Roads ownership must be resolved

Owning land in Hawaii sounds good, until there’s trouble with it. The maintenance of a brief, unkempt stretch of Manoa Road has caused trouble for many years, which is why officials of the city and the state continue to dispute its ownership.

The hot potato being tossed back and forth is the cost of upkeep for not only Manoa Road, but potentially for all 437 roads of disputed ownership across Oahu. These roads were identified in a 1989 state study, but the central ownership question has been unanswered to this day.

Almost three decades later, the correct solution remains unchanged: Determine ownership of the roads, and allocate responsibility accordingly.

Instead, the City Council is considering Bill 71, which would presumptively have the city accept responsibility to maintain all the so-called “limbo” roads.

The Council on Wednesday gave the bill, introduced by Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi, its first hearing. The current version shouldn’t be allowed to pass because, as the Caldwell administration has pointed out, funds to pay for the maintenance work isn’t in city coffers.

The city should pay only for maintaining public thoroughfares that it actually owns, with the state assuming the cost of its own properties. The city has pledged to inspect the area and find solutions to the specific Manoa problem, which would be the correct short-term approach there.

This is not the first time the Council has considered a solution like Kobayashi’s. In 1993, for example, it adopted a resolution to accept ownership of disputed roads, assuming that the city would be able to keep proceeds from any sale of property.

The current bill emerged after Kobayashi heard from frustrated property owners who live near the part of Manoa Road between Waakaua Street and Paradise Park. Overgrown trees and brush — including large specimens of the albizia trees that are easily downed in high wind — drop heavy branches and block out sunlight.

Because the issue has languished for so long, Paradise Park has hired contractors to clear vegetation periodically, as does Hawaiian Telcom when the overgrowth threatens telephone lines.

Other owners of property along the road have pooled money for tree-trimming, too.

They undoubtedly moved to clear their areas after despairing of the city and state ever coming to terms. They had good reason for despair.

In 2012 the state Legislature asked the state Board of Land and Natural Resources to convene a task force on the specific Manoa problem, which it did. It solved nothing.

The state abstractor and the attorney general both asserted city ownership of the road, pointing to an 1892 Highways Act, a subsequent court ruling and the 1993 resolution as evidence.

The city disputed that finding, arguing, in part, that the road was rebuilt by the territorial government in 1905 and that it did not clearly fall under the Highways Act, according to the task force report.

A separate but comparable conflict has erupted between the city and the private owner of streets in Kakaako. Ongoing maintenance of those roads are a cost item, too, and there as well, it’s the neighborhood that’s left holding the bag.

“The ‘roads in limbo’ problem needs to be resolved,” said Roy Amemiya, city managing director. “It’s not fair to the taxpayer.”

He’s right about that. City and state officials should work together to settle this festering problem for the public good.