Facebook CEO reconsiders land suits

Mark Zuckerberg is rethinking whether litigation is the right move to acquire land on Kauai from Hawaii families who might not want to sell to the billionaire founder of Facebook.

The social media company magnate said Tuesday through a spokesman that he is “reconsidering” eight quiet title lawsuits he recently filed against hundreds of owners or potential owners of land on the Garden Island.

“Based on feedback from the local community, we are reconsidering the quiet title process and discussing how to move forward,” the Facebook CEO said in a statement distributed by Ben LaBolt of the Incite Agency, a New York-based communications firm. “We want to make sure we are following a process that protects the interests of property owners, respects the traditions of Native Hawaiians, and preserves the environment.”

Zuckerberg — who gained a major foothold as a Kauai landowner in 2014 when he paid about $100 million for roughly 700 acres on the island’s north shore with the idea to establish a residence with his wife, Priscilla Chan — added that he and Chan love Kauai.

“We want to be good members of the community and preserve the land for generations to come,” he said in the statement.

The reconsideration follows an initial Honolulu Star-Advertiser story about the litigation a week ago that sparked national and international media coverage along with criticism from many Kauai residents, the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., families targeted in the lawsuits and state Rep. Kani­ela Ing.

Some of the criticism was directed at Zuckerberg on his own Facebook page after he posted an explanation of why he was initiating the legal action and emphasizing that no one named as defendants in the lawsuits is using or living on the parcels that he wants to acquire.

“With everything that has happened to Native Hawaiians for the past 200 years from American colonizers, this is so insensitive to our people,” wrote Nicky Collins in a Facebook comment in response to Zuckerberg’s post. “You want to move here, you should ground yourself in pono (righteousness) because this hewa (wrong) will bring you far worst karma. There is an uprising in our people and we are too awake and risen to back down.”

Zuckerberg, through several companies, filed the lawsuits Dec. 30 in state court on Kauai in an attempt to gain whole ownership or validate his existing claims of ownership for 14 parcels that are each 1 acre or less in size and within his giant estate.

These small parcels, known as kuleana lands, give their owners access rights over Zuckerberg’s surrounding property. Kuleana lands are those that people received from the Hawaiian government under the Kuleana Act of 1850.

In some cases the kuleana lands have been in local families for generations, and the ownership has been split among numerous relatives — possibly more than 100 relatives in one case. Zuckerberg, who has bought some partial interests from a handful of willing family members, can use Hawaii’s quiet title law to have the interests of the other fractional owners sold at a public auction to the highest bidder after a judge determines all rightful owners.

Forbes magazine ranked Zuckerberg as the sixth-richest person in the world last year with a net worth of $44.6 billion, a fortune that would make him tough to outbid.

In some of the other cases, Zuckerberg contends that Native Hawaiians who once owned certain parcels died without any known heirs.

Ing, who called Zuckerberg a “modern-day colonizer,” plans to introduce a bill in the Legislature to help owners of kuleana lands better resist forced sales of their ancestral property.

Johnna Ann Rapozo, a Honolulu resident whose great-grandmother Eliza Kauhaahaa is named in two of the lawsuits, said three parcels Zuckerberg has targeted in the quiet title actions were actually once owned by her great-grandmother who was also known as Eliza I, Eliza Lovell and Ana Laika.

Though she sold her interest in one parcel several years ago, she vows to challenge Zuckerberg’s claim on the other two parcels if the quiet title cases move forward.

“It’s such a strong connection to the aina (land),” she said. “It’s priceless.”