An intermittent quasi- judicial state hearing to consider expansion of a Kaneohe cemetery entered a new phase Wednesday as a community group began presenting expert witnesses to challenge the project.

Hui o Pikoiloa went on offense in its effort to block the proposed growth of Hawaiian Memorial Park onto adjacent forested conservation land in a continuation of a state Land Use Commission hearing that began in January.

The group largely comprising homeowners near the expansion site had three of its seven scheduled witnesses testify during Wednesday’s hearing via videoconference.

Hui o Pikoiloa’s initial witnesses raised issues that included the loss of trees, the adequacy of stormwater management plans and demand for burials.

It is the second time Hui o Pikoiloa has challenged a petition by Hawaiian Memorial to urbanize conservation land for expansion.

The group contested a 2007 plan that the LUC rejected in 2009 partly because the expansion site was outside county guidelines for where urban growth should be permitted.

An affiliate of Texas-based Service Corp. International, which owns the cemetery, obtained an urban-growth boundary amendment from the City Council in 2017 to resolve the prior stumbling block.

The company also removed four mausoleums and a 20-home subdivision from its prior plan.

Service Corp., the largest funeral and cemetery serv­ice operator in the world, submitted its revised plan to the LUC in 2017.

The $29 million plan would add 28 acres to the existing 80-acre cemetery. For 130 adjacent acres, the plan would establish an easement to be held by a nonprofit land trust that prohibits future development in perpetuity, would create a cultural preserve around an ancient Native Hawaiian heiau and would implement measures to protect a wetland habitat for an endangered native damselfly.

Winston Welch, executive director of the Outdoor Circle, was Hui o Pikoiloa’s first witness. He largely challenged contentions by Hawaiian Memorial that its plan wouldn’t have a significant adverse impact on green open space.

“Cemetery turf and complete forest, as we have now, are not equal open spaces,” he said. “It is significant to destroy a 100-foot-high mountain, and all of the tall trees that are currently on it.”

Hawaiian Memorial intends to recontour the land by making 10- to 75-foot cuts into the hillside, and building retaining walls as tall as 25 feet.

“The project would unalterably change the look and character of the current natural mountain and forest that exists today,” Welch said. “We’re talking about a complete terraforming. This land should stay in conservation district status undeveloped for perpetuity.”

The City Department of Planning and Permitting has recommended that Hawaiian Memorial, if its plan is approved, plant at least one tree to offset the removal of each tree with a trunk diameter of at least six inches, and that the replacement be done over a “reasonable period of time” and not necessarily within the expansion area.

Hawaiian Memorial, which has noted that invasive species primarily make up the forest, has agreed to DPP’s recommendation.

Welch said a more appropriate ratio would be planting three trees to every one removed because mature existing trees that stand to be lost benefit the environment more.

John Higham, a retired veteran Hawaii civil engineer, challenged the adequacy of Hawaiian Memorial’s planned stormwater management system on the cemetery expansion site.

“I believe this project as currently proposed puts downstream homeowners at an increased risk,” he said.

Higham also said he believes DPP, which is tasked with determining adequacy, will conclude that the proposed system meets the agency’s standards.

Hui o Pikoiloa’s third witness was Ken Middleton, operator of an Oahu boat charter business that scatters ashes of the deceased in the ocean for customers.

He testified that a Hawaiian Memorial estimate of 1,074 such burials happening last year is low, based on his performing the serv­ice for 450 local customers last year.

“I’m sure we’re not doing half the ash scatterings on Oahu,” he said. “It’s definitely a growing trend.”

Middleton’s testimony was aimed at addressing Hawaiian Memorial’s claim that it needs to expand.

Hawaiian Memorial’s existing cemetery has 79,000 plots, of which 4,500 are unsold and 38,000 are unoccupied. The expansion would add 30,000 more plots.

Other Hui o Pikoiloa witnesses yet to testify are a Sierra Club representative and three University of Hawaii professors expected to address issues including deforestation, burial trends, flooding and the damselfly habitat.

On Wednesday, the state Office of Planning expressed support for the land-use change. And a state Department of Land and Natural Resources entomologist, Cynthia King, said Hawaiian Memorial’s plan to protect and monitor the damselfly habitat is sound.

The habitat is fed by seepage from a well, and Hawaiian Memorial plans to install subsurface drains to maintain the water flow from the well, or a new water line if the well and drain system fails.

LUC proceedings on the petition are expected to resume Aug. 12. An initial hearing day in January was largely consumed with public testimony. Since then, the LUC has continued to accept written public testimony and held two days of hearings earlier this month in which Hawaiian Memorial presented its expert witnesses.