New Ha'iku trail plan in works

By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer

With the expected public opening of the Ha'iku Stairs stalled after the failure of the city and the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to reach an agreement on short-term public access, the city now plans an alternate route to reach the trail and hopes to have it open by the end of September.

Volunteers recently did maintenance work on the Ha'iku Stairs. The city is hoping to resolve parking and access issues so the trail can be reopened at the end of this month. Cheryl Goody

For at least five years, officials have been seeking to restore public access to the popular attraction, and in July the city reported that the trail would reopen any time.

But despite spending $875,000 to repair the stairs and reaching an access agreement with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which owns the 140-acre section of Ha'iku Valley floor below the city-owned stairs, the route remains closed until the parties can reach an agreement on how to allow public access.

Hawaiian Home Lands officials do not want hikers parking cars on the former Coast Guard station property and have installed gates to block access.

Meanwhile, trespassers have been cutting through yards and climbing fences to avoid security guards and get to the stairway, and area residents are fed up.

George Tamashiro, with the city Department of Design and Construction, said the city is preparing a pathway through the Hope Chapel Kane'ohe site.

Tamashiro said the city will soon install a gate at the edge of Hope Chapel's property, off Po'okela Street, between Likelike Highway and H-3 Freeway. Hikers would then follow a path along an old H-3 access road to reach the base of the stairs without disturbing residential neighborhoods.

The city will also provide some type of security for Hope Chapel, Tamashiro said.

John M. Flanigan, with the Friends of Haiku Stairs, a nonprofit group that has spearheaded the effort to keep the trail open, was told that it will be at least a month before the Hope Chapel entry is completed.

"Right now there is no access to the valley," Flanigan said. "Access through Hope Chapel was not a high priority. It is a long way off, but there is no place else to go through.

"A better place for access would be (Ha'iku) road up through the neighborhood, but there were a lot of neighbors' complaints up there. The illegal trespassers have made themselves pretty unwelcome."

Hope Chapel assistant pastor Rob McWilliams would not comment on the project but said the church does not want people coming there to reach the trail before the gate is ready.

"We don't want to be inundated with people when there is nothing to come up here to see or a way to go up to the stairs," McWilliams said. "It is not ready."

Flanigan, who went up the trail Aug. 17 with volunteers to do maintenance work, said details on things such as parking need to be worked out. Parking could be a problem, especially on Sundays when services are held.

"The work on the stairs has been completed, but there is still no access," Flanigan said. "One is an engineering problem, the other is a legal problem. Engineering problems are a lot easier to solve."

Mike McElroy, land management administrator with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, said his agency is working on a land swap with the city for property that would allow for development of more residential homesteads on O'ahu, where many Native Hawaiians would prefer to live. Then the city can do as it pleases.

"We offered the city a license for temporary access. However, when they looked at the interior roads, they felt there was a considerable amount of work to do," McElroy said. "They are reluctant to take on that construction work without having a long-term occupancy agreement."

McElroy said the city estimated it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair roads and open up the area for hikers to park cars.

"We had indicated that in the long term the city will only get to the valley floor though a land exchange," McElroy said.

Hawaiian Home Lands is about to complete an appraisal of the property, which McElroy said is a first step toward completing a land exchange.

"We had suggested the city look at other places to provide parking," he said. "It seems like the Hope Chapel solution would be a good solution for them and the public as a whole."

The Ha'iku stairs were built by the Navy in 1942 to reach equipment atop the Ko'olau mountain range. The property later became a Coast Guard station and was relinquished to the state in 1999, then turned over to the city in 2000.

The stairs were closed in 1987 after vandals removed several sections, rendering the route unsafe.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands acquired the property on the valley floor leading to the stairs in 1999, and the city has been seeking a 20-year lease for pedestrian access.

If the city can acquire the property below the stairs, it plans to create a nature preserve and to convert some of the old government buildings into a trail center.

Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.