Venue Expansion Project
In February 2020, we applied for a Special Permit with the Hawaii County Planning Commission to build a new venue space on the farm. We have been operating out of our current venue since 2017, and while it is great and we have hosted many beautiful weddings in that space, it is also our home and we have had to share it for three years with our event business.
Events in our current space are just not scalable - the building was not created for events and because it is also our home, there is a low limit to how many events each year/month that we can host. We also cannot host more than 50 guests for a seated dinner and no more than 80 guests for a cocktail style reception in our current space with forces us to turn away tons of clients who have larger guest counts. So needless to say, it has been a goal of ours for a long time to scale into a new space - but the process is not easy!
There are two main permits we need to be able to expand:
A Special Use Permit to have a wedding venue on land that is zoned for agricultural use.
Building permits for the construction of the building itself.
The building permits take time of course and can be complicated, but we are very confident that with a good architect and contractor team, those will be fairly smooth. The Special Use Permit is the tricky part that might not be approved at all.
It took us a couple months, working together with our attorney, land use planner, and conceptual draftsperson to compile our application which we submitted at the end of February 2020.
At the end of September of 2020 we had a hearing with the County Planning Commission for our Special Use Permit. At that hearing the commissioners “continued” our application and asked that we have a traffic study done and meet with our neighbors to discuss potential increases to traffic on our small road. During October 2020 we conducted the traffic study and discussed concerns with our neighbors and reapplied with an updated application.
In November 2020, we submitted our updated application to the County Planning Department and now we are waiting for a hearing. That hearing is now scheduled for April 2021 after which point, if approved, we will be able to move ahead with events again.
We are very hopeful that we will receive our Special Use permit, but of course there is a lot that goes into it and it is by no means a done deal. If our permit is not approved, we are not sure what our next step will be. It will certainly depend on the reason for not being approved (is it something we can fix and try again or is it a permanent issue?) and whether or not an appeal makes financial, emotional and business sense for Doug and me. But the main thing for our clients to know is that if we are not approved for our Special Use Permit, we will no longer continue hosting events - in either our current space or, of course, in a new space. And for this reason, we will not officially be booking any events until and unless we are approved. However, we are holding dates on our calendar for clients who would like to reserve one and are able to wait to officially book until we have our hearing.
If you read this far, you probably have a ton of questions! Below are answers to some of the most common questions we have received regarding the new venue project. As we get more questions I will be adding info here, but if you have a question that I didn’t answer here, email me! And if you have more questions regarding the venue just generally, check out our FAQs!
Venue expansion Q&A
What is the timeline for completing the new venue project?
This is the question we, and everyone else, would like the answer to the most. But unfortunately, the answer is that it depends. If we are approved in April, we will start building right away with the foundation and septic while we get the other building permits approved. Then the rest of the construction will take between 3-5 months if the building permits are approved in a timely manner. There can of course be setbacks but we feel confident that if we are approved for our special use permit in April that we will be able to open the new venue in 2022. However, if our Special Use Permit is denied, the timeline becomes completely unknown. We should know one way or another by mid-April 2021 though!
How many guests will the new venue hold?
Our goal is for it to comfortably hold up to 100 guests. But the capacity will be determined by both our Special Use Permit (how many guests are we approved for) and our building plans and building permit. In our current building permit application, we have asked for only a small amount of larger events to keep traffic on our road down and noise to a minimum. As with our current venue, the most comfortable and common use of our venue and is for events of 50 guests or less.
Do you have conceptual plans drawn for the new venue?
Yes! Here is a link to our full set of conceptual plans. The conceptual plans are not architectural drawings and they are not at all the final design of the venue. The main things to know is that the dimensions and layout are what we hope the final design will look like, but there will of course be some changes along the way.
Where will the new venue be on the farm?
The exact location will depend on our architect’s recommendation for how we grub and grade the land and how to get the best possible ocean view based on the height of the building. But what we do know is that it will definitely be between our current venue and the coffee orchard and will have views of the ocean and the coffee. The white rectangle in the aerial photo below is the general area where the proposed venue will be.
