Threats and accusations

A foundation wall has cracked at Malcolm Ing’s house.

A banyan tree struck Henry Miyamura’s home.

Where Mayuri Nakasone lives, stairs separated from a walkway.

At Abidin Kaya’s home, the tile patio floor is broken.

And an octopus tree fell on Gabriel Ma’s house.

All five homeowners living along the upper edges of a Nuuanu Valley neighborhood blame the damage on local contractor Patrick Shin who has transformed an adjacent forested hillside into nine expansive house lots.

Shin, who founded a small construction business, Nan Inc., and turned it into one of Hawaii’s biggest military contracting companies, denies that his work caused the damage. He alleges that the homeowners have made false claims as part of a long-running effort to stop his project that replaces their tranquil views and wild landscaping with new neighbors.

The opposing contentions, which led to a City Council resolution passed in December, represent the latest clash in a more than decade-old battle over developing 50 acres of residential-zoned land in the Dowsett Highlands neighborhood.

"Sometimes we feel so helpless," said Nakasone, who lives with her 80-year-old mother, Yoshino, on Kamaaina Place. "It’s been a long ordeal."

Shin said it’s only a few Dowsett Highlands residents who have fought his project, and that they have done so with a disregard for private property rights.

"That’s what it comes down to," Shin said. "They are just selfish people."

The new subdivision referred to as Dowsett Estates was started by Shin after another local developer, Jon Gomes, floated plans in 2003 to subdivide a roughly half-mile stretch of forested property on the eastern side of the valley above existing homes between Kamuela Place and Ragsdale Place.

Gomes intended to create 15 lots ranging in size from 1 acre to 11 acres for sale to individual buyers who could build custom homes on the land that has been zoned for housing for at least 80 years.

Neighboring residents raised concerns that disturbing the hillside could trigger rockfalls, create flooding and destabilize the land under their homes. Gomes said his project would be supported by a geological study. He expressed confidence that no hazard would be created for neighbors.

Gomes produced a geotechnical report for nine lots in 2005 but handed off the project to Shin, who bought the land that year for $6.2 million. (Gomes is not related to the author of this story.)

What has transpired since then shows that claims as to whether ground-altering construction on one person’s property harms another person’s property often are difficult to determine, can be cost-prohibitive and are something city building permit regulators won’t referee.

Building on a hillside

Just looking at the existing Dowsett Highlands neighborhood where homes mainly date from the 1930s to 1970s, it is evident that a lot of engineering went into taming the wild and lush hillside. Small ditches run between homes, sometimes connecting to pipes that channel water underground. Steep slopes run behind homes, beside homes, even under homes.

The neighborhood, which has ocean views and is not far from downtown Honolulu, attracted many residents in high-paying professions such as doctors and lawyers as well as a couple of former governors — one of whom, George Ariyoshi, expressed concern about the loss of forest land across from his residence.

Shin, who formed Laumaka LLC to develop Dowsett Estates using Nan as his contractor, began clearing his land in 2008. The cost of preparing the losts was estimated at 

$2.8 million, according to the building permit.

Hillsides were graded. Retaining walls were erected, including some behind existing homes. Basins were created to detain and slowly release water from heavy rains. A couple of cul-de-sacs and driveways also were built. The lots are finished, though Shin said he hasn’t decided what to do with them.

Several homeowners claim the work damaged their property.

Gabriel Ma, an orthopedist who has lived on Kahawalu Drive since 1967, said a tree on Shin’s land fell in 2008 and crushed a studio Ma built in his backyard. Ma said it cost him $7,000 to remove the debris.

Over the next five years, two more trees fell — an octopus tree on Shin’s land that hit and damaged the front of Ma’s house and one on Ma’s property that the homeowner claims was due to Shin’s drainage basin increasing water flow through a ditch next to Ma’s house and loosening soil on Ma’s property.

To Ma, it’s obvious that Shin’s work was to blame because he said trees never fell on his property for the prior 41 years.

"Nothing happened all those years till 2008 when (Shin) started doing work," Ma said.

Ma said he asked Shin to cover $8,400 in expenses not covered by insurance, which also included a boulder damaging a moss rock wall ditch on his property. Ma said Shin’s response was matter-of-fact: "He said sue me."

Nakasone, who lives about 20 houses away from Ma, also said that Shin told her that she could sue him, and that Shin suggested it would be a losing proposition. "He said, ‘Try and sue me — I’m worth $400 million,’" Nakasone said. "He said he would bankrupt us if we sued. Mr. Shin is not a nice person."

Shin suggested in an interview that the homeowners are free to sue over their damage claims, but noted that professional engineers whom he had vet the claims disagreed with the homeowners.

"They cannot prove that (what they claim) is actually true," he said.

