By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau
During the next week, while lawyers and the court wrestle with a lawsuit seeking to bar plans to raise the height of a house on the eastern slope of Diamond Head to 25 feet, any construction at the site will not affect the building’s height.
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| Clark Hatch, president of the East Diamond Head Association, opposes work being done on the house behind him because the owners want to increase the building’s height to 25 feet — 10 feet more than neighbors are willing to accept.
Advertiser library photo • Feb. 11, 2001 |
Plans call for the home on Poka Street to reach the maximum height allowed by city building codes when it’s complete. But that is 10 feet taller than the surrounding homes, and 10 feet more than many homeowners had believed to be the height limit in their community.
Last month, residents and the East Diamond Head Association filed a lawsuit in Circuit Court, attempting to halt construction on the Poka Street house.
But the homeowners, Dawn Kishi, Aaron Kasuo Nada and Loretta Goo Kishi, say that whatever height restrictions had applied to the property have long since expired, and note that city authorities have already approved their building plans.
"We’re going forward, since (the neighbors) filed the action," Dawn Kishi said. "This is the beginning of the entire battle that will be fought. I am doing nothing wrong."
Many of the homes along Poka Street overlook the Pacific Ocean and the Black Point community. Many of the residents are the same ones who first moved in when the homes were built in the late 1950s — before Hawai‘i was a state. The homes were subject to a 15-foot height restriction. For the residents of Poka Street, however, those restrictions lapsed in 1972.
Among those properties with lapsed restrictions was the home that Kishi recently purchased.
Fred Paul Benco, the attorney representing the association, said the next hearing on the case is Tuesday. At that time, the court will decide if there is enough evidence to issue an injunction or grant the homeowners clearance to go ahead with construction.
"It’s a very interesting case," Benco said. "It goes back to pre-statehood days. The restrictions show how important the views of Diamond Head are."
Diamond Head itself has been protected since 1965, when it became a state monument. Three years later, it was declared a national natural landmark.
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