Kaneohe Cemetery plan draws neighbors’ opposition

A developer calls it Serenity Gardens, but community reaction to a cemetery planned in a residential Kaneohe neighborhood has not been calm or soothing.

The owner of a local trucking company is proposing the project with 735 burial plots and 7,103 urn niches on 5.4 acres of vacant land zoned for preservation use between Kaneohe Stream and the Puohala Village neighborhood.

A consultant to the developer presented details of the plan to the Kaneohe Neighborhood Board last month and drew a negative response that included an 11-0 board vote opposing the plan, along with a petition filled out by 183 people and submitted to area City Councilman Ikaika Anderson.

Yet there may not be much opponents can do to stop the project.

Under city zoning rules, cemeteries are allowed on preservation-zoned land. And under state law governing cemeteries, county councils are tasked with approving the location and boundaries of a new or expanded cemetery, but such approval does not appear to be subject to judgment or discretion.

The developer of Serenity Gardens is Horseshoe Land Co., led by Aaron Alii Tampos, who also heads Tampos Trucking Inc.

A message left at Tampos Trucking was not returned.

According to property records, two parcels intended as the project site were bought by Horseshoe and another company led by Tampos several years ago. One was bought for $100,000 in 2009 from the owner of nearby Bay View Golf Course, and the other for $45,000 in 2010 from an agent of St. Ann’s Church.

Keith Kurahashi, an official with local engineering and planning firm R.M. Towill Corp., presented the Serenity Gardens plan to the neighborhood board. He said on Thursday that his client did not want to discuss the plan or comment.

According to a written copy of the presentation, development of the cemetery is envisioned in four phases over 12 years. No mortuary or crematorium is part of the plan. A first phase would include a sales office, caretaker dwelling, restrooms and maintenance shed. Access is proposed through what is now the end of Puohala Street.

Kurahashi’s presentation said the project would ensure the property is left primarily as open space in perpetuity and would create a beautifully landscaped visual neighborhood amenity.

“It would beautify and improve the appearance of the current overgrowth of weeds and trees,” Kurahashi’s presentation said.

Kaui Pratt-Aquino, a local attorney who grew up in Puohala Village and now lives nearby, said neighborhood residents including her mother were shocked at the plan.

Pratt-Aquino said the neighborhood is already congested with traffic and that a cemetery is inappropriate for the site.

“We’re going to do our best to preserve our neighborhood,” she said. “We’re ready to organize against any type of moving forward with the project.”

To start, Pratt-Aquino created an online petition that she said has been printed and sent to Anderson’s office with 183 signatures.

At the neighborhood board meeting, Chairman Maurice Radke said the board had received testimony in opposition to the plan from 66 community members over issues including traffic and neighborhood peacefulness.

If developed, Serenity Gardens would become a third cemetery open for public burials in the Kaneohe and Kahaluu region, joining Valley of the Temples Memorial Park and Hawaiian Memorial Park.

Valley of the Temples began work in 2013 to add 3,700 new burial plots, a 1,000 urn spaces and an area for 500 side-by-side burials on 10 acres.

Hawaiian Memorial has been trying to expand onto adjacent land zoned for conservation use for about a decade but has run into community opposition and rejections from the state Land Use Commission and city Department of Planning and Permitting for proposals that since have been revised. The cemetery, which has about 36,500 burial spaces over 80 acres, has only about 2,500 available spaces left and earlier this year projected running out in about 10 years.