Plantation residents in the mood to party

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Residents of a former Del Monte pineapple camp escaped eviction from their homes last week and held an all-day party yesterday to celebrate.

"All day, and probably well into the night," Tracy Takano, a representative of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said yesterday afternoon of the party at Poamoho Camp near Wahiawa.

The union and Local 142 represent the pineapple workers.

"The people are really happy," he said. "It was really nice they got to celebrate rather than face down bulldozers."

A number of public officials who also helped the residents were thanked at the party, and local developer Peter Savio was a guest of honor.

Until Savio stepped in, some of the 300 residents feared they would end up among O'ahu's homeless population.

In January, Del Monte, which built the camp for plantation workers, announced that it would not renew its lease on 2,200 acres of land it rented from the George Galbraith trust. Most of the acreage is planted in pineapple.

According to the terms of the lease, Del Monte had to return the property to Galbraith in the same condition it had been before the camp was built — the houses would have to be razed.

In February, Del Monte gave residents, some of whom had lived in the camp and worked the pineapple fields for more than 50 years, notice that they were to leave in 120 days.

The residents pay between $266 and $666 rent per month. Many are retired and some are in their 80s. If they were forced to leave the 1930s style plantation housing, many feared they would be homeless.

In early June, with the eviction deadline just days away, Savio stepped in and got the lease for the camp extended.

He is working with Galbraith to purchase 90 acres of the property under and around the camp, and to sell the camp back to the residents at a price he expects will be similar to the rent they are paying now.

Savio's profit, Takano said, will be 5 percent.

Savio had planned to sell the homes back individually to each member, but Takano said the lots turned out to be too small to subdivide.

To get around that problem, he said, the residents' Poamoho Camp Community Association hopes to buy the homes from Savio as a cooperative.

Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.