Bypassing Pa‘ia

Who owns the best right-of-way?

April 13, 2005
by Rob Lafferty

Sunnyside Road. Pa‘ia Mill Road. Lower Hamakuapoko Road.

Long before there was a Hana Highway, those three roads existed much as they do today. Linked together with Kala Road – as they still are – they mark the historic roadway used by residents of the North Shore region for over one hundred years. They also offer a sensible route for the long-anticipated Pa‘ia bypass road today.

All four roads were first carved out of the landscape more than a century ago. An 1893 map of the Spreckelsville plantation shows a fairly straight, inland route marked as “Makawao Road” running from Maliko Gulch, passing through Hamakuapoko and above Pa‘ia Town, then down to where Kahului Airport stands today. A more detailed 1896 map prepared by Hugh Howell shows that same roadway.

A Nation of Hawai‘i government survey map, marked 1872-1879 and drawn by surveyors M.D. Monsarrat and F.S. Dodge on behalf of Surveyor General W.D. Alexander, also shows the road network as a public right of way. That map is part of the documentation that appears to establish public ownership of those roads and rights-of-way under the Government Roads Act of 1892.

Until just a few years ago, a map in the Verizon phone book showed all four roads as unimproved public roads. But maps used by cane haul drivers for Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. show the first three as “hauler roads”, with the implication that they are privately owned.

In an opinion written in October of 2001 regarding a land dispute on Kauai, the State Attorney General’s office refers to that 1892 Roads Act, saying, “The same Act declared that all roads, alleys, streets, ways, lanes, courts, places, trails and bridges in the Hawaiian Islands that had been opened, laid out or built by the government were public highways.”

In today’s government structure, all public roads belong to the state – unless a road was built by a county, or title to the land under a road was transferred to a county. If a county accepts transfer and ownership of a state roadway, it can then sell it, close it or abandon it only “by a resolution of the legislative body of the county,” according to the Attorney General.

Maui County owns most of those Pa‘ia bypass roads today, according to a July, 1988, “Appraisal Report Covering Various County-Owned Roadways Traversing HC&S Sugar Cane Lands.” Prepared by Cowell & Co. of Honolulu, for Alexander & Baldwin, Inc., it was requested because A&B was “...considering an acquisition of these road rights-of-way through an exchange with the County of Maui.”

The land under portions of Sunnyside and Pa‘ia Mill roads, varying in width from 20 to 60 feet, was appraised at a total of $41,600. A&B never acquired any of the appraised roads, but continues to use them for commercial benefit. Maui County officials have repeatedly denied any county jurisdiction or ownership of those roads.

“Local administrative hearings were held around 1989 and public testimony asked that the roadways not be sold to A&B because the public may need them some day,” said Lance Holter, a Pa‘ia resident and conservationist. “I think that day arrived several years ago. People who have driven Sunnyside road agree that it’s a perfect bypass for Pa‘ia. It’s in pretty good shape in comparison to many Maui roads, and mostly paved except for right by the mill.”

An earlier appraisal of “Kihei-Makena Road and other Roads Owned by County of Maui,” prepared in August of 1975 by Douglas Sodetani for then-Mayor Elmer Cravalho, also assumed county ownership of Sunnyside Road, among others. Sodetani describes it as an eight-mile road from Spreckelsville to Sunnyside-Makawao. Sodetani states in his “Findings of Fact” that he “reviewed the files of both A&B Properties Group, and the County of Maui, and both are almost the same.”

He goes on to say that a land exchange was to have taken place that would have deeded the roads to A&B some eight years earlier, but “This proposed exchange did not take place and since then, no one has pursued the matter any further.” A few pages later, he offers his opinion that “The existence of this road serves no useful purpose to the public.”

Patti Cadiz has been advocating the need to solve the region’s traffic problems for more than five years. Cadiz, who is on the Board of Directors of the Spreckelsville Community Association submitted a request to the County Council in February, 2000, to consider a “State Hana Highway Alternate Route.”

She cited a July 19, 1999 report titled “Pa‘ia Alternate Route, Community Association Meetings” which states, “There is predominant support by the Pa‘ia-Ha‘iku Community for studying a new alternate route...residents and business community are supportive of this.”

In 2003, Holter and Jack Thompson asked then-Public Works Department Director David Goode about the possible use of those roads. Goode replied that there were questions of land ownership under that roadway, and promised to do more research. Goode left his position at the end of that year without providing any further response.

In February of 2004, Holter gave documents and research indicating public ownership of the North Shore road network to Mayor Alan Arakawa and to Councilmember Mike Molina, then Chair of the Public Works Committee. Holter requested that they “Please have A&B verify within a fixed time deadline any ownership, with evidence of title, of each of the above roads.”

Molina forwarded the information to A&B officials without adding any further comment. Holter never received any response to his request.
A&B spokesperson Linda Howe has insisted that Pa‘ia Mill Road is a private roadway owned by HC&S, and closed to the public for safety reasons. When asked last week if any documents existed to prove that ownership, she promised to research the matter and provide an answer.

