Furor grows over public access to beaches

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Kat Brady wants to know where the beach paths have gone on O'ahu's North Shore.

Residents along Kamani Kai Place in Kailua want people to know that their street is not a public path to get to Kailua Beach. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

To Brady, the remaining path doesn't look like much of an invitation to share in the Island philosophy that Hawai'i's beaches are open to everyone.

"It's very intimidating," said Brady, assistant executive director for the environmental group Life of the Land. "It's not clear at all that there is a path to the beach."

Across the islands, environmentalists, surfers and fishermen say Hawai'i's beaches are getting harder to reach, despite laws and tradition assuring the people that access to the sea cannot be denied.

Pathways along private land that used to be accessible to the public are disappearing as homeowners grow weary of trash, noise and traffic on their property. Or they post "No Trespassing" signs that make it appear that the nearby public paths are off limits. Hotels and landowners — and even county parks — are prohibiting parking, which indirectly cuts off access to beaches.

"There are many de facto ways of getting a private beach in an area that is actually supposed to allow public access," said Lucienne de Naie, a board member of the nonprofit group Maui Tomorrow.

No one keeps track of the number of private paths across the Islands, but the consensus is that they have steadily disappeared since the 1970s.

"Those have always been kind of in no-man's land," said deputy fire chief John Clark, the author of the "Beaches of Hawai'i" series. "Those numbers definitely have decreased."

"Because of all of the population pressure," Clark said, "the public is coming down to places like Kailua, where these small, unmarked rights of way were formerly used only by families and neighborhood kids. When the public comes in, that means everything that the public brings with it — cars, dogs, traffic problems, rubbish, drinking, drugs. Homeowners are responding by putting up gates."

Public access a mixed bag

The beach access on Ka'apuni Street in Kailua has cement posts that narrow the opening to the footpath. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

With beach parks and undeveloped shoreline areas, the result will be a total of 98 public rights of way, marked by distinct blue-and-white county signs.

Honolulu requires a beach path every half-mile in rural areas; every quarter-mile for the more popular beaches.

Still, the city continues to get complaints in places such as the north end of Kailua Bay, where fences and signs around new homes are deterring access on private paths that the public has been using for decades..

"Every street now has a sign that says 'no beach access,'" said Josh Seymour, who teaches windsurfing, kite surfing and surfing at Kailua Beach. "They can't do that. It's a public beach. Everyone's supposed to have an equal right to get there."

Even in cases that undergo intense scrutiny from the public and government officials, the fight over access can drag along for years.

City Councilman Jon Yoshimura, accompaying a locksmith, last year got into a shouting match with a Portlock property owner who put up a gated fence across a beach path. The dispute had been going on for much of the 1990s and included a legal fight between neighbors that went all the way to the state Supreme Court.

The city finally moved to condemn the 6-foot-wide path last year to ensure access.

Earlier this year, former Beatle George Harrison won a fight with his East Maui neighbors to keep the public off a path that runs across his 63-acre estate. Harrison's dispute had also stretched on for years.

Hurdles to access proliferate

"Crazy parties in the middle of the night are part of the frustration of beachfront owners," said Jim Mee, a Honolulu lawyer who specializes in real property. "They can get weird people hanging around or trying to do this or that. They call the police, who break up the party. Then the kids just move down to the next beach."

David W. Doyle lives in a $1 million home along Portlock's Hanapepe Loop, across the street from a public beach path and in between two beach parks. He welcomes anyone who wants to get to Hawai'i's beaches. "It's a wonderful idea," he said.

He also believes people need to pick up their trash and be respectful of the neighborhoods they visit.

Doyle has been awakened at 3 a.m. by people drinking and carousing. He has seen burglars break into cars at midday. And every weekend he can expect two or three car alarms to go off.

"By the time the cops get here, it's too late," Doyle said.

Doyle takes a walk every morning and finds beer bottles in the gutters and cigarette butts and food wrappers scattered about.

"I've seen a lot of underwear. I'm serious," Doyle said. "It makes you wonder sometimes what's been going on. ... It's as if they think that somebody's going to pick up after them, which, in fact, I do. But it's disgusting."

Attorneys, advocates join fray

Attorney Jim Bickerton believes late-night parties are no reason to close parking lots and cut off the beaches.

"We have a constitutional right to use the beaches and parks," he said. "Just because it's humbug to have a park open or they don't want to be bothered policing it is no reason it shouldn't be open to the people. Why should law-abiding people be denied access?"

Bickerton has filed a class-action lawsuit against the city on behalf of tourists who have been charged $3 to get into Hanauma Bay, arguing in part that Hawai'i's beaches are supposed to be free to everyone.

"There's always been a problem with private owners wanting the beach to themselves," Bickerton said. "The government always said 'no.' Now that philosophy seems to have disappeared when the government itself can make a little money off of the beaches."

Maui is in the middle of what Daniel Grantham calls a "beach rush," fueled by millionaires from out of state.

The effects leave him depressed whenever he walks the Maui coastline.

"All I see are these mansions going up with these huge walls," said Grantham, co-chairman of the Sierra Club Maui Group. "They're so big you can't even see the ocean anymore, let alone get access. They're in a rush to get the last remaining chunk of beach they can buy."

One massive estate in Makena used thorn bushes to block the only path, forcing people to climb over slippery boulders to get to the beach.

"That was just one of the more egregious ones," Grantham said. "It's bad. It's really bad."

De Naie's group has been trying for years to get a volunteer to document all of the beachfront resorts on Maui that have put up signs making the beaches appear to be off limits.

The few times that Maui Tomorrow has researched complaints, it's discovered that the hotels are forbidden from denying beach parking.

"If there isn't a citizen's group watchdogging this or complaining, it's laissez-faire," she said. "There's nobody home at the enforcement desk."

For now, Brady is still trying to figure out what happened to the beach path that disappeared on the North Shore. And she worries as foliage continues to creep into the only path that remains.

"That one access is all we have right now," she said, "and we'll have to work to preserve that."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.