Alternate makai access road?

[Midnight Rambler]

Even at $175 million, it seems like an astounding figure. The entire Saddle Road project cost $200 million, and that involved completely rerouting the road over most of its length, with a huge amount of regrading through lava rock, and paving it to practically an interstate-grade road. Whatever actual route is used for a PMAR, it already has a road along much of the length, the terrain is relatively level, and it doesn't need to be built to such a high spec.

[Obie]

What about this proposal ?

" HAWAIIAN ACRES - ORCHIDLAND PARKWAY. While it is not appropriate to create a single high-speed high-volume freeway through HPP, each side of the boundary between Hawaiian Acres and Orchidland are 3-acre parcels in a region still sparsely populated. County should consider acquiring one acre from each lot under eminent domain condemnation to create a wide green-belted corridor for a future divided multi-lane 55-mph limited access highway. Fewer land owners are impacted with remaining 2-acre lots still being nicely usable.

To off-set the negative impact, the county shall utilize this corridor to bring water and electricity to the area with impacted property owners provided some form or incentive treatment or rates. On the mauka end, the highway will utilize part of Olaa Road, and then veer to the Modified PMAR near the Kurtistown Volcano Highway intersection. On the makai end, the highway would cut through Ainaloa and additional condemnation/property acquisition will be needed. But using the same principle of trying not to splinter a subdivision, the alignment can be adjusted to go over the boundary between Hawaiian Acres and Ainaloa to keep Ainaloa intact and to incorporate a portion of the Puna Emergency Access Road (PEAR).

The Hawaiian Acres - Orchidland Parkway would serve as an access road for the proposed 500 - 1,000-acre Pahoa Community, Business & Industrial Park above Pahoa Town. It will continue to connect to Kalapana Road. This Hawaiian Acres - Orchidland Parkway would serve as an alternative to Keaau-Pahoa Hwy 130. While it may begin as a 2-lane road, as usage builds, it can be expanded to the standard of Volcano Highway between Hilo and Keaau. The boards of Hawaiian Acres, Orchidland, and Ainaloa will have the responsibility of working with Hawaii County.

Orchidland may make a very straightforward decision and to connect whichever roads currently connect to Keaau-Pahoa Highway 130. Hawaiian Acres have an avowed policy to not welcome public roads through their private subdivision. Will they decide to connect B, C, D, E, and F or will they continue to use their current roads only? If they connect will they cooperate with allowing Fern Forest and other mauka subdivisions to connect and create multiple through roads? "

[JG-HPP]

We are also in HPP & would welcome a Railroad route (though would feel sorry for those living there). I've heard that not only Shipman is a problem but there are some Hawaiian Homeland issues as well. Anyone know?

[Amrita]

[quote]Originally posted by Obie

What about this proposal ?
each side of the boundary between Hawaiian Acres and Orchidland are 3-acre parcels in a region still sparsely populated. County should consider acquiring one acre from each lot under eminent domain condemnation to create a wide green-belted corridor for a future divided multi-lane 55-mph limited access highway. Fewer land owners are impacted with remaining 2-acre lots still being nicely usable.

Actually the lots along 9 Road, the boundry between HA and OLE are oversized lots, i.e. more than 3 acres and so your proposal is even more enticing. We own a lot on 9 R mauka just past E and it is 4.13 acres.

[csgray]

The Saddle road changes did not involve seizing property from almost 200 individual property owners, many of them homes. That real estate is going to cost a whole lot more per square foot than whatever private land had to be taken for Saddle Road. One of the routes that has been bandied about recently is literally in my back yard, several of the places behind us are built pretty close to the property line and will have to be torn down to make way for the PMAR. We are talking about $200,000-$300,000 homes. No matter what route is chosen, there has been a whole lot of building in HPP over the last 10 years and there will be homes that will have to be destroyed to build it. That runs up the cost pretty quick. In our case we would just get a small payment for the land and all value in my home will be lost; due to the terrain, the PMAR will take all our privacy and the noise will be untenable. This home is my single largest asset, I will lose all the value of my equity if it goes through my backyard, if it isn't my backyard it will be someone else's. So, yes, I guess we can be derisively called NIMBYs, but stop and think about how you would feel if the shoe was on the other foot, and you were going to be faced with a road being put in through your backyard by the same people who are doing such a swell job of planning and executing all the other road work on this island.

FYI, that was not one of the proposed routes when we carefully researched before buying our house. This has been a shell game for years, making it hard for people to know where they could buy and be safely away from this project.

Carol

[kalakoa]

This has been a shell game for years

I've often thought that many such games are played against Puna property values, simply because some players "aren't ready yet"... maybe that's just the tinfoil hat.

An access road along the back of Ainaloa-OLE-HA-FA-Kopua-ER-etc would run through State (and possibly DHHL) land, mostly avoiding any ED seizures. Because the existing roads don't run all the way to the preserve, it would be up to the individual subdivisions to create access. Yes, this is close to the lava flow ...

[snorkle]

Opihikao,

I didn't really mean to insinuate that Mr. Walters is a villian. In fact, isn't he doing some work to mitigate the toxic contamination that the Shipman Company have left on their land? Villian is a poor choice of wording on my part, and I apologize.

As far as being "Short sighted"; I believe he is. As mentioned above, if he doesn't provide an access route, eminent domain probably will. If he develops it himself, he can do it in a manner that is profitable, and secure(He is a shrewd businessman, right?).

[james weatherford]

quote:

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Originally posted by Julie

We are also in HPP & would welcome a Railroad route (though would feel sorry for those living there). I've heard that ...there are some Hawaiian Homeland issues as well. Anyone know?

---

Yes, on November 11, 2011, leaders from the Keaukaha, Pana’ewa, Maku’u, and Kaumana HHL communities sent a letter to Mayor Kenoi opposing a proposed PMAR from Nanawale Estates subdivision to Hilo, connected at Railroad Avenue in Pana’ewa.

[Seeb]

The people yelling NIMBY on the HPP route are FOS unless they live here. putting a "Major Connector Road between two lots will make but rows of houses unlivable.it would be better to condemn one row of whole lots that would add a 100ft of buffer on each side,landscaped right it would do a lot of noise reduction. Or they could put a two lane road doesn't the double wide right of way on 19th

[Rob Tucker]

Seeb, How would a small number of half acre lots be "unlivable"? Most of the mainland and the city of Hilo live on much, much smaller lots than half an acre.