Posted on: Thursday, October 28, 2004
Savio may buy Poamoho, offer lots to residents
By Will Hoover
Advertiser North Shore Bureau
Residents of Poamoho Camp have been told that Honolulu developer Peter Savio has plans to buy the camp lands for around $3 million by the end of the year and then sell the property to them.
Advertiser library photo "I'd buy my house if I could, but I don't know how much it would cost."
How much it would cost and how the Savio plan would be implemented remain unclear, said Tracy Takano with Local 142 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents residents living in 63 old-style plantation homes on 34 acres at the camp.
"There are still a lot of moving pieces," said Takano. "There are many things that need to come together. Savio has to close on this deal first."
Takano said the Savio buyout has been on the drawing board for several months, along with other options. He said Savio has said he wants to close the deal by the end of this year.
"The residents are happy," he said. "I mean it's another step forward. But it really depends on what the price works out to be for them."
The union, the residents, Savio and the city have to sit down and iron out the details before it can be determined when or even if residents will be able to afford their homes under the deal, he said.
Takano said the initial concern of the union and the residents was to keep bulldozers from tearing down the homes after Del Monte issued notices in March that Poamoho Camp residents had to be out of their homes by June 30.
Around 300 former and current Del Monte pineapple workers living at the camp were told they'd have to move because the company would not be renewing its 2007 lease on the land owned by the Galbraith Estate.
City and state officials immediately pledged their support and, through the efforts of many, the June evictions were delayed.
Donovan Dela Cruz, who represents the Honolulu City Council's District 2, said he still favors a plan by which the city would help the camp residents form a cooperative to purchase the land collectively, with major financial assistance from the city.
Dela Cruz said his concern is that Savio's plan "doesn't fit in with either the Central O'ahu or the North Shore Sustainable Communities Plan."
Tungpalan said he just hopes that the three families that live in his two-bedroom Poamoho Camp home will somehow be able to keep a familiar roof over their heads.
Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
"Mr. Savio came over last Friday afternoon and talked to us," Artemio Tungpalan, 62, said yesterday as he tended to the squash patch next to the home he has lived in for the past 34 years.
Streets in Poamoho — this is Nui Street — are quiet enough for kids to play in. Residents of the 63 plantation-style homes hope they can work out a deal to buy their houses if the village is sold to Peter Savio.
