The Kona Coast State Park has been more than two decades in the making — and, despite expenditures by the state of more than $30 million for land acquisition alone, it may be decades more before visitors to the park have such basic amenities as fresh drinking water, flush toilets, and improved roads to the park’s southern and northern termini.
The park, described for years as a wilderness park and wildlife sanctuary, may be forgiven if it lacks a full complement of modern conveniences. Still, the state has not been able to make even the minimal improvements it had hoped to put in place at Mahai`ula, at the park’s southern end. Mahai`ula was acquired (at a cost of $23 million) not only to round out the state’s holdings along the coast and to be the southern terminus of the coastal trail running the park’s length, but to provide for public use one of the loveliest beaches in the state.
At the northern end of the park, meanwhile, the public’s access to Kua Bay has been assured with the state’s acquisition of privately owned land. But no funds are available for maintenance or a caretaker; not surprisingly, the land for which the state paid so dearly ($7 million for 9 coastal acres) is being trashed.
The state has run up against two obstacles to long-range planning for the coastal park. The first is Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, which owns 353 acres of coastal land at Makalawena, just north of Mahai`ula. Since 1965, Bishop Estate has rejected all of the several state’s efforts to obtain any part of the land. One of the most coveted features at Makalawena, from the state’s perspective, is a large pond called Opaeula, inland from the beach, which supports endangered waterbirds.
The second obstacle is the state’s straitened financial condition. According to Ralston Nagata, administrator of the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of State Parks, $130,000 for the planning and design of road improvements at Mahai`ula was No. 9 on his list of priorities for capital improvement projects in the most recent budget-making process. When the departmental budget was submitted to the administration, Mahai`ula was ranked 65th out of 155 capital projects. The project dropped out of the picture altogether in the governor’s budget presented to the Legislature, Nagata said.
Short Trail, Long History
For years, the park has been known as the Seven-Mile park, though in fact, the planned park will extend along not quite five miles of the Kona Coast. The distance spans the coastal frontage of four major ahupua`a, or Hawaiian land divisions: from south to north, they are Mahai`ula, Makalawena, Awake`e, and Manini`owali. Land at Mahai`ula was purchased, as was the land at Kua Bay, along the coast of the Manini`owali ahupua`a. Land at Awake`e was acquired in a trade with a private developer; the state received some 337 acres of coastal land in return for which it gave the developer about 380 acres inland of the coast in Manini`owali. The coastal area at Makalawena is the only land in the proposed park that remains today in private hands. In the 1980s, Bishop Estate, the owner, had sought zoning changes to allow development of a resort at Makalawena; now, however, any plans for urbanized use of Makalawena would seem remote.
Planning for the park can be traced back to the early 1970s. In 1972, the state Department of Planning and Economic Development proposed having a system of coastal trails in the West Hawai`i area. “No land in the state of Hawai`i is so much in demand, so subject to inflated values, and so critical to the recreational needs of Hawai`i’s citizens, as the shoreline,” wrote the authors of DPED’s Hawai`i Tourism Impact Plan for West Hawai`i in 1972. “The shoreline trail concept … is an appropriate approach to shoreline land use in this situation. Connecting a number of state-owned parcels by a … walkway along the shore would provide unrestrained public access to the shoreline.” The study suggested that a demonstration trail be established from Kailua-Kona to Ke`ahole. At points along the way, “service nodules” would provide users of the walkway with facilities for camping, picnicking, parking, and concessions for fishing and boating supplies.
The 1972 discussion of the coastal trail project ended with an appeal for quick action: “Action to implement the shoreline trail from Kailua to Ke`ahole should be taken as soon as possible. Presently the area is undeveloped but plans are being made which may conflict with the trail. The trail must also be coordinated with other efforts to protect shoreline and historical resources in the area. There is still time to develop the federal, state, county, and private coordination required for implementation. But the time for this is running short” (Hawai`i Tourism Impact Plan, page 75).
Na Ala Hele
In March 1973, the DLNR published a study, Na Ala Hele (Trails for Walking), which proposed developing a statewide administration system for hiking trails “when such trails would involve various public and private jurisdictions.” As a demonstration of the idea, it refined the idea, proposed in the earlier DPED study, of a shoreline trail in West Hawai`i.
As envisioned in 1973, the Ala Kahakai, or trail by the sea, would consist of 50 miles of trail, providing access to 35 miles of shoreline. It would run from the old Kona airport, at Kailua-Kona, north to Kawaihae. At the time, the state was planning to develop state parks at Kiholo Bay and at Hapuna; the National Park Service’s acquisition of land at Kaloko-Honokohau was not yet proposed, much less accomplished; and the Mauna Kea Beach resort and Kona Village were the only visitor accommodations along the distance.
