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High-rise Hawaiian Home Lands project could be first of many, but not everyone is on board

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High-rise Hawaiian Home Lands project could be first of many, but not everyone is on board


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Native Hawaiians are divided over the first-ever rental high-rise to be built by the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands — exclusively for beneficiaries.

The $137 million project on 820 Isenberg St. is a redevelopment of the old Stadium Bowl-O-Drome property, which had remained unused since the bowling alley’s closure in 2004.

The 23-story high-rise will have street-level commercial space and 278 rental units, ranging from studios to three-bedroom townhouses. All rental units will be reserved for DHHL beneficiaries.

The project functions as a temporary housing solution for Native Hawaiians on the waiting list for a DHHL 99-year homestead lot.

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The only way we could really make or maximize the use of land was to build up.”

While living in the high-rise, Native Hawaiians will maintain their status on the waitlist.

The milestone project has sparked discourse at both the city and state level. A Honolulu City Council committee Wednesday endorsed the plan for final council approval.

Onlookers say as land runs scarce for traditional DHHL land plots, 820 Isenberg is the beginning of what could be a high-rise future for Native Hawaiian housing.

“While we are being very aggressive and doing the typical residential developments, especially on the Leeward Coast and coupled with some others in the urban area, it has been a real challenge,” said Kali Watson, director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

“The only way we could really make or maximize the use of land was to build up.”

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According to the DHHL, 14 out of 20 projects most recently approved by the Hawaiian Homestead Commission involve vertical construction, though that could be subject to change.

Of the 2,700 DHHL housing units slated to be constructed, 2,400 of them are vertical.

820 Isenberg is also a project spotlighted by Gov. Green’s housing emergency proclamation, designed to streamline housing construction, including on Hawaiian Home Lands.

There are some 29,000 applicants on the DHHL waitlist.

The emergency proclamation says Native Hawaiians, on average, spend 23 years on the waiting list; what’s more, Native Hawaiians make up 40% of the state’s houseless population.

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Paul Kema, who lives with his family in the Kalawahine Homestead in Punchbowl, was excited after hearing the conceptual plans of 820 Isenberg.

Referencing the landmark settlement that granted $328 million to DHHL beneficiaries who have spent decades on the waitlist, Kema says it’s time for new housing solutions for Native Hawaiians.

Other Native Hawaiian housing leaders alike commended the rental high-rise for providing alternatives, albeit temporary, to beneficiaries.

“With 20,000 — almost 30,000 — Hawaiians waiting, we have to be innovative,” said Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement CEO Kuhio Lewis.

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“You can’t just keep doing the same thing and hope for different outcomes.”

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If not enduring disproportionate housing burdens in their own backyard, Lewis warns that Native Hawaiians are increasingly being priced out of paradise.

The massive flight of natives and locals out of Hawaii, he says, was his impetus for hosting the 2023 Native Hawaiian convention in Las Vegas rather than Hawaii.

“If there’s an opportunity to go upwards in Honolulu and make something out of this parcel, why not? For me, it’s just making sure we approach it correctly,” said Lewis.

“So we don’t run over the work that our kupuna advocated for.”

Some beneficiaries, however, believe the new project fails to achieve the DHHL’s mission of developing land for Native Hawaiians.

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Puni Kekauoha, senior vice president of Kula No Na Poe Hawaii, a Native Hawaiian organization that serves Papakolea beneficiaries, maintains the high-rise project is a grave departure from the tradition of Hawaiian Home Lands.

“We had this granted on land — not on a condo, not on an apartment. I can’t even imagine deciding who to give as a successor to an apartment. I’m taken aback,” said Kekauoha, herself a Papakolea Hawaiian Home Lands beneficiary.

Kekauoha added the 1920 Hawaiian Home Commission Act, which granted Native Hawaiian families land to attain self-determination, cannot be fulfilled by a rental high-rise unit.

Organization CEO CEO Adrienne Dillard agrees.

“When you are a renter, you lose the autonomy that you get as a homeowner. So there are other considerations when people will be in rentals that impact a Hawaiian way of life,” said Dillard.

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Longtime affordable housing advocate and beneficiary Blossom Feitera understands the necessity to have rental units as an option, but also believes it falls short of the legacy of DHHL.

“Rentals should never be the forever home for people, they should choose where they want to go and fulfill a dream if owning a home is that dream. If not, our people are leaving Hawaii for something better,” said Feitera.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands acknowledged that the smaller rental units are not conducive to the clientele of often multi-generational Native Hawaiian families, and will carry heightened cultural awareness to this development.

“We need to be sensitive because high-rise living doesn’t necessarily align with our cultural perspectives. There’s a lifestyle change—living in a condominium, you don’t have as much privacy, or have the open space benefits, the yards,” said Watson.

