20 years in the making: County purchases Honolulu Landing property – West Hawaii Today

Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda announced Thursday that after more than two decades of advocacy, the 364-acre coastal Puna property known as Honolulu Landing had been acquired by the county for preservation.

The $3.7 million deal was made possible by the County Council’s unanimous approval of Resolution 286-25 on Sept. 17 last year. It authorized the Department of Finance to negotiate the property’s purchase using funds from the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission, also known as PONC — a county advisory body tasked with identifying lands for purchase based on their cultural, recreational and ecological value.

Money for PONC acquisitions comes from a fund comprised of 2% of annual property tax revenue.

Honolulu Landing is situated between Nanawale Forest Reserve and Waiakahiula, comprised of 4,000 feet of rocky, undeveloped shoreline and a broad swath of deep jungle, making up a traditional Hawaiian land division known as an ahupua‘a. It is scattered with village complexes, burial sites, temples known as heiau, house platforms and traditional farming terraces — an archaeological record of Puna district’s past and the result of centuries of human habitation.

Although vacant in modern times, the property — known as a “wahi pana” or sacred place by many — is home to endangered species like the io (Hawaiian hawk), opeapea (Hawaiian hoary bat) and pueo (Hawaiian owl), as well as native trees like hau, kukui and hala.

Alameda’s announcement was celebrated by cultural practitioners, scientists and conservation groups, and especially by some lineal descendants of the area. Among this latter group was Lehua Kaulukukui, who said her great-grandmother was born on the property in 1876. The land, she said in past testimony supporting the resolution, is a part of her genealogy, reminding her that humans are “not separate from the universe.”

“We are genealogically connected to it — we all descend from that same cosmic origin,” Kaulukukui told a County Council committee last year during discussions about the purchase. “Honolulu Landing is part of that genealogy. Its walls, heiau, house sites and burials are not relics. They are living testaments to our place in the universal order. To disturb them is to break the chain between past and future, between earth and sky, between people and the cosmos.”

In a prepared statement shared with the Tribune-Herald, she thanked various county officials for their “leadership and commitment” in advancing the resolution past the finish line.

”This pivotal moment represents more than policy,” she wrote. “It is an affirmation of the enduring relationship between our people and this beloved wahi pana. Honolulu Landing holds the legacy of our Tutu, Mary Kaui Moke Kuamo‘o Keli‘ipio, and generations of ohana before her who lived in deep alignment with this aina. We recognize this action as a meaningful step toward the protection and preservation of Honolulu Landing, ensuring that its cultural, historical, and spiritual significance remains intact for future generations.”

The land got its name in the early 20th century when it served as a hub for interisland commerce. From the early 1900s up until the 1940s, cattle were driven across the lava field shoreline and made to swim out to waiting steamships, which would hoist the animals onboard before beginning their journey back to Oahu. Before that, a black sand beach resulting from the 1840 Nanawale eruption and lava flow created an ideal spot for launching canoes along an otherwise rocky, treacherous coast. Honolulu means “sheltered harbor” or “calm port” in the Hawaiian language.

Local activists also celebrated the good news, like former County Council member Eileen O’Hara, who currently serves as the executive director of Pahoa-based environmental nonprofit Malama O Puna. O’Hara lives in the Hawaiian Shores subdivision right up the coast from the now-preserved land, and has been petitioning the county for its protection since it landed on the inaugural PONC list back in 2006.

“I’m just really, really happy,” she said. “I’m happy for future generations. I feel like I can point to this and say I did something meaningful — really meaningful — for my community. To me, it’s just thrilling to succeed in this long-term endeavor.”

The property was previously slated for development by Nani Kahuka Aina LLC, which had owned it since 2006, but these plans didn’t move forward. Then it was listed for sale in the summer of 2025. This could have resulted in the property being used for the construction of a new coastal subdivision along Old Government Beach Road, posing a threat to its archaeological sites and botanical wealth.

“It’s very important — we don’t want to see more development down here,” O’Hara said. “Just imagine 200 one-acre lots being developed on that property, and the additional traffic that would cause. It would not be something that would be a benefit to anybody.”

The land’s potential for archaeological study, she said, is a critical reason why it should be left as open space.

“That is why it’s so important to preserve it, because it’s very much still an intact village up there,” she said. “I mean, it’s grown over and there’s a lot of new vegetation, but you can uncover a lot as you get further away from the road. It’s pretty exciting to think of what we might find.”

She said the lessons that the property’s “living record of the past” could teach contemporary Hawaii Island residents about self-sufficiency and “malama aina” are most important.

“This takes us back and allows us to look at how the host culture dealt with these lands,” she said. “They lived here for centuries, and they had a population that may have exceeded what we currently have on the Big Island by some estimates. And they were self-sufficient and lived off the land, and we’ve rolled backwards.”

Email Stefan Verbano at stefan.verbano@hawaiitribune-herald.com.