Park marred by homeless? Let’s spend a jillion dollars!
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / DEC. 1, 2015
Homeless camp in the amphitheater area of Kakaako Park and have set up shelters. In background is cruise ship Grand Princess.
This week the state announced plans for the future of Kakaako Waterfront Park, which include fancy ideas like a sand volleyball court with bleachers, a gym, a place for food trucks and a beer garden.
First reaction:
Brah! No need $44.5 million and 20 years to make a beer garden in Kakaako Park. Just grab a cold pack and head on down! The boyz already started without you, but that’s OK as long as you share.
Second reaction:
What a cute example of positive thinking, estimating that it will take 20 years to clear out the homeless from that area. That might be a bit optimistic, but you people roll with it. Dream big.
Third reaction:
Try wait, yeah? Isn’t that whole thing built on a dump? And aren’t those rolling hills (the ones the kiddies used to slide down on makeshift cardboard sleds before the homeless situation got so scary) really just covered mounds of opala? Wow, you folks REALLY are going for “anything is possible,” yeah? Good for you!
The area has struggled for an identity in the years since it was turned into a park in 1992.
It was, for a time, the place to take wedding photos and shoot commercials featuring smiling children playing in the sun. A place for the school bus to park while the kids eat box lunches before heading back to the country. It was a spot for lunchtime romantic rendezvous where discrete office couples could share their dreams and stare out at the waves. And then it became ground zero for Honolulu’s urban homeless problem.
Part of the Kakaako park’s identity crisis is that, though it is waterfront, it is not beachfront. There’s no safe sandy lagoon for baby splashing and mellow floating. The ocean there is for a select group of bodysurfers who think the backbreaking waves at Point Panic are unreal.
But now, with Kakaako’s destiny in the hands of big developers building a skyline of luxury condos, the pressure is on to make the shoreline match the Photoshopped “artist’s rendition” of the view from those multimillion-dollar lanai. It sure isn’t much to gaze at right now.
It also says something about human nature, our insatiable need to be entertained and the unabashed desire to turn a profit on every square foot of beachfront Hawaii land that the vision of Kakaako is not just cleaning the place up and making it safe for family picnics. Not good enough. There have to be activities, like rope obstacle courses and rock climbing on man-made rocks. Just looking at the sunset, watching the surfers or climbing on real rocks doesn’t cut it anymore. There has to be an indoor gym, because exercising by walking near the water is somehow too passive.
People can’t just bring musubi from home. They have to be enticed to purchase stuff, including an adult beverage.
It’s like the ocean isn’t enough of an attraction without things to buy and tickets to purchase.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
43 responses to “Park marred by homeless? Let’s spend a jillion dollars!”
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Good comments. The selling out of Oahu to developers. 20 years of cost over runs.
And I thought this rag said we’d be underwater by then.
agree with Lee
Outstanding article Kim! You spoke the truth about how the politicians are catering to the developers not the locals who had enjoyed Kakaako just the way it is!
Sorry I meant Lee not Kim.
What locals enjoying the park? Where? When? After the parks “honeymoon” debut, it faded away! There is nothing wrong with making changes that are being asked for. We tried the grassy park concept….it failed. I’m not ready for sweaters, walkers, canes and a care giver pushing me in a wheel chair through your grassy park!
What you talking about? Local surfers and walkers are using the park for exercise. The Micronesians came and made it their stomping grounds. Its so small just make it a bigger park and enforce properly. You want a circus go back to Coney Island.
Surfers will still be able to surf and walkers will still be able to walk. Ala Moana park is also right next door. This park is,was and always will be a less desirable park area because there is no beach attraction. It is not living up to its full potential even before the Micronesians and crime.
marcus, you are aware that this is Hawaii? you know, beaches, the ocean, open spaces? maybe you should spend your wheelchair years at disneyland
When I lived on Oahu visiting Kakaako Waterfront Park with my two sons was bliss….we’d race RC cars in the empty parking lots or fly kites on top of those opala hills. Now, after visiting a few months ago– everything has changed. Everything. And for the worse. How sad. Our friends from the East Coast say they will no longer vacation in Hawaii, primarily Oahu due to the out of control crime and homeless situation.
Who’s asking for these changes? NOBODY.
Kirk’s real ‘job’ is to make big money for special interest like contractors and real estate developers all at Hawaii taxpayer’s expense all under the guise of creatin some ‘noble’ government works project. The rail project, the Sand Island homeless development, etc. etc.
Lee said what needed to be said. This park should be left alone. Once they start it will cost $50,000,000 or more due to all the buried garbage and who knows whart else. 20 years is crazy, why it will only take 12 to build the rail! LOL.
And nobody will maintain the improvements as usual.
