The leaseholders own the cabins but lease their lots. In developing a key management plan for the 6,200-acre Koke’e and Waimea Canyon state park complex, the state government can avoid community conflict by renewing leases for 118 cabins in the
The leaseholders own the cabins but lease their lots.
In developing a key management plan for the 6,200-acre Koke’e and Waimea Canyon state park complex, the state government can avoid community conflict by renewing leases for 118 cabins in the park, Kauaians told government officials yesterday.
Anxiety is mounting among cabin owners because their leases with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources are scheduled to end in December 2005. The leaseholders own the cabins but lease their lots.
Whether the state can develop any park plan may be in question, according to Hawaiian sovereignty groups that contend the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy was illegal and the park lands still belong to the Hawaiian kingdom.
DLNR officials took those comments during a meeting Saturday at the Waimea Theater on a proposed master plan for the park. About 80 people attended.
The meeting started the process for the development of the plan, which will be worked on by a consultant (still to be hired) and DLNR. Four more community meetings are planned.
A final park plan, which requires approval by the DLNR Land Board and an environmental impact statement, is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2004.
The plan, aimed at optimizing management of park resources, would address preservation of natural, cultural and recreational resources, users and uses, maintenance of trails and infrastructure needs.
Audience members at yesterday’s meeting said DLNR should focus immediate attention on the cabin leases.
DLNR auctioned the leases in 1985 and plans to terminate them in 2005, with the cabins to be either taken by the state or removed by their owners.
Audience members said animosity surfaced between DLNR and citizens after 37 families lost their leases in the auction.
The bidding process was a “complete disaster,” said David Pratt, a longtime executive associated with Grove Farm Co. and a third-generation cabin leaseholder.
Through the auction, the state may have intended to get more local families – including descendants of the first pioneers to Kaua’i – into the cabins, but it worked the opposite way, Pratt said. New residents bid successfully for the lots but some leases were defaulted, resulting in lots becoming vacant and overgrown, he said.
Attorney Sam Blair, representing the Koke’e Leaseholders Association on a volunteer basis, said DLNR and leaseholders can avoid a “collision course” by agreeing on two provisions in the lease.
Blair said DLNR can philosophically agree to extend the leases beyond December 2005 and not take possession of cabins.
Because the cabins are privately owned, the state should rescind a lease condition giving government ownership of the cabins, said Wayne Jacinto, vice president of the Koke’e Leaseholders Association.
“By what stretch of the imagination can anyone claim ownership of the cabins?” Jacinto asked, adding that if the cabins are taken by the state, the cabin owners are constitutionally entitled to compensation.
DLNR officials have said they are open to all options, including renegotiating the leases to address community concerns and to generate much-needed revenues for state park operations.
But renegotiating the leases shouldn’t be an option because Hawaiians weren’t given the same options with their land leases, said Judy Stewart-Naumu, ahupua’a president of Anahola Hawaiian Homesteads Association, Anahola Hawaiian Land Farm Association and Kekaha Hawaiian Homestead Association.
“My kupuna had leased their lands, but they weren’t given a chance to amend,” Naumu said.
But Blair said the cabin owners take care of the park and “are good for the park,” while Pratt said the cabins are an integral part of the park and that they are not a “blight.”
Frank Hay, president of the Koke’e Leaseholders Association, said the cabins are historically connected with the park. In the 1850s, Valdemar Knudsen, whose descendants would become major landowners in Koloa, leased two parcels in Koke’e from the kingdom of Hawai’i and built a home on one of them.
That first house opened the way for campsites that eventually turned into sites for the 118 cabins that exist today, Hay said.
The state’s effort to develop a master plan for the park may be a wasted effort because the land belongs to the Hawaiian nation, and Hawaiian leaders will decide its use, said West Kaua’i resident Joseph Manini Sr.
“We don’t agree with the movement by DLNR or the National Park Service,” Manini said. “We want to leave Kaua’i as it is.”
To date, DLNR has done a poor job operating and maintaining the park and the roads, trails and infrastructure, Jacinto complained.
Park officials say they have been hampered by the lack of funds and manpower.
As a way to generate funds for the park, the state should consider charging visitors and residents an entry fee, in line with current practices at national parks and at some state parks, said an audience member.
DLNR can generate money by doing a better job of monitoring the cabin leases, Hay claimed.
Over the past 20 years, the state has collected between $4 and $5 million in lease revenue from cabin owners but has lost approximately $500,000 from defaulted leases, he said.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
