EDITORIAL
Ka'iwi settlement a good deal for all
While the process was far from pretty, the end result of a land battle that lasted more than a decade has worked out well for all the players, including landowner Kamehameha Schools, the city and the public.
The final result illustrates what a powerful tool compromise can be, compared with confrontation.
This particular land battle involves a 32-acre chunk of land roughly opposite Sandy Beach on Oahu's east coast. In 1989, following a high-profile and emotional struggle that pitched preservationists and others against Kamehameha Schools (then Bishop Estate), the City Council "down-zoned" the parcel, which at that point was scheduled for residential development. The move was in response to a perceived popular groundswell of sentiment against development along the coastline that became known as the "Save Sandy Beach" movement.
Kamehameha Schools eventually sued, arguing that the downzoning was an unconstitutional "taking" of its property rights. At least one court ruled in favor of the estate and its developers.
A settlement of that lawsuit could have cost the city as much as $120 million. Instead, the city and Kamehameha Schools reached an agreement that eventually could be worth around $60 million to $70 million to the huge land-holding estate. The trust gets $5.4 million in cash, and the proceeds from the sale of several city-owned parcels of land in Manana, near Pearl City.
The net effect of this deal is for the city to give up control of several industrial parcels in the heart of urban Honolulu for undisputed control of the last remaining piece of a 600-acre swath of open space between Hanauma Bay and Makapu'u called the Ka'iwi shoreline.
It's a good deal. Open space, particularly open space along the ocean, is at a precious premium on O'ahu. This undeveloped stretch of land gives visitors and residents alike a taste of what things were like before we became so deeply urbanized.
It's a good bet that a spirit of compromise and negotiation could have reached the same or similar agreement years ago, without the unnecessary legal and emotional expense we have endured.
Still, it is a good settlement and model for the next such struggle that emerges.
