More debris piling up at Hawaii Kai parcel

Hawaii Kai residents who thought there had been a halt last year to a decade of dumping of construction debris on vacant preservation land are alarmed the landowner has resumed the practice.

The land has been approved for the construction of a cemetery, but the plans have been long delayed.

“The community’s understanding was that there will be no activity out there until a plan was presented and until they have a license (for a cemetery), and they don’t have either,” said Natalie Iwasa, chairwoman of the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board’s planning and zoning committee.

After 18 months of inactivity, trucks rolled into Kamilo Nui Valley earlier this month, hauling several dozen truckloads of asphalt debris from a Hawaii Kai road repaving project to Hawaii Kai Memorial Park’s proposed cemetery site.

In 2001, the City Council approved the building of a cemetery on the Kamilo Nui Valley parcel, which has changed hands multiple times, but Hawaii Kai Memorial Park LLC and its predecessors have never broken ground.

The landowner was accepting truckloads of construction debris deposited at the 69-acre property under stockpiling permits from 2004. In December 2013, the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board renewed its opposition, citing a variety of environmental concerns, and urged the City Council to help.

In January 2014, the City Council adopted Resolution 14-22, calling for the Department of Planning and Permitting to investigate Hawaii Kai Memorial Park LLC, also known as Paradise Memorial Park.

The department prepared a 37-page report dated May 2014 that concluded: “The problems related to the proposed development of Hawaii Kai Memorial Park transcend beyond compliance with” city stockpiling and grading rules or the 2001 Council resolution. “The major issue is one of land use and commitment to construct the project.”

The resolution permitted a cemetery, an allowed practice on preservation land — presuming the landowner would apply for and implement all the required development permits, the DPP report said.

“The City Council and the public relied on the landowner in good faith to complete the project in a systematic and timely manner,” it said. “This unfortunately

has not occurred, and the public is left wondering whether the project will ever be constructed.”

The department recommended the City Council amend the 2001 resolution to include a condition requiring the developer begin construction within a time frame, which “would ensure a commitment by the landowner to either proceed with the project or cease the stockpile operation,” it said.

In August, the neighborhood board supported a motion saying stockpiling should cease. The motion also said no new permits should be granted until the landowner provided a cemetery plan to the DPP within three months and that the plan should be presented at a neighborhood board meeting.

Hawaii Kai Memorial Park filed for a state cemetery license in September.

“As DPP stated in its report to the City Council, no new stockpiling permits or grading permits will be issued until the owners provide DPP with positive assurance that the cemetery will be built,” DPP Deputy Director Art Challacombe wrote Iwasa in an email in September. “Obtaining the license from (Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) will be a positive step in that direction, but DPP will also require a master plan overlay to be submitted as part of any future stockpiling or grading application.” Challacombe said May 20

in a written response to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: “DPP is investigating the community concerns. The property owner does have a currently valid permit to stockpile material on the site.

“We will have an inspector check to ensure that the current amount of stockpile material conforms to the existing permit,” he said. “If it does not, DPP will issue a Notice of Violation. No new stockpile permits will be issued until the owner provides DPP with a Cemetery Master Plan for the site.”

Iwasa said the “currently valid” permits are simply renewals of old permits that should never have been allowed to roll over.

The material was being used to grade the property to reduce runoff from the upper valley into the marina, according to William McCorriston, whose law firm, McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon, is a member of Hawaii Kai Memorial Park LLC.

McCorriston, preferring the term “base course” to asphalt debris, said the ma-terial is also being used in foundation work for structures and walls, and as fill material.

“It’s to lay a foundation for the cemetery,” he said.

At Tuesday night’s Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board meeting, a representative for the mayor confirmed that the landowner has not submitted a cemetery plan to the city, Iwasa said.

She also said that because the area is a watershed, “the pounding down of asphalt” changes the flow of the water.

“In the past there were streams going through that area,” she said. “Now there is no more.”

When it rains, the water sheets over the property, especially a nursery next to the pile of material, Iwasa said.

Years ago some community members speculated the land was being held for residential development. Others wondered whether the property was ever intended to be used as a cemetery, or simply a convenient dump site for construction debris in East Honolulu that would have otherwise had to be trucked to a West Oahu landfill.

Material trucked to the property last week came from old asphalt removed during a city road repaving project on Kapaia Street near the Hawaii Kai Fire Station, Iwasa said.

McCorriston said the city has refused to issue any new stockpiling or grading permits to the company until it gets its license.

Under a new ownership group, the company submit-ted a cemetery license application to the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, McCorriston said.

“Once it’s approved, we’re going to apply for the grading permit,” McCorriston said, adding he anticipates construction to start this year.

McCorriston said the years of delays were due to the original Chicago developer going bankrupt and the matter getting tied up in a Texas bankruptcy court.

The project, he said, will be done in phases, and will involve grading, then landscaping.

Former City Councilman John Henry Felix, who was on the City Council in 2001 when the land was approved for cemetery use, is a member of Hawaii Kai Memorial Park LLC. Felix, who had been with the Borthwick Mortuary group unit in 1993, was part owner of the original development group.

The 2014 DPP report said between 2006 to 2012, cemetery owners have been issued six notices of violation for illegal grubbing, not following approved plans and working with expired permits.

DPP assessed the company fines for violating its stockpiling permits totaling more than $250,000, but the city settled the fines at 10 percent of the original fines and was paid $25,800 on Oct. 24, 2007, Challacombe said in emails to Iwasa.

“It’s another kick in the butt for the community,” Iwasa said.