Posted on: Thursday, September 2, 2004
Ma'ili effort stymied as safety risk worsens
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer
Two months after a grass-roots community effort was launched to eliminate a public safety hazard and revive a public park in Ma'ili, the campaign has come to a standstill and frustrated residents worry that someone could get hurt before the matter is resolved.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser According to neighborhood residents who want the 31-year-old structure demolished, the pavilion has become an unsavory hangout for drug users and unsupervised children.
But before the building can be torn down, volunteers and city officials alike are trying to sort out who legally owns the property. So far that hasn't been easy.
"Basically what's happening is nothing," said Lisa Valdez, a neighborhood volunteer who in early July was excited about the prospect of knocking down the pavilion and spiffing up the park.
Since then volunteers have done what they can to trim the high brush surrounding the building and clean out the rubbish, broken glass, tires and old car parts cluttering the area. Yellow police tape has been stretched around the pavilion, and organizers hope someone will donate a construction fence that they can place around it.
The late developer Ronald Hirahara, who built the Ma'ili subdivision in the 1960s, donated the 34,000-square-feet Ho'okele Park property to the Ho'okele Community Association around the time the pavilion was built in 1973. Although it never officially disbanded, the community association folded in the mid-1980s. The Honolulu city government has said it neither owns nor wants the Ho'okele property. The same goes for Hirahara's son, heir and namesake.
And although some would like the community association to be revitalized and take over the property, few original members remain, and so far only one has expressed interest in getting involved.
Until ownership can be established, demolition permits cannot be signed.
"I'm not giving up on Ho'okele Park," said Patty Teruya, a member of the Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board who helped organize the park cleanup.
"The city went to the corporation counsel to find and establish the proper owner of that property, and they haven't gotten back to us.
"Meanwhile, we're still working on it. We've got the volunteers there. We want to keep the kids out before someone gets hurt.
"And, if possible, we want to tear that building down and get the park up to par."
Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Meanwhile, the vandalized and rapidly deteriorating Ho'okele Park pavilion at 87-228 Ho'okele St. still stands — barely — and remains identifiable by its exposed nails, protruding reinforcing rods and huge, jagged holes that have been pounded through the concrete walls with hammers.
Until someone establishes ownership of the Ho'okele Park Pavilion in Ma'ili, the safety hazard cannot be demolished. When volunteers cleared brush in the area, they uncovered even more of a startling eyesore.
The irony is that the cleanup has left the pavilion more of a startling eyesore than it was when it was hidden behind tall grass.