In the case of Nakasone’s house where stairs have pulled away from a concrete walkway and the garage foundation is cracked, Shin’s project engineer informed an attorney representing Nakasone that the foundation damage was documented as existing before Shin began work in the area.

Nakasone, whose late father was a doctor, has lived in the home 48 years and said she felt the impact of Shin’s heavy machinery grading land on two sides of her house. "I’m sitting in the house and it’s just shaking," she recalled.

There was one instance where construction of Dowsett Estates conclusively damaged a neighbor’s house. That was in 2009 when a roughly 28-inch-diameter boulder crashed into the back of Bud and Cindy Johnstone’s home on Kahawalu Drive. City inspectors said construction dislodged the rock.

Other damage claims have been harder to assess.

Cause and effect

After Henry Miyamura’s house was hit by a banyan tree in 2010, local arborist Steve Nimz explained in a letter to an insurance adjuster that the cause was multifold, according to a Nuuanu Valley Association account.

The account said a dense grove of trees cleared on Shin’s property left the banyan, which was on a neighboring homeowner’s property, unprotected from wind. The account also said that grading impacted the banyan’s root structure but that the tree also had minimal roots that could anchor in the hard soil.

Miyamura, a University of Hawaii music professor, believes Shin is responsible because he moved so much soil and cleared 5 acres of Eucalyptus trees to create one house lot.

The owner of the banyan, Abidin Kaya, contended in a letter to Shin that it is an "established fact" that damage to his home and some neighboring homes is due to the developer’s work.

Kaya, a geotechnical engineer who has submitted his own calculations challenging reports from professionals hired by Shin, claims that Dowsett Estates construction cracked his patio floor and created a landslide hazard behind his house, which he bought from former-Gov. John Waihee in 2010 for $850,000. Kaya also has claimed that Shin has threatened to bankrupt him so he can’t complain to the city.

Laura Lucas, an attorney with McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP representing Shin, sent Kaya a letter in 2013 accusing him of making false accusations against Shin with the intent to malign the developer’s reputation.

The letter, which described Kaya’s "old and poorly constructed" home as having pre-existing damage, threatened legal action if Kaya continued with what Shin considered false claims fulfilling a personal vendetta.

"Your complaints are wholly without merit," the letter said. "All proper and necessary precautions have been and continue to be taken with respect to the project. The developer soundly rejects and disputes any allegations of wrongdoing or liability."

The letter criticized Kaya for seeking $75,000, including $33,000 for 200 hours of his own professional time, over the fallen banyan that also pushed down an avocado tree despite wind being the "primary cause" stated in the homeowner consultant’s report.

Kaya has previously disputed having made false claims against Shin but was not interested in discussing the matter for this story.

Plea for government help

The embattled homeowners have repeatedly sought help from elected representatives and City Department of Planning and Permitting officials.

DPP, which has responded to numerous complaints about Shin’s work and in some cases issued violation notices for work, has told the homeowners that claims of damage are between Shin and them.

"The city is firmly of the position that these issues are solely between you and Mr. Patrick Shin," the city Department of Corporation Council wrote in a 2010 letter to Kaya.

City officials say their position would be the same if a homeowner claimed they suffered damage from an adjacent landowner building a properly permitted fence, high-rise or other structure.

Frustrated Dowsett Highlands homeowners have given tours of their property to numerous government officials, including representatives from DPP, the mayor’s office, the City Council, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and the state Legislature.

In December, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution urging DPP to investigate and address public safety concerns based on Nuuanu Valley Association claims that Shin was doing unapproved work including grading land without an independent engineer present, using subgrade fill material and reducing the number of retention ponds from nine to three.

DPP reiterated that its role is limited to the review of project plans and reports along with construction inspections for conformance with city standards.

"Since the project’s inception several years ago, DPP has reviewed project plans, required reports from the developer, has met with neighbors and reviewed documentation they have submitted, performed inspections, issued violations, made site visits, etc., and has concluded that the project conforms to city standards," the agency said in written testimony. "DPP should not go beyond this role to placate unsatisfied neighbors."

Lloyd Asato, an attorney retained by Nakasone, said in written testimony to the council that DPP is shirking a duty to protect residents.

"This is the response typical of bureaucrats brushing the matter aside — ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ — and rubber-stamping everything in front of them," Asato wrote.

After the resolution was passed, DPP sent a letter to Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga in February responding in more detail to the allegations of wrongdoing that the agency called one-sided, unsubstantiated, exaggerated and misleading.

Malcolm Ing, an ophthalmologist who claims that construction of a driveway next to his house for one of Shin’s lots damaged his foundation, said in a letter last month that he was deeply saddened by DPP’s reply and remains steadfast about getting help from elected officials. 

"We don’t have multimillion-dollar lawyers," he said. "We’re just ordinary citizens with their homes."