The county has filed a condemnation lawsuit aimed at gaining better public access to Papaikou Mill Beach via the only existing trail to the shoreline, which is on private property.
The county has filed a condemnation lawsuit aimed at gaining better public access to Papaikou Mill Beach via the only existing trail to the shoreline, which is on private property.
The civil complaint, filed Wednesday in Hilo Circuit Court, names Papa‘i-kou Landing Inc., a Canadian corporation holding title to the former sugar mill property, and numerous unnamed “Doe” defendants. The principal of Papa‘i-kou Landing Inc. is James Waugh, a Canadian who lives part time at the converted former sugar mill with his wife, Charlene Prickett.
The couple bought the property in 1995 from the former C. Brewer &Co. Waugh cut a switchback trail from the top of a bluff overlooking the ocean to the beach below. Waugh and Prickett provide public access to the beach through a gate 12 hours a day, but the gate is locked between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily. Beach users say the couple also usually close access at least a day a year.
The eminent domain action seeks to gain pedestrian beach access via the trail unrestricted by Waugh and Prickett, as well as via Mill Road, a private road owned by the couple which runs between Highway 19 in Papaikou to the mill property.
Deputy Corporation Counsel Ronald Kim said Friday the county isn’t seeking to assume title of the road or the approximately half-acre trail.
“The condemnation action is strictly for public easement,” Kim said. “We wouldn’t own Mill Road. We would just have pedestrian easement over the property. All we want is for the public to be able to pass over both properties.”
An appraisal commissioned by the county in 2013 put the price of easement via the switchback at $28,500 — which does not include the road — but the current fair market value of the land is “still being updated and determined,” Kim said.
The landowners aren’t obligated to accept an offer, fair market or otherwise, from the county, nor can the county take possession or control of the road or the path without due process. According to Kim, there are no current negotiations between the county and the property owners.
Mayor Harry Kim acknowledged that if Waugh and Prickett aren’t amenable to negotiation, a court battle could be lengthy and costly.
“That’s not the way you want to resolve things, so that’s why you’ve got to look at other options to hopefully resolve this for the residents, because it is very important,” the county’s chief executive said. “I can understand how frustrated they are with county government.”
The mayor said he, county lawyers and planners have a meeting next week with developer Steve Shropshire, who might have an alternative to protracted litigation.
“We want people to be able to park somewhere and have the legal right to go down (to the beach),” he said. “We’ll look at what Shropshire has to say before we come up with a proposal on what we recommend before presentation to the community.”
It appears Shropshire could be ready to provide beachgoers access through a Papaikou property he owns and is seeking to develop with small farms and affordable housing. It’s an idea Shropshire reportedly rejected when Waugh and Prickett floated it to the County Council in October 2012.
“I think it’s feasible to do that and we’re open to cooperating any way we can, whatever it means,” Shropshire said. “We also know that one of the big issues is parking. When I see kids running across the highway with their boogie boards and cars going 50 miles per hour, everybody knows that’s a dangerous situation. So, irrespective of whether the trail gets rerouted, there’s the issue of parking for the existing access point and there’s also this broader vision of providing an … access that could become the primary access.”
“This is very important,” Mayor Kim said. “Residents have been hanging a long time on this.”
Kalani Lyman, a descendant of historic Hilo missionaries David and Sarah Lyman, said his family has been going to the Papaikou beach for six generations. He and Tony Guiteras, a Mill Road resident, have spearheaded a community effort to open around-the-clock access.
“We just want pedestrian access. Don’t deny access to the people of Papaikou and all the people on this island,” Lyman said. “We’re already talking with family and friends. We already told Corporation Counsel (Joe Kamelamela) that we would maintain the trail, so it wouldn’t be a cost to the county.”
According to Guiteras, the sugar plantation guaranteed ingress and egress to Mill Road residents’ homes in the 1950s, but the driveway in his Silverton Camp home was taken away by quitclaim deed when the property was sold to Waugh and Prickett.
“It’s about time,” he said of the county’s lawsuit.
“All 60 of us who have homes down here had to sign to get the road resurfaced,” Guiteras added. “And before that was done, we got a paper from the sugar company in 1991 saying, ‘We’re not going to abide by that anymore. We’re going to give up on the sewers and the roadwork. You’re on your own.’ So they bailed.
“We had the road resurfaced, and all of a sudden, a quitclaim deed comes out of nowhere, and (the road) gets sold to the Canadian. Every house down here was built with a driveway, and every home down here still has a driveway, except … me and Ray Filkins, my next (door) neighbor.”
Lyman praised Mayor Kim for listening and acting on community concerns, something he thinks the previous administration didn’t do.
“Every time I would call (Corporation Counsel office) they’d say, ‘Leave a message; we’ll get back to you.’ Finally, I just gave up,” he said. “We decided we would just wait until the new administration comes in and work with Harry. … So, we met with the Corporation Counsel and a week later, we met with the mayor. We got some good results. I’m happy this is going through, finally.”
Phone messages left Friday for Waugh and Prickett weren’t returned in time for this story.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.