Don’t give hotel beach easement

In Hawaii, residents and visitors alike hold dear a common law right that provides public access to all beaches. No one wants to be shooed away from a walk along a public beach to avoid accidentally crashing the setting of a private event.

That’s already a concern on state land fronting the 388-room luxe Kahala Hotel &Resort, the lone hotel situated on the South Shore east of Diamond Head. Area residents have stories of being asked to take detours winding through hotel property or into water to avoid guest-booked functions being held on the public beach.

Justifiably, then, there’s community resistance to the hotel’s request to exchange its revocable permit for a less flexible, more permanent nonexclusive easement along a 1-acre stretch of shoreline.

Resorttrust Hawaii LLC is proposing to spend $900,000 to improve that state parcel and another 1.65 acres of leasehold land by adding an outdoor wedding venue to its two sites already in place. It envisions stepping up its water’s-edge offering with torch-lighting ceremonies and outrigger canoes rides. Also, the hotel says, it would improve shoreline access.

While more inviting access is welcome, of course, guest-focused uses slated for the state parcel could easily crowd out non-guests. How to avoid a slippery slope of exclusivity, on which a slice of public beach could end up essentially privatized?

The conversation, which is already buzzing among area residents, will surely continue at a Waialae-Kahala Neighborhood Board meeting at 7 p.m. tonight at Wesley United Methodist Church.

Meanwhile, the hotel’s draft environmental assessment for the proposed upgrades is under review by the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.

If approved, the request for a permanent nonexclusive easement will be submitted to the Board of Land and Natural Resources for review and action. The assessment contends that the hotel’s plan for the full 2.65 acres will yield no significant environmental impact, and do no harm to its physical and cultural environment.

The hotel is likely motivated to switch permits as a means to better ensure that it can pull off its ongoing bookings for weddings and other functions without fear that the state could swiftly pull its permit. The more rigid permit’s effect on public access would not “materially deviate” from the current setup, stated the hotel’s management. The hotel’s general manager, Gerald Glennon, has said the public would continue to enjoy “full rights to use the state property,” and hotel beach chairs regularly lined up on the state land would be available without charge for all beachgoers on a first-come, first-served basis.

But that raises another question for the Kahala community and state officials to answer. Why is it OK for a row of unclaimed commercial beach chairs to occupy space on this acre of state beach?

In recent years, the hotels lining Waikiki on the other side of Diamond Head grappled with complaints about unoccupied hotel beach umbrellas and chairs elbowing out already relatively thin beach space. In 2014, the dispute prompted the Legislature to order the Department of Land and Natural Resources to find a solution. And last year stakeholders adopted guidelines clarifying that beach equipment in front of the Royal Hawaiian hotel, the Moana Surfrider and the Outrigger Waikiki must be rented to a named customer prior to occupying limited state beach space.

Hawaii law requires lateral access to the shoreline, which stretches to the upper reaches of the wash of waves at high tide during the season with the highest wash. The risk of setting the stage for a situation in which a public beach could be co-opted for private use is greater under a permanent nonexclusive easement. Therefore, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources should deny it.