Last year, Dan Lutkenhouse, founder of the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden north of Hilo, was thwarted in his attempts to get a Conservation District Use Permit to expand the garden to adjoining land. Now, he’s back again at the Department of Land and Natural Resources with another Conservation District Use Application for a part of the land he had proposed for the park expansion.
In addition, documents on file with the Hawai’i County Planning Department indicate that Lutkenhouse is intending to apply for county Special Management Area permits covering new and already existing structures at the garden. The improvements for which permits would be sought include a proposed rain shelter, a security fence along parts of the garden boundaries, and several already built structures that are described as being “related to a zoological garden and its use,” a 3,500-square foot fish pond, and three signs along the shoreline. While these improvements lie within the Conservation District, the state Office of Conservation and Environmental Affairs, the branch of the DLNR that oversees Conservation District uses, had no application on file for them at the time Environment Hawai’i went to press.
The State Application
The proposal to the OCEA this time is different in both form and content from the proposal Lutkenhouse eventually withdrew last year. (For more on this, see the [url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=806_0_32_0_C]March[/url] and [url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=1128_0_32_0_C]October[/url] 1992 editions of Environment Hawai’i.) This time, instead of the applicant being the garden, it is rather Lutkenhouse himself (as trustee for the Daniel J. Lutkenhouse Revocable Living Trust). And the proposed use is in no way connected with the botanical garden, the DLNR has been told. According to the new application, Lutkenhouse seeks permission merely to reforest land previously cultivated in sugar cane.
Here is how the project is described in the environmental assessment: “The applicant is proposing to reforest the Conservation District portion of his property that was previously used for the cultivation of sugar cane. The applicant intends to plant native and exotic species of trees and other plants within this area to create the forest canopy or cover, and to create an environment which would promote the return of the forest ecosystems to the area. The proposed reforestation or the growing of forest products is intended to create an additional watershed area in South Hilo. It is also intended to create a favorable habitat for mammal and bird species found in the forested areas of South Hilo….
“No commercial use is proposed for this area. Nor is the applicant intending to harvest the forest products. The applicant is merely proposing to provide an additional forested area at Onomea Bay;”
In a covering letter dated October 29, 1992, Sandra Pechter Schutte, the lawyer Lutkenhouse has hired to represent him in this application, states: “Mr. Lutkenhouse, the owner of the property; already has several hundred trees which he would like to plant on the property. We would, therefore, appreciate [the department’s] prompt action on this application.”
The area proposed for reforestation is part of a 21-acre parcel, about half of which lies within the Conservation District. In 1991, Lutkenhouse received a temporary variance from the DLNR allowing him to plant about 100 palm trees on the site in connection with the garden’s nursery operations. Lutkenhouse’s most recent environmental assessment makes mention of this planting, but does not indicate what disposition will be made of the palms.
The OCEA has questioned Schutte about the palms. Conditions attached to the temporary variance set a 12-month limit on the approved use. “According to your application,” the OCEA wrote in a letter December 3, 1992, “the trees have yet to be removed. Additionally, we show no approval for the permanent placement of these trees. Is there an explanation for non-compliance…?”
No Garden Link?
On December 23, 1992, the Office of Environmental Quality Control Bulletin carried a notice of availability of the environmental assessment prepared for the so-called reforestation project. Nelson Ho, conservation chairman of the Moku Loa (Big Island) Group of the Sierra Club, Hawai’i Chapter, responded with a letter to DLNR Director William Paty, raising many objections to Lutkenhouse’s environmental assessment.
“There are so many errors of fact and omission in the EA that any decision based on this document would be seriously misinformed,” Ho wrote. “One gains the impression of an altruistic native reforestation project, conceived to help heal the very damaged lowland Hawaiian environment. However, this is clearly not the case.”
Ho made the following points:
The list of tree species “sounds suspiciously like a botanical garden or perhaps a tree nursery for a botanical garden, and hardly the promising beginnings of a native forest.”
Vegetation proposed for planting is “most exclusively non-native and include many weed trees.” Moreover, the “watershed” area serves no human or biological purpose; the “mammals” who stand to benefit consist of mongoose, rats, mice, wild pigs and dogs, he wrote.
Bird species in the area are almost all non-native, Ho pointed out. “Their sustenance should not be a priority for DLNR.”
