Kaimuki rejects city plan

By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer

A group of residents and business owners are not happy with a city proposal presented yesterday to ease parking woes by changing one of two municipal parking lots in the area to an attended lot.

Rae Gee, with the city Department of Transportation Services, told about 30 people in attendance that the city is proposing to spend about $512,000 to make improvements to the larger parking lot between 11th and 12th avenues and Wai'alae and Harding avenues, which would be converted from metered parking to attendant parking. It also would be resurfaced and restriped, have larger medians, new sidewalks and better lighting.

The smaller lot between 12th and Koko Head avenues would remain metered.

The Kaimuki business district was hurt in the 1960s when the expanded H-1 Freeway allowed people to bypass Wai'alae Avenue. Inadequate parking has been a problem ever since.

The city's original plan that was approved by the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board last year would have created attended parking in the lower portions of both lots and left meters in the upper areas near Harding Avenue.

Gee said that plan was changed because it was too expensive.

D.J. Colbert, owner of Prosperity Corner on 12th Avenue, said the community agreed on changing both lots, not just one, and this plan will not work because customers will go straight to the metered lot where they can enter and exit on their own. She predicted the parking situation will only get worse.

"If only one lot is attendant parking, there will be gridlock," Colbert said. "We can't do one without the other."

Neighborhood Board member Joe Holtz asked how much more it would cost to do the original plan, and when the alternative plan is scheduled to be built.

"The board approved the plan that was provided, and now that is changed," Holtz said. "Give us info we need to say if we can support this."

Gee said she did not have specific cost or time estimates, but will return to the department and report that the community is not happy with the new plan and would like more information. She said another meeting with the department director is possible before the plan is finalized.

In 2003, the city hired Urban Works to develop both short- and long-term plans to alleviate parking problems in the busy shopping area. The study looked into several possibilities for increasing parking including parking garages, re-striping the municipal lots and creating a valet service, but not ways to pay for them.

The city paid $75,000 for the master plan, which was released last September and is available at www.co.honolulu.hi.us/dts/kaimuki_business.htm.

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