Meanwhile, those on both sides of the issue are watching the governor’s emergency proclamation for housing with caution optimism, especially in regards to creating housing for Native Hawaiians.

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“We will have a role in helping to support both sides — the ones that are concerned about the impacts on long-standing laws that protect our archaeological sites, our iwi kupuna,” said Lewis, on behalf of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.

Before the pandemic, Kula No Na Poe Hawaii had worked closely with DHHL in the pre-development phase of 820 Isenberg, including the selection of the high-rise’s developers, Stanford Carr Development and Hawaiian Dredging.

Now, the organization urges the DHHL to do more so that the project can fully serve its beneficiaries. For example, they’d like the commercial space to showcase Hawaiian businesses.

In response to regulatory concerns, the DHHL said many of the 20 commission-approved projects are still undergoing environmental review, and two currently have issues with historic preservation.

Feitera similarly calls on the DHHL for further consultation with indigenous communities, specifically with waitlisted beneficiaries.

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“Right now, the community in general understands that there’s going to be an apartment,” Feitera said. “It’s going to be a high-rise — but, what else?”



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Hawaii

Demand, prices for local eggs skyrocket amid nationwide avian flu outbreak

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Demand, prices for local eggs skyrocket amid nationwide avian flu outbreak


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The hunt for eggs continues with an ongoing shortage in Hawaii caused by a nationwide bird flu outbreak.

With demand comes price increases. A new report from the Hawaii Department of Agriculture says the price for locally produced eggs jumped 28%, from $6.91 in 2021 to $8.87 in 2024.

Long lines formed outside Eggs Hawaii on Waiakamilo Road Wednesday morning with customers waiting patiently to buy local eggs.

Moanalua residents Bill and Lisa Sandusky said they went to Costco, Foodland, and Times in their search for eggs.

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“Everywhere, name it. I can’t find anything,” said Lisa Sandusky.

Salt Lake resident Erika Guillory is a caterer, and says the egg shortage has impacted her income.

“I was looking for eggs, and I couldn’t make a cake for one of the events that I had this weekend,” she said. “I’m not making as much money with the cakes that I normally make, but it’s hard to make a cake without eggs.”

Eggs Hawaii has a one-tray limit.

Meanwhile, the state says the price for imported mainland eggs increased by nearly 52% from $5.50 to $8.35.

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“The increase in local production of eggs has been closing the price gap with imported mainland eggs,” said Hawaii Board of Agriculture chair Sharon Hurd.

“The avian influenza outbreak on the mainland is another example of why food security in Hawaii is so important. Supporting local farmers and ranchers helps to ensure our food supply,” Hurd said.

While avian flu has been confirmed in Hawaii, officials say no Hawaii egg production facilities have been impacted.



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Chilling details emerge after schoolmate arrested in Hawaii girl’s 1977 murder

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Chilling details emerge after schoolmate arrested in Hawaii girl’s 1977 murder


New DNA technology allows investigator better chance at solving decades old cold cases

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New DNA technology allows investigator better chance at solving decades old cold cases

02:47

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Former Hawaii lawmaker Suzanne Chun Oakland remembers arriving at school one morning in 1977 to an eerie buzz.

The 15-year-old had met up with girlfriends as usual before class at Honolulu’s McKinley High School when she learned a student named Dawn Momohara had been found dead on the second floor of a school building.

“I don’t know how we got word of it, but everything spread really quickly,” Chun Oakland said.

Chun Oakland didn’t know Momohara, who was 16, but the unsolved death has haunted her and other McKinley students and staff for nearly half a century. That was until last week, when police used advances in DNA technology to arrest a 66-year-old resident of a Utah nursing home.

The suspect, former McKinley student Gideon Castro, was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Friday before a judge in Salt Lake County District Court. He remained in custody Thursday with the bond for his release set at $250,000, according to Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office records.

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Castro’s attorney, Marlene Mohn, did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.

Momohara had been sexually assaulted and strangled, police said.

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Dawn Momohara

Honolulu Police


“I was just really sad,” Chun Oakland recalled earlier this week. “I think for our student body, of course there’s that concern that what if he’s still out there and he does it to somebody else.”

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On March 21, 1977, shortly after 7:30 a.m., Honolulu police found Momohara dead. She was partially clothed and lying on her back with an orange cloth tied around her neck, said Lt. Deena Thoemmes, of Honolulu Police. A subsequent autopsy ruled Momohara was strangled to death, and the medical examiner said there were signs of sexual assault.

Details from more than four decades ago are fuzzy for 1967 McKinley graduate Grant Okamura, who was the school’s 28-year-old band teacher in 1977, but the morning Momohara was found has remained a core memory.