Undercutting Lutkenhouse’s claim of no association between the reforestation project and the garden operations, Ho pointed out that records at the Hawai’i County Tax Office indicate that the area proposed for reforestation is leased to the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden. “Nowhere in the EA is this stated. Where are the trees that are going to be planted currently located? Are they or are they not on HTBG property? Will they or will they not be planted with labor funded by the (dubiously) tax-exempt garden? Is there any guarantee that trees and seedlings planted for reforestation on the subject property will not subsequently be transferred to HTBG?” Ho concluded: “The entire document is shot through with a number of errors ranging from irksome to egregious.”
Whether or not the project has any relation to the HTBC’s operation is a matter on which a great deal rides. If there is no link, Lutkenhouse gets around the requirement that a public hearing be held on the application. If a link is found, then the proposed use can be described as a commercial use (the garden charges admission). And, in that case, a public hearing would be required – which would give opponents of Lutkenhouse’s style of operations a forum to express their concerns.
The Gardens Plans
So far, the DLNR seems to have accepted representations made by Schutte that the proposed reforestation is not a commercial use of the Conservation District. Earlier plans developed by Lutkenhouse, however, call for garden facilities, including a visitors’ center, to be built on the parcel. Last year, Lutkenhouse announced he was putting plans for garden expansion on hold after legal and administrative roadblocks thwarted his efforts to receive permits for related work.
Correspondence between the Hawai’i County Planning Department and James Pederson, a consultant hired by Lutkenhouse to prepare environmental assessments, suggests that Lutkenhouse is once more hoping to receive permits for garden expansion.
In July 1992, Pederson stated that Lutkenhouse had been advised by DLNR Director Paty to file an after-the-fact Conservation District Use Application for certain unauthorized improvements at the garden. Those improvements included “a zoological garden presently inhabited by six macaws, 11 flamingos, four ducks” and an associated pond about 12 feet in diameter. Also, there was an aviary consisting of three 8 x 8 x 8-foot bird cages housing six macaw birds, as well as nearby wooden exhibition stands.” There was “a small lake, i.e., Lily Lake, approximately 50 x 70 feet,” and three signs “advising adjacent shoreline visitor not to trespass within the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden.”
The proposed rain shelter “would support educational lectures, particularly school-aged children [sic], in the vicinity of” the bird pond.
County Concerns
Then county planning director Norman Hayashi responded to Pederson on November 9, 1992, listing a variety of concerns over the proposed and existing improvements. Although Pederson made no mention of it, a state owned old government road runs through the garden (a fact that proved to be an obstacle to Lutkenhouse’s past efforts to win permits). Hayashi informed Pederson that the road is the only access to an inholding. The garden appears to have built its fish pond on part of the roadway, Hayashi noted, as well as incorporating another part of it into garden grounds.
As to the fish pond, the garden would need to identify the water supply and disposal system Hayahi said. “If the water supply is from a nearby stream, then approval and restrictions for such use by the Commission on Water Resource Management should be disclosed. How is the overflow/discharge water to be disposed?”
Other concerns related to archaeological surveys (none undertaken so far) and the difficulty posed by garden’s failure to use original place names in identifying landmarks and streams.
‘Illiterate, Uninformed’
The Hawai’i Tribune Herald published a four-part series on Lutkenhouse’s management of the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden last August. The articles, by Dave Smith, covered in detail much of the controversy discussed in past issues of Environment Hawai’i. They also plowed new ground, especially in the area of Lutkenhouse’s relation to the non-profit organization that nominally operates the garden.
On August 26, Smith described the garden’s efforts to obtain in 1990 a grant from the Atherton Foundation. In response to concerns over the garden’s board of directors containing few members from the surrounding community – apart from Lutkenhouse and his wife, Pauline, Roland Higashi and Paul Kirkiewicz were the only Hilo residents – Lutkenhouse was reported to have written the foundation that he was unable to find qualified local board members since a “substantial portion” of the community is “illiterate, uninformed and not well-read, many with incomes bordering on poverty.
“How could we or can we extract from such a community a knowledgeable, hardworking board of directors who would ‘understand the needs of the people and guide the organization to meet those needs’?” Lutkenhouse was quoted as telling the foundation.
Following publication of the series, however, Lutkenhouse appears to have found a few more literate people in Hilo who have been added to the board. In October, nine board members wrote the Hawai’i Tribune Herald rising to Lutkenhouse’s defense. Of the nine, six had been appointed to the board in the preceding month.
Volume 3, Number 8 February 1993
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