Tree planting in Kahala to start this summer

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer

KAHALA — Contractors will begin this summer planting trees and creating a median strip down Hunakai Street between Pueo and Pahoa streets, another step in the greening of Kahala begun three years ago.

This vision project, first planned in 1999, is intended to create a green buffer around Kahala and to slow traffic on the busy street. The community chose white shower trees and dark-leafed naio papa plants for the arid street.

The city has hired Shibata Contracting to do the work, said Lucinda Pyles, a Kahala Neighborhood Board member and a vision team champion for the project.

"It is exciting to have some things happening," Pyles said, referring to greening projects long talked about but only recently put out for bid with a contractor. "It's all falling into place, but it's been a slow project."

It began with getting city vision money to spruce up the area under the freeway in front of Kahala Mall, then it was appealing to businesses fronting Wai'alae Avenue to landscape and now the planting of the median strip will begin, she said.

Another project that hopefully will survive in the current 2002-03 city budget talks will be the repair of the defunct sprinkler system along the tree median on Kilauea Avenue, she said.

The tree project on Hunakai Street is expected to cost less than the $800,000 budgeted as the city has decided it doesn't need to move the 60-year old sewer pipes under the middle of the street.

Instead, root barriers will be placed over the pipes to prevent tree roots from eroding the integrity of the pipes, said John White, an aide to City Councilman Duke Bainum, who represents the area.

The four-lane Hunakai Street will be reduced to two 12-foot-wide lanes — wide enough for residents to back out of their driveways, a major concern for people who at first had opposed the project.

The area near Kahala Mall will remain four lanes.

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