Residents upset by Hanauma Bay visitors jamming street parking

Since Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve reopened to the public Dec. 2, after almost nine months’ closure due to COVID-19, Hawaii Kai resident Jennifer Taylor has been hearing complaints from neighbors living on and around Nawiliwili Street, which lies off Kalanianaole Highway downhill from the entrance to the bay and runs for about a half-mile down to Poipu Drive, with public parking on both sides.

The problem is traffic congestion, she said, with up to 100 cars at a time ferrying would-be visitors who were denied entry under the reserve’s new limit of 120 people an hour, planning to park and hike uphill to the preserve or wait in their cars before making another try.

“They’re parking or circling in the neighborhood, then driving or walking back up to see if they can get in,” said Taylor, who is president of the Maunalua Triangle/Koko Kai Community Association.

“It’s been going on for a long time,” she said, noting that residents, who had enjoyed the quiet on their street during the closure, were disappointed because they thought the disruption to their neighborhood would be minimal under the city’s reopening rules that allow only 720 visitors a day compared with the pre-COVID number of 3,000.

Taylor said residents were now hoping the City and County of Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation, which manages Hanauma Bay, would quickly establish an online reservation system providing set time slots for visits, as urged by the Honolulu City Council’s Resolution 20-207, which was adopted in September. An online reservation system also was raised during a press conference with Mayor Kirk Caldwell and DPR Director Michele Nekota at the bay on Dec. 2.

However, when asked Tuesday about an estimated time frame, “We do not have a timeline for the implementation of an online reservation system for public entry into the Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve,” DPR spokesman Nathan Serota responded via email.

>> PHOTOS: Parking overwhelms neighborhood streets

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Thirty people are admitted to the preserve every 15 minutes, based on COVID-19 safe distancing capacity in the preserve’s theatre, where all visitors are required to view an educational video before continuing down to the beach, Serota said.

“The 30 people every 15 minutes/120 people every hour is not limited to pedestrian entries,” he added. “It includes vehicular entries as well, based on the amount of people in the car.”

There are about 230 stalls open to the public in the public parking lot, Serota said, noting the commercial parking lot is closed, as commercial vehicles are not currently allowed to enter the nature preserve.

“This is an unfair burden on the residents of Nawiliwili Street and (adjoining) Kalalau Street,” said one longtime resident, who wished to remain anonymous,“because Hanauma Bay patrons are taking up all our street parking, bringing traffic and noise, blocking our driveways and trash and recycling bins from pickup, littering with used water bottles, cigarettes, food wrappers.”

Since the bay reopened, he said, visitors have been blocking access to his driveway, including one woman who sat in her idling car at 7:30 a.m. the day after the bay reopened and refused to move when he asked her to.

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The preserve is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays, with no admissions after 2 p.m.

The anonymous resident added thieves sometimes came to the neighborhood to “break into the unattended tourist cars,” and there were “even vendors hawking bentos” to tourists.

“The guards at Hanauma Bay even tell cars to park below in our neighborhood when their parking lot is full,” the resident said.

Asked whether preserve guards recommended parking in residential neighborhoods, Serota responded it would be difficult to verify “hearsay information like that,” and said residents could call police if cars were illegally parked on their streets.

Taylor said that while Honolulu Police Department officers assigned to the area had always been helpful and understanding, residents were reluctant to call police for continual parking infractions.

Having lived for 16 years on a street where people flock to view the sunsets every evening at Portlock’s China Wall and Spitting Cave, Taylor added she accepted that sharing curbside parking with other members of the public came with the territory.

“If you’re going to live in a really nice neighborhood with views, then there’s a certain price you have to pay and I’m willing to pay that,” she said.

“But” she added, “it has to be reasonable, not 50 to 100 cars just glutting a narrow street and not being respectful of people.”

Visitors to the bay also have asked for an online reservation system.

“I think Hanauma Bay should continue strictly limited visitor access, but there truly needs to be an online reservation system to manage this efficiently,” Honolulu resident Dale Moana Gilmartin wrote in a letter to the editor Tuesday in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, reporting that on the previous Friday she and her husband circled the preserve entrance for two hours “before finally gaining admission.”

Noting that the Pearl Harbor National Memorial has reopened to limited numbers of visitors with an online reservation system, she suggested the city reach out to the National Park Service “for some guidance.”

Asked if the community had considered applying to the city for a designated No Parking Zone, the Taylor’s anonymous neighbor said the idea had been discussed but rejected at a neighborhood board meeting.

The residents didn’t want to bar the public from parking on their street, he said, adding, “there would be no problem if Hanauma Bay, like Disneyland and other tourist attractions, would just keep patron parking within its boundaries.”