Honolulu City Councilman Ikaika Anderson says time may be running out to save Haiku Stairs as the Board of Water Supply prepares to set aside $500,000 to study the possible removal of the once-popular Windward Oahu attraction, which gives hikers sweeping views of the Koolau mountain range.

"We’re certainly reaching the end of the road," Anderson said Tuesday. "We don’t have years to get this done. We’ve got months at best."

He said there is an urgency because at least one resident has been assaulted by a trespasser. During the last seven months of 2014, police issued 100 trespassing warnings, 135 citations and made six arrests.

"The government cannot allow this to continue to happen," he said.

Anderson said he has started talking with a local government agency about taking ownership of the shuttered stairs from the Board of Water Supply.

He declined to name the agency because the talks were informal, but said it has agreed to consider letting Anderson make a presentation at a public hearing. Even so, the agency has not made any commitments.

The Windward councilman said that if the agency is not interested in owning the attraction, the stairs, which have been closed for 28 years, will probably be removed by the Board of Water Supply.

The attraction, which features 3,922 stairs stretching about 2 miles and climbing some 2,200 feet, suffered some recent storm-related damage.

A hiker, who took pictures of the damage, but requested anonymity, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that while climbing the stairs Saturday, he came upon an apparent landslide that took out between 20 feet to 40 feet of the vertical trail. He said the area, near the first steep incline, is still passable by an experienced hiker. The soil was still loose and the damage appeared to have happened Saturday morning.

Ernest Lau, Board of Water Supply manager, said the agency is planning to send crews to assess the landslide damage this week.

"It is not safe to go on the stairs and potentially with the damage to the stairs over the weekend, it’s even more unsafe," Lau said. "Haiku Stairs is closed. We encourage people and visitors to stay away."

He said guards are posted around the clock to keep out trespassers.

"If you’re on the stairs, you’re trespassing," Lau said. "You could be subject to citations or maybe even arrest."

A task force created by Anderson released a report in October recommending that Haiku Stairs, also known as "Stairway to Heaven," be reopened with a managed access point. The report estimated the cost of scrapping the trail at $4 million to $5 million.

Anderson said he is trying to save the attraction with the addition of a controlled entry point because the city spent $875,000 in the early 2000s to repair the stairs, which were built in the 1940s to reach a Navy radio station. The original wooden stairs were replaced with galvanized metal ones in the 1950s.

Over the years, ownership transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard and eventually to the Board of Water Supply.

Lau said operating the Haiku Stairs was not part of the water agency’s mission and it is willing to transfer the property to another government agency that can open the attraction.

In the meantime, the water agency is proposing to allot $500,000 of its annual budget, which begins in July, on an environmental assessment that would study the cost of removal as well as environmental and historic issues. The budget needs to be approved by the agency’s board.

Actual removal of the stairs remains at least a couple years away, he said. "What we’re trying to do is basically move the ball forward," Lau said.

He added, "If somebody’s going to do a managed access arrangement, it won’t be the Board of Water Supply."

Jill Radke, vice president of Friends of Haiku Stairs, said saving the stairs is important for historic, environmental, educational and fiscal reasons.

She said it would be less expensive to repair the latest damage and reopen the stairs than to remove them.

The stairs, she added, provide an opportunity for many people to access the top of the Koolau ridge safely and quickly.

"We know what it can be for the community," she said.

The trail was closed in 1987 due to disrepair. After the city took ownership, it planned to reopen the Haiku Stairs in October 2002. At that time, however, the attraction became entangled in jurisdictional disputes and access issues touched off complaints.

Some residents claimed hikers were trespassing through their property, clogging street parking (blocking mail delivery and trash pickup); and the presence of early morning hikers was prompting dogs to bark, waking residents. So access was fenced off.

Anderson said his support for the stairs reopening will end if the Board of Water Supply begins spending money on the trail’s removal.

The attraction’s popularity soared after the stairs were featured on the "Magnum, P.I." television show in 1981, according to the Friends of Haiku Stairs website.