Momohara’s sister — one of his flute players — arrived at school that day not knowing her sister had been found dead, he recalled. The sister was called to the office and later walked into the band room, devastated.

“The other students were trying to console her,” Okamura said. “At that point, I couldn’t have band. How do you have a class? She just sat there crying.”

She didn’t return to school for weeks afterward.

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He doesn’t remember the sister’s name. The Associated Press was unable to make contact with any possible relatives. Okamura said he met Momohara a few times when he let her into the air-conditioned band room to wait for her sister.

The morning before Momohara was killed, she got a call from an unknown male and told her mother she was going to a nearby shopping center with friends. That was the last time her mother saw her, police said.

Police released sketches of a person of interest and a possible vehicle described by witnesses as a 1974 or 1975 Pontiac Lemans. A witness reported seeing the car when he and his girlfriend drove through campus the night before Momohara died. The witness saw a man and the car on the grass near the school’s English building, Thoemmes said.

Police released sketches of a person of interest in Dawn Momohara’s murder.

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Honolulu Police


The witness circled back around but the car and the man were gone.

Police were unable to identify a suspect and the case grew cold, though grief lingered over the campus.

Although police retrieved an unknown man’s DNA sample from the teenager’s clothing, they could not identify a suspect. Authorities would not develop meaningful leads in the homicide until decades later.

In 2019, cold case detectives asked a forensic biology unit to examine several items of evidence from the scene, including Momohara’s underwear. They were able to develop a DNA profile in 2020. Then, in 2023, police received information about potential suspects, two brothers who were interviewed in 1977.

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Several days after Momohara was killed, detectives interviewed Castro, who graduated from McKinley High in 1976. He said he met Momohara at a school dance that year and last saw her at a carnival on campus in February 1977. Police interviewed his brother, who also met Momohara at the dance.

In November 2023, Honolulu police went to Chicago, where the brother was living. They “surreptitiously” obtained DNA from one of the brother’s adult children, Thoemmes said.

Lab findings excluded the brother as a suspect, but a DNA sample from Castro’s adult son, and later from Castro himself, proved he was responsible, Thoemmes said.

He was arrested last week at the nursing home where he lived in Millcreek, just south of Salt Lake City, on suspicion of second-degree murder.

Neither Okamura nor Chun Oakland remembered Castro.

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Chun Oakland graduated in 1979 and grew up to become a Democratic member of the Hawaii Senate. She said Momohara’s killing bothered her over the years, especially when she would meet victims through her work as a lawmaker or as a board member of the nonprofit Sex Abuse Treatment Center, a statewide program provding services for sexual assault survivors.

Chun Oakland said she is grateful an arrest was possible even after all these years.

“I think the community in general, and our elected officials, they know the importance of trying to preserve the evidence that can someday be able to see justice for that individual or individuals,” she said.



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Flights disrupted at Hawaii airports due to severe weather, visibility issues

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Flights disrupted at Hawaii airports due to severe weather, visibility issues


HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Travelers at Hawaii airports experienced delays and cancellations due to severe weather Thursday.

Hawaii News Now issued a First Alert Weather Day from Wednesday night through Friday morning as a strong winter storm moves through Hawaii.

A ground stop was issued for interisland flights statewide that essentially kept planes from taking off or landing for about an hour.

The ground stop continued at Daniel K. International Airport in Honolulu, which was ongoing as of 3:30 p.m., and applied to all interisland as well as inbound flights.

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“Grounding was because of visibility,” said Hawaii Department of Transportation Director Ed Sniffen. “It was very difficult for for pilots to come into or leave Honolulu Airport because of the visibility due to the storm.”

Incoming transpacific flights were diverted to other airports, officials said.

This meant delays for travelers, some of whom had been waiting for hours to get to their intended destinations.

“Based on the satellites I was watching, it looked like we could actually maybe miss the the weather and get home before it hit too hard, but when we were on our way here, I could tell that there might be possibilities of cancellations,” said Pahoa resident Brittany Hutchins.

“Hopefully we make it to Kauai on time, because we have a rental car, hotels all lined up, so it would be a little inconvenient if things didn’t work out, but you know as long as it’s safe,” said Ninglu Weng, a visitor from Winnipeg, Canada.

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Transportation officials say they’re coordinating with airlines on flight schedules to make sure things run as smoothly as possible.

They also say that travelers should be in touch with their airline for more information.

Hawaiian Airlines said travel waivers are available for guests traveling to/from Honolulu (HNL), Lihue (LIH), Hilo (ITO), Kona (KOA), and Kahului (OGG) between Wednesday and Friday due to the inclement weather.

Officials also said a power spike at Honolulu’s airport triggered fire alarms and blew out some circuits that needed to be reset.

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