How will event bookings work during the permitting process?
Until and unless we receive our special use permit for the new venue, we will not be taking any event bookings.
Even though you aren’t accepting bookings for the new venue is there a way to hold our date for if/when you do start accepting bookings?
Yes! If you would like to hold a date for if/when we get our permit for the new venue, we will still be following our usual booking process where clients can hold a date starting on the first of the month of the month one year before their event. For example, if you want to hold April 22nd 2022, you could hold that date starting April 1, 2021. Date holds will be made first come first served and will be free of charge.
If/when we receive our special use permit, all clients who have held a date for the new venue will then transition into our regular booking process, with a proposal questionnaire, draft event proposal, consultation call and event retainer.
What will happen if you do not receive your Special Use Permit?
Clients who have held a date for the new venue will be immediately informed of all permit updates. If we do not receive our permit, clients will need to look for another venue.
What will happen if you do receive all of your permits but there are delays in construction and the new venue is not ready in time for my event?
In that case, your event would be held in our current venue space. We will only be booking events for the new venue that could be held in the current venue space if construction is delayed. And the difference in price between the new venue and the old venue would be refunded to you.
What is the pricing for the new venue?
Here’s a link to our price list for the new venue. All of that pricing is of course pending permit approval, but for clients who are holding a date, these are the prices they can use to budget for if/when we are approved.
Is there a discount for clients who book the new venue pre-construction?
Yes! Clients who book before the new venue building construction begins will receive a 35% off the venue rental price. This discount cannot be combined with the booking date discount but can be combined with the Kama’aina and non-profit discounts. See our price list for more info on pricing and discounts.
What will the new venue look like?
While we do not know exactly what the new venue will look like, the finishes, and design will be modeled after our current space (cedar siding, ohia wood posts, vaulted ceilings, and a clear covered pergola over the deck space with cafe lighting). The “covered deck” space specifically in the new venue will be as close to an exact copy of the deck in our current venue as possible. We LOVE our current deck and believe it to be our venue’s best feature - its only flaw is that it needs to be bigger! So the new venue will solve that problem while keeping with the style and character that we are known for.
Will the new venue have a woodfired oven?
We don’t know yet, but probably not. There will be a “prep” kitchen for caterers to warm food and wash dishes, but the “outdoor kitchen” part of our current venue is not something we are planning to incorporate into the design of the new venue.
I like the current venue better, can I book that?
Once we have approval for the new venue, we will only be taking bookings for that space as we are hoping to transition away from using our home for events. But until the new venue space is complete, the current space will remain in use for events.
I already booked an event at the farm, will the new venue project affect my event?
It shouldn’t! We will not allow construction on any days where we already have events booked, so there will not be any construction noise interfering with your event. And as you can see from the drone photo, the proposed venue location is not in the sight line of the current venue, the lawns or ceremony spaces of the current venue. The only areas that may be somewhat unsightly during construction will be the driveway coming in and the construction site itself (which is mostly blocked by trees from the current event space). All that said, if my predictions are overly optimistic and your event is disrupted by the new venue construction, we will do everything we can to make it right, including discounting your venue rental.
What will the landscaping, ceremony areas and bonfire pit be like in the new venue?
We don’t know yet! That depends so much on how big of a “pad” (the leveled out portion of ground where the building will be) we make for the new venue. There are some REALLY beautiful trees that we want to preserve when we are doing the grading of the slope, so it’s too soon to know what the footprint of the lawns will be like and how much extra space we will have. However, until we have all of that landscaping done, the current lawns, bonfire pit and ceremony site will be available as they will be unaffected by the construction and are just a short walk from the new site.
Will we still have access to the goats and sheep at the new venue?
Of course! They love treats and will come pretty much anywhere if there are people there who might feed them. Their pasture will go right up to the pad for the new venue so that guests can pet and feed them as usual.
