Public beach access at Kahala Resort debated

Kahala Hotel &Resort, which holds a state-issued revocable permit to use its public beachfront for private purposes, promised area residents and beachgoers last year it would widen and improve an existing path to delineate public and private spaces.

A 6-foot-wide sand path was supposed to open in March. Instead, the resort removed previous markings and planted more grass, creating a more subtle pathway.

“They’ve made it invisible,” Linda Wong, a member of the Diamond Head-Kapahulu-St. Louis Heights Neighborhood Board, said Tuesday as she searched for the promised path. “They’ve taken all the public space and landscaped it. You can’t tell which part is the hotel and which part is the public beach.”

Wong’s concerns were echoed by several testifiers at Thursday’s Waialae-Kahala Neighborhood Board meeting who told resort consultant Peter Young they were dissatisfied with the changes.

Young said the hotel’s Japan-based owner, Resorttrust Hawaii LLC, recently decided to replace the sandy path concept with a “change in elevation” and planned to install signage along an indented grass pathway indicating the public was welcome.

Rich Turbin, chairman of the Waialae-Kahala Neighborhood Board, said the resort updated him on the changes several weeks ago and he wasn’t opposed as long as the hotel installed signage that “invited nonguests to traverse the property.”

However, Kahala resident and landscape architect Jim Nicolay said grass isn’t a proper pathway since it can be made to disappear with a few quick passes of a lawn mower.

“We talked about an actual path. To me the fact that somebody in Japan thought it was their decision to change this on public property was out of bounds,” Nicolay said.

The Sierra Club’s Dave Rainey said a “well-marked path and signs” should be made a condition of the resort’s revocable permit, which is issued by the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.

“The whole issue there for years and years is that it’s been made to look like private property,” Rainey said.

Young pledged to continue working with the community to address concerns, but meeting attendee Tyler Ralston said “it’s hard to believe anything that is being said from the hotel.”

This is just the resort’s latest community conflict over shared beach space.

Last year, Resorttrust began seeking a state-issued nonexclusive easement that would have allowed it to use about an acre of public shoreline for commercial enterprises. Since 1968, the hotel has obtained access through a less permanent month-to-month revocable permit. The monthly rate on the current permit, which will be up for renewal before the end of the year, is $1,281.

Permit rules require the hotel to obtain prior written consent from BLNR before setting up beach chairs before guests show up, conducting surf instruction on the public beach or making major improvements to the permitted lands.

The easement plan was not well received by some community critics who said it would set a dangerous precedent by favoring commercial interests over public beach access, which is a hard-won right in Hawaii. They also alleged the hotel, which advertises surfing and has preset chairs and wedding gazebos in the past, was already in violation of its revocable permit.

The hotel withdrew its easement-seeking draft environmental assessment in August and pledged to provide more frequent community updates. During Thursday’s update, a skeptical Ralston questioned whether Young knew “something that you are not telling us about that we may find out in the future.”

In response, Young said Resorttrust and the state are discussing property usage. Young said the resort has not received a violation notice from the state but has removed its permanent wedding cabanas and understands DLNR is investigating presetting of resort chairs.

According to DLNR’s Land Division, the “site was recently checked and there were no signs of unauthorized activities, including presetting of beach chairs on the beach.”