What happen to our drag strip? Corrupt politicians and private developers.
More worse than corrupt politicians are the corrupt homeless. Their swelling numbers are catastrophic. They should be criminalized so we get a handle on dealing with them more forcefully.
Exactly. Unfortunately, I think too many of the pols friends are syphoning money out of the taxpayers to “help” the homeless to have them take any kind of common sense measures like that.
Ever notice how many of Ige’s top advisers were part of the Inouye brainless trust?
Sorry, not so easy. Being homeless is not, and cannot be, a crime, and the Constitution of the US would back me up on that. No, don’t go looking for the word “homeless” in the Constitution, but it’s about civil rights. If there’s criminal activity like drug dealing or theft, etc., that’s a different story, but you can’t just “criminalize” the homeless.
he wrote “corrupt homeless” and not “homeless” in general. we have “corrupt homeless” in our neighborhood stealing day and night. no one has a solution either for the “homeless” or “corrupt homeless”. but you are right by stating that being homeless is not a crime.
So now homelessness is a civil right? Good one!
How we doing with that Natatorium project? Still deciding, eh?
Thanks, Lee, for a well-written article. The key points are in this part of the article; “But now, with Kakaako’s destiny in the hands of big developers building a skyline of luxury condos…It also says something about human nature, our insatiable need to be entertained and the unabashed desire to turn a profit on every square foot of beachfront Hawaii land…” And, try wait: Get other important stuffs for take care care of, like our schools and roads.
The vision for the park is to cater to foreign millionaires who will buy the Kakaako condos, not to provide park space for regular folks. Once you accept that the City intends this to be a haven for the very wealthy, then the park’s plan makes sense.
Then they can pay for it.
Rich people pay under Caldwell’s watch? Aha ha ha ha! Ha ha! . . . Ha. Good one.
While I might agree with the sentiments…again, here is the colloquial Lee….SA, please move her column to a blog…this is not news.
So move the entire editorial/opinion/letters section to a blog too as they are not “news”?
Move the entire newspaper to a blog. Bring back the Honolulu Weekly.
Awesome job articulating the obvious that is so often missed by the elected!
Lee Cataluna hit the nail on the head! Thank you for this!
As usual – nailed it Lee. The only thing to do to REALLY help the homeless is to build a high end condo here, sucking up all the oxygen and waterfront view, and making sure that nobody that lives here full-time can afford it. THAT’S how you take care of the homeless problem.
Thank you Lee, I agree.
Build multi-million dollar condos on top of the garbage.
You go girl!!!!!!
But Wait!!! ….How can a licensed professional holding grad degree hold his job if we object to commercial, value added designing? There’s no client base for the likes of Sierra Club. You want architects to be homeless, or leave the islands for the mainland? Architects are minted in cashflows and “destination” valuation. Most, if not all, have anemic grasp of “economic value.” Noncommercial public use has value, which dramatically rises in the midst of dense urbanization. But, should we expect that those penciling the preferred community design of the Kakaako waterfront to be aware of any other solution than “destination” commercial growth models? In Hawaii, the “public planner” title is a fiction. Hawaii doesn’t have the vast contiguous undeveloped landscapes to attract true public design planners.
Now I know what comes after a trillion
nailed it
Peering into the (not too distant) future — Kakaako Waterfront Park is gone, land occupied by condos. Surfers and fishermen fight for ocean access…and lose. No more bodysurfing or body boarding at Point Panic. No fishing boats at Kewalo Basin, just high end sailboats and yachts owned by those who live in the oceanfront condos…and those who reaped obscene profits from the rail construction.
And we can say, “I remember when this was a garbage dump”.
Lee, you said everything that most of us think about all the Park plans (including Ala Moana) being proposed. Try to take care of our existing parks, schools, hospitals, roads, U.H. before you spend one more dime on this nonsense. Kakaako Park was fine until the price of housing was pushed beyond affordable and people started living there. Catering to the rich is not going to change anything. Gone Fishin says: “Kakaako Waterfront Park is gone, land occupied by condos. Surfers and fishermen fight for ocean access…and lose. No more bodysurfing or body boarding at Point Panic. No fishing boats at Kewalo Basin, just high end sailboats and yachts owned by those who live in the oceanfront condos…and those who reaped obscene profits from the rail construction.” I say that’s EXACTLY what will happen.
Alas, like always just stating the obvious…interesting write up but does it need to be said?
Nice Rant.
Hard to believe this is the same dump we used to fish off of when we were kids 45 years ago. That was back in the days when parents didn’t worry about dropping you off there with your friends at night to patiently wait for the papio and kumu to bite. Nowadays, you’re taking your life in your hands just being there after dark. Those days are long gone. Another excellent observation by Lee, as usual.