After a boulder crashed through a Palolo home in January, residents mulled over possible measures to prevent more rocks from breaking loose from the valley’s ridges above and causing further damage and even serious injury.
About 30 people gathered at Aliiolani Elementary School for the first of two meetings held Saturday by local developer Peter Savio to discuss rock mitigation measures in Palolo Valley. The meeting focused on properties that are set up against the valley walls, including the home on Palolo Avenue that was damaged Jan. 28.
A home video of the incident that was widely shared on social media and in news accounts shows the boulder plowing through the home, narrowly missing a woman inside.
Savio owns about 34 acres of undeveloped land on a Palolo ridge, including the area from which the boulder fell. His plans to create an urban forest of native plants there stalled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joining him at Saturday’s meetings were University of Hawaii geologist Scott Rowland and Cliff Tillotson, a rock mitigation expert from Prometheus Construction. Savio pitched a plan to residents that included installing about a mile of special impact fencing strong enough to keep falling boulders from reaching homes.
“Not only are these boulders putting at risk these properties but also putting at risk the pedestrians and the driving public,” Tillotson said. “It would be in the city and state’s best interest to do some mitigation work just to protect the traveling public as well — not just the (residents) — instead of putting the burden back on you guys as individual property owners.”
Tillotson estimated such a project would cost $7 million to $10 million. To fund it, Savio proposed that the City and County of Honolulu offer a program in which owners interested in further development on their properties pay for additional development rights, with the fees used to build the fence.
Savio said the local government should shoulder some of the responsibility of protecting residents from falling boulders, and he urged residents to call on city officials to do so.
“It shouldn’t have happened. … And whose fault is it? It’s our government’s fault,” Savio said. “If that boulder had hit a tourist bus, they would’ve been out here the next day fixing it, building a fence or doing something to protect it. If it hits one of us — too bad.”
His proposal got a mixed reception. While most appeared supportive of some kind of mitigation measure, they were less enthusiastic about having a mile-long fence installed on the ridge that would incentivize more home development in Palolo and require the cooperation of local government.
“I think it’s the ugliest solution,” Palolo resident Dale Nakayama told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser afterward. “The government works so slow; it’s not going to be done in six months.”
Nakayama and another resident who attended said planting trees and other vegetation on the ridge would offer protection that’s cheaper and less of an eyesore than a fence. Planting trees wouldn’t require city involvement either, they said.
“I think Peter should develop his forest. That’s the best, because he doesn’t need any lawmaker to tell him he can and cannot do it,” Nakayama said, adding, “It’s not going to cost $10 million. He’ll get volunteers to come in (to plant trees).”
Nakayama, 65, has lived in Palolo his entire life, and his family own several homes neighboring the Palolo Avenue home that was damaged by the boulder.
He said a second boulder struck a concrete tile wall at his cousin’s home at the same time the boulder crashed through the other home, and in the 1960s a boulder flattened a car on Loke Place. But Nakayama added it hasn’t happened that often and isn’t a particular concern for Palolo residents.
