State claim heats up Kakaako parking war

A new contender has entered the ownership fight over more than seven streets running through Kakaako close to where glass condominium towers are rising in Honolulu’s urban core.

The state attorney general’s office has declared in a memo to a city attorney that the state owns the disputed streets.

If enforced, this new claim stands to rearrange who controls more than a hundred roadside parking spaces that over time have been used by the public, small businesses facing the spaces and what some call a rogue company led by two brothers who reserve spaces for their own paying tenants.

John Price, a deputy attorney general in the agency’s land transportation division, recently sent a letter to City Corporation Counsel Donna Leong offering the city title to at least seven Kakaako streets tied to a state law enacted in July.

Price’s letter attempts to resolve a messy situation in Kakaako where some small businesses long claimed road shoulder parking as their own until Kakaako Land Co. began posting reserved-parking signs, renting out stalls and towing unauthorized vehicles in the last five years or so.

The company, led by Calvert and Cedric Chun, claims to own portions of nine roads including a major thoroughfare, Queen Street, for which it acquired deeds in 1986 from the granddaughter and sole remaining heir of a developer who subdivided portions of Kakaako more than 100 years ago.

The City Council is considering a resolution to use its condemnation power to acquire eight roads from Kakaako Land Co.

It is unclear how the city will respond to the state’s offer to give the city seven streets.

Jesse Broder Van Dyke, communications director for Mayor Kirk Caldwell, said Leong is reviewing the Oct. 13 letter.

Kakaako Land didn’t respond to a request for comment on the attorney general’s letter.

The Chuns say they bought the property from Adele M. Christian for $5,000 plus 25 percent of rental income from the property.

The Chuns bought so-called “quitclaim deeds” for the streets. A quitclaim deed records ownership of real estate but offers no warranties from the seller against other interests in a property possibly existing.

Competing claims of street ownership have now been made by at least three parties.

One party involves seven small businesses, including Queen Auto LLC, Tropical Lamp &Shade Co. and U. Okada Co.

The roads were once owned by a man named Charles Desky, who subdivided much of Kakaako more than 100 years ago.

One lawsuit involving the streets claims Desky dedicated the streets to the Territory of Hawaii at no charge, but there is no evidence that he ever signed or conveyed a deed to the territory.

In seeking to resolve complaints about Kakaako Land, the state Legislature earlier this year passed a bill that said “the acceptance by the territorial legislature or the legislature of a dedication of land by a private owner is sufficient to convey title to the state.”

Gov. David Ige let the bill become law without his signature in July.

Kakaako Land urged Ige to veto the measure, House Bill 2604, calling it unconstitutional because it targets a single landowner and attempts to undo 113 years of private ownership by making a change to state law that would apply retroactively.

Kakaako Land said in a lawsuit it recently filed that it owns portions of nine streets: Cooke, Cummins, Kawaiahao, Laniwai, Queen, Ward, Clayton, Waimanu and Kamakee.

The City Council condemnation resolution names eight streets: Cummins, Curtis, Dreier, Ilaniwai, Kamakee, Kawaiahao, Queen and Waimanu.

On Oct. 31 the owner of BMW of Honolulu filed a lawsuit contending that a portion of Waimanu that Kakaako Land claimed to buy last year from the city of Bremen, Germany, was actually confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.

BMW had long used about 20 parking spaces on Waimanu Street behind its luxury car dealership for employee and customer parking.

The city estimates that it could take more than two years to go through the condemnation process, which hasn’t pleased business owners in the area.

“Something has to get done about this problem A.S.A.P.,” Cliff Garcia, owner of Queen Street-based Tropical Lamp, said in a Nov. 2 letter to the Council. “Kakaako Land Company has been scamming small business owners and the people of Hawaii for too long. They have been collecting money by charging rent for parking spaces on roads they do not own.”

Another business appealing to the City Council for help is Discount Storage, which was charging customers to park in 30 stalls along Kawaiahao Street behind its warehouse but ceased doing so after Kakaako Land recently asserted its ownership of the road.

Laurie Saffery, operations manager for Discount Storage, said in a Nov. 1 letter to the Council that her company can’t afford to lose the parking income.

“With this type of aggression, unfortunately we can no longer stay in business due to the loss of income from 30 stalls,” Saffery wrote.

Meanwhile, Kakaako Land has shown that it is willing to challenge claims in court, defending itself in the lawsuit filed by the group of businesses. And on Nov. 4, Kakaako Land filed a lawsuit against the Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency that condemned part of Kawaiahao Street in 1994. Kakaako Land claims that HCDA’s condemnation is invalid because the agency failed to notify the company of the condemnation case that HCDA made against Desky.