Posted on: Monday, April 5, 2004

EDITORIAL
Protect open space on the North Shore

In the late 1980s, developer Obayashi Corp. unveiled a plan for an attractive "country living" housing project on the bluffs overlooking Sunset Beach. The slickly touted Lihi Lani project was to come with all sorts of amenities, including a YMCA site, hiking trails, stables and campgrounds.

And the City Council voted 5-4 in 1995 to approve Obayashi's application to rezone 765 acres from its 1,230- acre spread to build some 300 one- to three-acre lots, plus 50 affordable homes.

Regrettably, the majority did not concur with our assertion that, though the Lihi Lani project was appealing, it was in the wrong place. At the time, we believed strongly in protecting open space along the spectacular and ecologically fragile North Shore. And we still do.

The Save Sunset Beach coalition and Life of the Land sued to block the Lihi Lani project. However, a state judge rejected their challenge in 1998, and last year the Hawai'i Supreme Court agreed that the City Council properly applied the law.

But the community opposition and legal wrangling had taken its toll. The Lihi Lani's death was all but confirmed when Obayashi put the property up for sale in the late 1990s for $12 million.

Today, those same community groups that sought to block the Lihi Lani development have their own plans for the land. As the "Trust for Public Land," the group is working hard to raise the $12 million to ensure "the permanent protection of the property's cultural sites, scenic view-plane and natural resources for future generations."

Under the trust's plans, the Pupukea-Paumalu project would remain largely open space, with added features, including the expansion of Sunset Beach Community Park and Girl Scout and Boy Scout camps, and would offer outdoor education and activities, native plant restoration and forestry projects.

The project has a remarkably broad base of support that includes the Hawai'i Tourism Authority, the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, Boy Scouts of America, the U.S. Army and several Hawaiian civic clubs.

"Besides offering an opportunity to develop a buffer against future encroachment, the Army also believes that the Pupukea-Paumalu project provides an excellent opportunity for cooperation between the Army and interested community groups," wrote Col. Floyd A. Quintana, Army director of public works.

So far, we're told, Hawai'i's congressional delegation is working on finding $6 million for the acquisition. But that federal money requires local matching support. A bill to appropriate $3 million is working its way through the state Legislature, and Mayor Jeremy Harris had budgeted $3 million for the preserve.

What's needed now is for the City Council and Gov. Linda Lingle to get behind this innovative acquisition. After all, what a tragedy it would be if the bluffs above Sunset Beach looked like Anysubdivison, USA.