Over the years, the state has continued to keep alive the idea of developing state parks at Hapuna and Kiholo, even as the private inholdings in these two areas have become more and more extravagant and intrusive. In the case of plans for the park at Hapuna, however, there’s no pretext of keeping the coast in anything like a wilderness state. Plans unveiled for that area have called for intensive recreational use, including a golf course.
Plans for a state park at Kiholo Bay appear to be progressing more slowly than those for the Hapuna park. As recently as 1993, the Nature Conservancy of Hawai`i delivered to the state a report on the biology of the Kiholo area. In January 1993, the Division of State Parks announced, in a comment on a Conservation District Use Permit for the area, that it was “now preparing a park master plan for the Kiholo Bay area, the coastal lands makai of Queen Ka`ahumanu Highway stretching from the Ka`upulehi-Pu`uwa`awa`a boundary northward to Anaeho`omalu Bay. This 4,500-acre or so coastal lava plain site is proposed for park status because of its high coastal wildland recreation value and also because all but about 100 acres are state-owned.” In counterpoint to the “wildland” character of the state holdings are the several extravagant, palatial houses built by owners of private land along the coast. Because the land lies in the Conservation District, the state itself, through the agency of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, has been the one to grant permission to build the houses.
No Straight Path
In the 1970s, as the Queen Ka`ahumanu Highway was built, owners of property along the coast undertook plans to develop it into resorts, and the resulting speculation caused land prices to spiral upward.
Looking just at the area now spanned by the Kona Coast State Park — that is, from Manini`owali south to Mahai`ula — several efforts were made, beginning in the 1970s, to set aside coastal areas for public use. One of the earliest involved the county of Hawai`i, which sought to acquire 9 acres of privately owned land at Kua Bay, along the Manini`owali coast, for use as a county park. The county needed to obtain use of the state’s land for access, however, and the state was reluctant to go along with the proposal. In a letter drafted (but not sent) to the county in May 1975, Land Board Chairman Christopher Cobb indicated that the state “was concerned with the price of lands which are being considered for purchase. At a cost of $1.5 million, a precedent will be set if the Kua lands that are landlocked and surrounded by state lands are acquired at such a price. Escalation of future land purchases along the coast would be inevitable, making future acquisitions prohibitive.” A secondary concern of Cobb’s was that the county park might be developed in a fashion inconsistent with the Ala Kahakai proposed by the state.
In 1991, the state paid nearly $7 million for the same land.
Early Offers
In 1974, the owner of the 40-acre inholding at Mahai`ula, George A. Magoon, offered to enter into an exchange of land with the state. While Magoon’s proposal allowed for him to keep 16 acres of coastal land surrounding his lodge and outbuildings, the state would have received some 23 acres at the southern end of the property. In exchange, Magoon would have received lava-covered, state-owned land immediately to the rear of his 16 coastal acres. From the records in state files, it is not clear what use Magoon intended for the state land; however, evidence in the Magoon probate records suggests might have wanted to quarry it.
For three years, the DLNR considered the offer. Finally, on February 25, 1977, the Land Board approved the exchange, with the precise acreage to be given to Magoon to be determined by appraisal. Less than a year later, the board rescinded its action as it approved a Conservation District Use Permit sought by a tour company that had a lease from Magoon to use, for commercial purpose, the same parcel of land that Magoon was offering to trade with the state.
In late 1981, Magoon sought to revive the exchange. According to state records, however, the state wanted to see the lease between Magoon and Hawai`i Untouched, the company operating on his property, terminated before proceeding with negotiations. At that point, the proposed land exchange appears to have died.
In February 1993, the state finally acquired the Magoon property, all 40 acres, for $23 million.
Close Call
Until 1990, the coastal lands of Awake`e were owned by private parties seeking to develop the land into a resort with a 600-room hotel, 900 condominium units, an 18-hole golf course with clubhouse, and a small commercial area. In 1989, the state negotiated an exchange of lands, providing for the state to take over the Awake`e parcel, in return for which the developer would take possession of some of the coastal lands at Kua Bay. With outcry from the Legislature as well as citizens and some state agencies, the deal fell through and negotiations began again.
In 1990, a new agreement was struck, calling for the developer to take title to some 388 acres of state land at Manini`owale (not including oceanfront land), with the state acquiring the developer’s 334 acres at Awake`e. Since that time, the developer, North Kona Development Group, has received all permits needed to build 900 to 1100 housing units, a golf course and clubhouse, tennis courts, and related facilities. According to the developer’s most recent report to the County of Hawai`i, “Groundbreaking is projected to take place during the first quarter of 1997.”
As a condition of the exchange, the developer is to build a road to the state park area along the coast. The road need not be built, however, until the developer begins work on the resort. As a result, the road to Kua Bay is barely passable. Facilities, such as toilets, running water, trash receptacles, and the like, are altogether absent. And, with no state personnel available to monitor use of the area, many of the significant historic sites of the ahupua`a have been looted by pot-hunters, souvenir gatherers, and vandals.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 5, Number 10 April 1995