Posted on: Wednesday, October 24, 2001

Lunalilo Home Road to get landscaping

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau

HAWAI'I KAI — The city has a plan to use trees and other traffic-calming measures to beautify Lunalilo Home Road, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the community.

The homes here are more than 30 years old — plenty of time to grow substantial trees — but there are few on this major thoroughfare into Hawai'i Kai on the Koko Head end of the community.

The city's plan was laid out recently in an islandwide vision meeting.

Other projects included in the vision list are the East Honolulu police station on Keahole Street, protection of the Ka Iwi coastline, and an open-space and recreational area.

The traffic-calming measures are for the intersection of Lunalilo Home Road and Wainiha Street, said Brandon Yamamoto, aide to City Councilman John Henry Felix.

The council set aside $50,000 in the 2000-01 budget.

Yamamoto said he did not know when the city plans to start work on the traffic-calming measures.

The concept of greening Lunalilo Home Road fits with Mayor Jeremy Harris' plan to green O'ahu.

"I think it's a good idea," said Charlie Rodgers, Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board chairman, referring to the tree-planting proposal. "Anything that would beautify the area is good."

Trees raise the value of a neighborhood, make it cooler and improve the look of a community, said Mary Steiner, Outdoor Circle chief executive officer.

"Lunalilo Home Road looks hot and dry," Steiner said. "The street could use more trees.

"But you need to irrigate them."

The city is launching a similar project in Kahala along Hunakai Street.

In that project, also a community vision proposal, the city plans to plant white shower trees and dark-leafed naio papa plants along a new median strip that will narrow the roadway from Pueo to Pahoa streets.

The Hunakai beautification, which is expected to cost about $800,000, is supposed to go out to bid next month and is part of a vision project first talked about three years ago.

"There's a whole lot of psychological studying going on on the value of trees," Steiner said. "People have been known to get better faster in rooms that have views with trees."

City administration officials could not be reached for further details on the Lunalilo Home Road project.