Column: Poor decisions by city put Diamond Head in mortal danger

Diamond Head is in mortal danger! Our iconic symbol of the beauty of Hawaii is threatened not by such physical disasters as earthquakes, tsunamis or volcanic eruptions, but by the poor decisions of our city agencies.

For several years illegal campers have been disfiguring Diamond Head by digging into its hillside to create large encampments littered with piles of trash and junk. At night, cooking fires appear, which, on one occasion, metastasized into a dangerous brush fire that required containment by the Honolulu Fire Department.

The waste products from the illegal campers pollute the hillside, beaches and surf sites. Parents are afraid to bring their children to Diamond Head for weekend outings. When complaints are made to city officials at neighborhood board meetings, we are told that “sweeps of illegal campers” are made every six months. This is not a solution. Campers who are “swept” out of Diamond Head and other parts of Oahu return after a few days.

In addition, we learned recently that the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting granted a permit to a wealthy homeowner to build a private elevator that will travel up and down the slopes of Diamond Head. Its rationale for this bad decision is that the elevator is an “accessory use” of his multimillion-dollar home. This “thumb’s up” for the defacement was given despite the fact that, under Honolulu’s land use ordinance, Diamond Head is a special district in which the views and natural appearance of the crater’s slopes are supposed to be given special protections.

The elevator would run 80 feet alongside the property and it would not be a sleek-looking cable car. Hillside lifts used elsewhere suggest it would be a large metal cage resembling a prison cell (“Neighborhood board disputes Diamond Head homeowner’s plan to install private beach-access tram,” Star-Advertiser, June 23). It is an elevator to nowhere, terminating at a cliff and inaccessible to the beach below. It would look ugly anywhere on Earth, but on the slopes of Diamond Head, it is a desecration.

Without question, the beauty of Hawaii’s most recognized landmark should not be marred by an ugly metal cage running up and down its slopes. Worse yet is the fact that this terrible decision will set a precedent that will allow other wealthy homeowners to build similarly ugly contraptions on other parts of Diamond Head, and on other mountains, such as Koko Head, Tantalus and Makapuu.

Enough is enough. Effective solutions must be implemented. Park rangers should be hired who have the power to arrest illegal campers. Nighttime access to the illegal camping areas must be prohibited. City and state officials, Honolulu Police Department, state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office, the courts and the entire community must cooperate and work together. The situation is a major crisis and must be solved through imagination, creativity, hard work and discipline.

We are equipped with the skills, intelligence and determination to accomplish this; we just need political will and leadership. The same issues are occurring in communities and in public places across Oahu.

A bright future for Hawaii is not only dependent on maintaining a high quality of life for its residents, but continuing to keep our iconic sites beautiful and safe for visitors. If Diamond Head is desecrated by the depredations of illegal campers and ugly and noisy elevators, we are in danger of losing our tourist industry, which is our most important economic engine. Diamond Head is too important to be neglected.

Our government officials must take constructive action right now. We need all hands on deck to remove the illegal campers, and the decision to grant the permit for the Diamond Head elevator must be rescinded.

Richard Turbin is chairman of the Waialae-Kahala Neighborhood Board, and founder/senior partner of a Honolulu law firm.