City Looks for plan for Haiku Stairs
by Gordon Y.K. Pang
Honolulu
Star-Advertiser
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Members of the City Council and Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s
administration promised to try again to come up with a plan for the Haiku
Stairs that would appease both hikers and Kaneohe
residents who say they’re tired of unruly visitors and other trespassers.
Members of the Friends of Haiku Stairs want the city to
reopen access roads to the hiking trail and to institute a management program
there similar to Haunauma Bay Nature Preserve.
But at a Council Parks Committee meeting Monday, the area’s
state lawmakers, fire and police representatives and a resident said it’s time
that access to Haiku Stairs, also known as the Stairway to Heaven, be cut off permanently
by removing the bottom rungs of the trail.
At the end of the meeting, Council Parks Chairman Joey
Manahan said he will establish a working group or task force “to look at
possible solutions.”
Windward Councilman Ikaika Anderson said he views Caldwell’s position
critical to a possible opening.
Caldwell
issued a release later Monday saying the illegal trespassing problems raised by
Haiku residents must be resolved before he will support reopening the stairs.
“The Haiku Stairs is a unique attraction and I would like to
find a solution or partnership that might allow the city to reopen them, but
that will only happen if the access issue is resolved to the neighborhood’s
satisfaction.”
The stairs were part of the Coat Guard’s Omega transmission
station at the bottom of Haiku
Valley and were built by
the Navy in 1943 to reach the cable facilities above the valley. Wooden stairs
were replaced with galvanized metal ones in 1955.
The city, under the leadership of former Mayor Jeremy Harris
and then Windward Councilman Steve Holmes, took ownership of the stairs from
the military in the early 2000s and the city spent $875,000 to repair them. But
jurisdictional entanglements ensued as opposition from residents mounted and
the attraction never reopened.
State Re. Ken Ito, (D, Kaneohe-Maunawili-Kailua) said he
does not believe the trail should be reopened, at least not until neighborhood concerns
are addressed.
Ito said the state Department of Transportation and the
Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which both own property the public will need
to access the city-owned stairs, have indicated a reluctance to make their
sections public.
Ito said he has tried for more than 10 years to resolve the
issues involving the stairs.
Caroline Sluyter, DOT spokeswoman, told the Star-Advertiser
that a DOT-maintained road used during construction of the H-3 freeway is not
paved and was never intended to be a public road.
Fire Department Capt. Dale Mosher said fire officials hold
that not only should the trail be closed, but that the city should remove the
stairs on the lower portion to shut them down permanently.
“We think it’s risky to the public,” Mosher said. “We think
it’s risky to ourselves and we would like it shut down.”
A string of Friends of Haiku Stairs supporters and hiking enthusiasts
urged Council members to at least listen to arguments for reopening the trail,
which they view as a valuable environmental and cultural resource.
Many said they believe a majority of the concerns raised by
the residents stem from the tendency of hikers to try to reach the stairs in
the middle of the night to avoid being stopped by security guards stationed at
the base of the trail during the day. Vernon Ansell, Friends of Haiku Stairs
president, said there are four access roads that can be reopened that would
allow hikers to reach the stairs during daylight hours without disturbing
neighbors.
Like other supporters, Ansell said the trail is a unique
treasure that should be valued and preserved. His group holds tree to four work
days a year along the trail, clearing it and removing alien species. “It’s just
amazing what’s up there and can be made available to the general public,” he
said.
Supporters of reopening the trail also dismissed conchs that
it is unsafe, noting that the death of a man on the stairs two years ago was the
result of a heart attack.
