City fines Manoa woman $57K for illegal storage on strip of land

The city has fined a Manoa woman $57,000 and continues to add penalties of $100 a day for illegally storing piles of furniture and other household items on a strip of land next to the house she rents, a situation residents say has divided the affluent community.

The 300-foot-long and 10-foot-wide parcel on Hopena Way where the items — under frayed tarpaulin and in two shipping containers — have been accumulating for more than two years has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes, feral cats and vermin, neighbors claim.

Complicating the issue is the question of who owns the strip of land.

Lisa Chang has told the city and neighbors that she has a deed for the property, but has never produced it, the city said.

Now inspectors are researching whether the city owns the property, since it appears it was once destined to become a road.

Chang could not be reached and did not respond to a request for comment.

Also at the center of the dispute is Manoa community leader Tom Heinrich, who has also stored items on the Hopena Way land. Heinrich said the two 40-foot shipping containers are being rented under his name "in contract for" Chang.

Heinrich, an attorney, until last month was executive secretary of the Neighborhood Commission and for years served on the Manoa Neighborhood Board. He is also a founding member of Malama o Manoa, which aims to promote community involvement and preserve the historic qualities of the valley.

Heinrich lives in the same rented house as Chang but declined to clarify his relationship with her.

He said he has been dragged into the storage dispute by neighbors who believe his community notoriety may bring some attention to the issue.

"It’s not my property and yet I’m the target," he said. "This is a vendetta. This is a classic episode of bullying."

The Hopena Way strip is behind about a half-dozen houses and is next to Mid-Pacific Institute.

Mid-Pacific is the landlord for Chang’s rental house, but school officials say the school does not own the strip of land in question.

Mid-Pacific President Joe Rice said he shares the "concerns of our neighbors in regards to the feral cats, the tarps and boxes and the heavy plant growth" on the parcel.

City Councilwoman Ann Koba­ya­shi, whose district includes Manoa, said the Hopena Way dispute has fractured the surrounding community in unprecedented fashion. It has pitted neighbor against neighbor, she says, and spurred a heated exchange last week at the Manoa Neighborhood Board meeting.

"It’s hurting the neighborhood, and it is a health and safety problem," Koba­ya­shi said. "I wish we could settle this."

City officials say the situation is unique because it’s unclear who owns the parcel, which means the city cannot put a lien against the property for nonpayment of the fines.

Chang’s driver’s license has been flagged, however, which means she can’t renew it without resolving the issue.

In a statement, Jiro Sumada, acting director of the city Department of Planning and Permitting, said the parcel has no tax map key number, no address and no record of ownership.

Chang "claims that her parents purchased the parcel from the city in 1967 and that she possesses a deed, but she has not produced the deed as we requested," Sumada said.

The protracted Manoa dispute highlights the difficulty in resolving cases with uncooperative parties, city officials said. It is one of about 175 intensive "problem cases" on Oahu that the city’s 14 residential code branch inspectors attempt to bring into compliance in any given year.

The branch received nearly 6,000 complaints in fiscal year 2012 for everything from illegal storage to substandard housing to sidewalk violations, but most of those were resolved quickly.

Art Challacombe, chief of customer service at the planning department, said the ownership question has complicated things in the Manoa case.

He added that the fines against Chang are "significant but not a record."

Chang was issued a violation in September 2010 for improperly storing bulky items and keeping the two shipping containers on the property.

Andrew Kim, who lives on Parker Place next to the Hopena Way strip, said he worries about the mosquito and vermin problems, especially since a number of children, including his own, live on the street. He said tarps cover some of the items, but those blow off whenever there’s a storm.

"It’s been disconcerting because for us, as neighbors, we’ve been trying to follow the protocol with the appropriate city departments," he said. "Nobody is taking a stand to fix this problem."

Kim also said the situation is doubly frustrating given Heinrich’s involvement. In his positions on the neighborhood board and with the Neighborhood Commission, Heinrich was "in charge of telling people to be good neighbors," Kim said.