The response came in a statement attributed to HC&S General Manager Stephen Holaday, in which he breaks the length of Kala and Sunnyside roads into four distinct sections. Section One, shown on most maps as Kala Road, is described as belonging to the state.

Section Two, the longest segment of Sunnyside Road (shown as Old Makawao Road on some maps), is described as a cane hauler road “...to which neither the County nor the State has title and a portion of the road which has been officially abandoned/closed to the public.”

Holaday says that Section Three, “another short stretch of Sunny Side from Ha‘iku Ditch to Kaheka cane hauler road” is one where A&B holds the title.

Section Four is called Pa‘ia Mill Road, and Holaday says “that it is owned by the State (or County) according to a 1931 document, and which was ‘closed by the County of Maui in 1955’.”

Despite Howe’s assertion that the statement represents “well-researched information,” it doesn’t do much to clarify the ownership status of the various roadways. It doesn’t address how any transfers of ownership occurred when clear title was never established for much of the old government road.

And although Holaday asserts that “neither the County nor the State have title to the longest section of Sunny Side Road” and adds that “Without title, it is not a public right of way,” he doesn’t state outright that HC&S or A&B hold any title to that same section.

Despite the ongoing uncertainty over roadway ownership, in the final Environmental Assessment report for the proposed mini-bypass around Pa‘ia, Public Works Director Milton Arakawa describes Sunnyside Road as “...a private road utilized by HC&S.”

Alan Watanabe of Public Works confirmed that his department has no record of accepting transfer of any of those North Shore roads from any state agency. He does, however, have documents that show A&B traded the land under Kala and Spreckelsville roads to the Territory of Hawai‘i before statehood, in exchange for a separate parcel elsewhere.

For that transfer to have been legal, A&B must either have built those roads themselves, or acquired the property from whoever did build it. It is uncertain today what private entity or public agency built the original road network, except that it was clearly done prior to 1872.

If Kala and Spreckelsville roads were not truly owned by A&B at the time that transfer occurred, then the company could owe the state reimbursement for the land they received in exchange.

A Network Of Roads

Kala Road crosses Hana Highway between the Haleakala Highway intersection and Spreckelsville. Anyone can drive on it today, for about a half-mile, before a locked gate and warning signs prevent further eastward travel.

On modern maps, Kala Road changes to Sunnyside Road at that point. A well-maintained cane haul road just above Kala Road merges into Sunnyside Road just beyond the gate.

Sunnyside Road continues eastward more than a mile before it becomes Pa‘ia Mill Road, which ends at Baldwin Avenue just above the mill, where there is another gate.

Lower Hamakuapoko Road, also gated and signed, runs eastward from Baldwin Avenue, crosses Holomua Road below the old Maui High School campus, and connects with Hana Highway on the Kahului side of Maliko gulch.

The Department of Transportation has a timetable for “construction of a new route to bypass the town of Pa‘ia,” at a cost of $37.5 million. $3 million is earmarked for acquiring rights-of-way; $4.5 million for design and planning; and $30 million for construction. The plans don’t show a specific route as yet, but does refer to the roads used for cane hauling today as a possible route.

The DOT timetable shows a two-year planning period starting in mid-2004; another two years, beginning early in 2007, to design it and acquire land; and two years to build it, starting in the latter part of 2009. The project would require nearly eight years from start to finish, and would be eligible for $30 million in federal funds.

Using the existing, historic rights-of way would considerably shorten the time and trim the cost of the project. No land rights would need be acquired, aside from narrow strips in sections to extend of the width of existing rights-of-way. Much of the necessary grading has already been done.

Holter thinks those roads could be pressed into service today, just as they are. “Even if they were only open for a few hours at peak traffic periods, that would help much more than the proposed mini-bypass. They wouldn’t need to be improved for that use, and the long-term project could continue on a ‘design-build’ basis, shortening the timetable for the whole project.”

Maui County acquired 12 acres of cane land just above Pa‘ia from A&B several years ago. According to Alice Lee, Director of the County Housing and Human Resources Department, there are plans for an affordable housing project on that site, but the county is waiting for a permanent bypass to be built before developing those acres.

Officers of Sierra Club Maui and Maui Tomorrow share an office in Pa‘ia town, so they’re intimately familiar with the traffic patterns on Hana Highway. Both groups are working with others to create a North Shore Heritage Park along much of the remaining open coastline.

The proposed park would form a greenway along both sides of the coastal road. If extended mauka to the Sunnyside-Hamakuapoko road route, the greenway could provide an excellent tsunami buffer zone, as well as drainage areas to control runoff and protect the nearshore reefs.

The combination of a regional park with a bypass road would preserve the open space along the coast that residents value, and make Pa‘ia more accessible during peak traffic hours. Traffic on both Haleakala Highway and Hana Highway would decrease at all times of day, as drivers choose the bypass route instead.

With continued growth projected, improving the old government roadway into a permanent Pa‘ia bypass road seems like a “smart growth” solution to an ever-increasing traffic and safety problem.