Editorial

How to End the Great Kihei Give-away

On its face, it seems like a good idea.

Private landowners maintain state-owned ceded land that the public can use for a park. In return for their trouble of landscaping and providing liability insurance for the state, the landowners are able to expand and beautify lands that become in effect their grounds. All this, of course, adds immeasurably to the value of their real property.

In this idealized deal, the state gets the benefit of a public park with none of the associated costs. The public beneficiaries of the ceded lands trust see the trust income diminished when state lands are rented at drastically discounted rates, but one can argue that the loss is more than offset by the intangible gain of a lovely linear park that spans practically the entire Kihei coast.

The Reality

It hasn’t worked out that way. In reality, the landowners have been getting a free ride. The total current annual rent derived from the private landowners’ use of just over five acres of prime, urban-zoned, state-owned waterfront land comes to a piddling $6,192.

The dream of a linear public park in Kihei has never materialized; the requirement that the landowners notify the public, through clear signage, of the public’s right to enjoy the land is not being met by any of the current permit holders today.

It gets worse: Anyone searching through state records for the requisite certificates of insurance, needed to shield the state from damage claims arising from the use of the privately maintained but publicly owned parcels, will be hard-pressed to find them. That’s not to say they don’t exist – the state has far too many hidey-holes to make such absolute statements. It is to say that they do not appear in the permit files available for public review.

Not only is the ceded lands trust suffering from the virtual giveaway of public property; so, too, are county tax rolls. Although for all intents and purposes the landscaped areas are the exclusive dominion of the owners and residents of the various condominiums, apartment, and time-share-owned buildings, the tax assessments treat them as though they were undeveloped land.

Squatters

Can this story get worse?

Yes. The five or so acres that are landscaped under state permit represent not even half of the total acreage of state land that has been effectively converted to private gardens. At least as much land occupied with the state’s permission has been landscaped without state permission. And, since state permission is a prerequisite of any county variance to landscape within the shoreline setback area (a distance roughly 40 feet from the high-water mark), one can only assume that county variances for landscaping in the setback area are also non-existent.

In other words, the state is closing its eyes to the presence of squatters on state land – people who have no more right (and a good deal less) to occupy the public’s property than did the Native Hawaiians at O’ahu’s Makapu’u Beach. The fact that they are possessed of property that today is selling for somewhere in the area of two million dollars an acre makes their illegal occupation of state land all the more outrageous.

A Blind Eye

In the summer of 1993, all of the permitted areas were inspected by personnel with the state Division of Land Management. Despite the utter lack of signs indicating the public’s right to use the areas under permit, all of the permittees were deemed to be in compliance with permit conditions.

What is going on here? The state has all but given away some of its best land to people who do not even call Hawai’i home. (Practically all of the most expensive real estate in Kihei is owned by people whose primary residence is elsewhere – people who spend a few weeks or, at most, months, in Hawai’i each year, as attest the many cars, shrouded against the salt air, that sit in the condo parking lots, awaiting the annual migration of the snowbirds.)

Why do these people deserve special favors?

So far as we can tell, they do not – and the favors must end.

The state is in the process now of converting the month-to-month permits given to these landowners to longer-term occupancy rights. Before these conversions are approved, the Board of Land and Natural Resources must be pressed to give them far more than its customary cursory scrutiny. (Already, a contested case hearing has been requested by Native Hawaiian groups on several long-term easements approved by the Land Board in April. The groups, Keauhou O Honua’a, Inc., and Hui Alanui O Makena, had not received a response to their request as Environment Hawai’i went to press.)

The state Division of Land Management has often complained that it lacks the needed resources to manage public lands in responsible fashion. If this is the case, then perhaps the door is open to civic groups, native Hawaiians, or other beneficiaries of the ceded lands trust to step forward and volunteer to manage this prime acreage on behalf of the state. Obviously, the occupants cannot be trusted to abide by the permit conditions established by the state. Someone needs to be ensuring compliance, and if the state cannot do this, then let it give the job to others who have the will and the ability to do this.

There is ample precedent for this. Much as the state Department of Transportation has established its “Adopt-a-Highway” programs, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources could set up an “Adopt-a-Beach Reserve” program. Participants would ensure that the occupants of state land complied with the conditions of their permits, leases, or easements. In return, they would get the same kind of favorable publicity that the “Adopt-a-Highway” groups receive, in addition to the satisfaction of knowing that they were making public lands accessible to and enjoyable by all of their rightful owners.

In the meantime, we would highly recommend the lovely grounds of the Kihei Surfside as the site for your next Maui picnic. So long as you stay north of the barbecue area, you’ll not be trespassing. Access is a short walk from the Kihei boat harbor, where plenty of public parking is available. (Ignore the trail sign when you hit the grass…)

Volume 5, Number 1 July 1994