neighbors perspective. I have had first hand experience in dealing with the loud music and endless partying on a nightly basis. In addition to loud music and partying the high volume of traffic in and out of the dragon fruit farm at all hours of the night. Motor scooters, old loud vans, and dirt bikes in and out constantly. I would like to add that the use of drones coming from the dragon fruit farm over my head on numerous occasions flying low and invading personal privacy. The nonstop partying and loud music is almost every night with no consideration to surrounding neighbors. Please make it stop