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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Lalea options being considered

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau

Lalea condominium landowners, Kamehameha Schools and developer Castle & Cooke Hawai'i are considering options on how to prevent further rockslides. Geologists have been called upon to inspect the rocky hillside. It is not known how long it will be before the 25 displaced families are allowed to return.

Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

HAWAI'I KAI — Of the 26 families warned to vacate their Lalea condominiums because of the potential for more rockslides, 25 have moved while the landowners, Kamehameha Schools, and developer, Castle & Cooke Hawai'i, decide how best to make the hillside safer.

Geologists hired by Kamehameha Schools and Castle & Cooke last week scoured the rocky hillside along the entire stretch of Lalea in search of rocks with visible cracks, overhanging rocks, rocks that lacked a foundation and rocks on steep slopes, said Neil Hannahs, director of Kamehameha Schools' land assets division.

Yesterday, bright orange marks denoted problem areas, and geologists were trying to determine the best method for shoring up the hillside, Hannahs said.

The options being considered include injecting an expansion grout into the cracked boulders and then trying to remove them, installing more cables to hold the rocks in place, or building concrete ledges or retaining walls.

H

annahs did not know when the homeowners will be allowed to return to their homes, but said in an effort to expedite the work, contractors have been taken to the site in preparation for bidding.

"We'll know better this week when we get the plans and bids in," he said. "I feel terrible for the homeowners to be displaced at this time of year."

Both Castle & Cooke and Kamehameha Schools told residents to sign a year's lease in anticipation that the work would take less than a year, said Doug Carlson, spokesman for the developer.

Cost of the temporary housing is being paid by Castle & Cooke and Kamehameha Schools.

Twenty-five families have vacated their Lalea condominiums while landowners Kamehameha Schools and Castle & Cooke Hawai'i work with geologists on how best to prevent more rockslides. There is no timetable for their return.

Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

"We don't want to have to redo the lease in six months' time; we'd rather just pay off the leases if the work is done sooner," Carlson said.

Residents of two buildings in the Lalea condominiums were urged Dec. 6 to vacate their homes immediately. That meeting followed a Thanksgiving Day rockslide in which two boulders crashed down a hillside and struck two parked cars and broke a window at one of the buildings.

The two affected buildings are at 7130 and 7168 Hawai'i Kai Drive. Residents in Lalea's other buildings are not being asked to leave because the geologists have said the structures are not at risk.

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.