The Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Sunday, January 14, 2007
by Allison Schaefers

Jim and Lisa Tessener and their children Ben and Malea frolicked in an otherwise vacant pool on a recent Friday at Molokai's Kaluakoi Resort.

The Bozeman, Mont., couple said returning to the resort a decade after honeymooning there to find it deserted and dotted with closed signs was surreal.

"It was booming when we were here last," Jim Tessener said. "It was totally different then. There were tiki torches and music and people everywhere."

Since the Kaluakoi Hotel closed in 2000, putting more than 100 Molokai residents out of work, crashing waves and bird calls have supplied most of the resort's music. The resort's former lobby, bar and restaurant have all shut down, although a small sundry shop, golf course and club still operate.

"We were really disappointed to find out that the Kaluakoi Hotel and most of the amenities had closed," Lisa Tessener said.

Considered to be the birthplace of the hula, Molokai is place where the people dance to their own tune. About 40 percent of Molokai residents have native Hawaiian ancestry, and many hunt, fish and farm the land for a living. It's a place where merely getting by is good enough and has been for centuries. But even that can be hard without an economic shot in the arm from tourism -- which is why many of the island's 8,000 residents would like to see Molokai Ranch reopen the Kaluakoi Hotel.

Molokai Ranch, the Friendly Isle's largest landowner and employer, has proposed a plan that would refurbish the resort and give back more than 50,000 acres to the community in exchange for the right to turn 500 acres near the federally protected Laau Point into an upscale residential subdivision. Under the plan, the ranch would continue to control 13,880 acres, including the Kaluakoi Hotel and golf course, the Lodge at Maunaloa, and the Beach Village at Kaupoa.

However, support for an exclusive subdivision near pristine Laau Point, home to crashing waves, vibrant blue waters, golden sands, rocky cliffs and endangered monk seals, is less widespread. The proposed subdivision, a lynchpin of a community-based master land use plan developed by more than 1,000 residents, has been endorsed by the Molokai Enterprise Community, the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs and some residents. Others, such as Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte, see the proposal as the death knell for the island's culture.

"The developers are offering all this candy to everyone in exchange for the heart and soul of Molokai," Ritte said. "Laau Point is the most pristine fishing area in all of Hawaii -- it's how we feed our families. We can't let them give it to 200 millionaires."

Ritte and others who don't want to see any development near Laau Point have formed Save Laau Point to oppose the subdivision. They say the master plan fails to take into account a lack of water on Molokai and future demand from native Hawaiian homesteaders.

Molokai Ranch's track record on Molokai is also complicated, kamaaina say. While the ranch is known as a generous employer who gives back to the community, many can't forget that the company dredged tons of sand from Papohaku Beach and sent it to Oahu. And, Molokai Ranch, albeit under different managers, once bulldozed plantation homes to make way for a more modern Moanalua Town.

Colette Machado, president of the Molokai Land Trust and an Office of Hawaiian Affairs Trustee for Molokai and Lanai, wants to move past those events.

"I want a future for Molokai. This plan will make that happen," Machado said. "I was once more of an activist than Walter (Ritte). What did it gain us? Just open space that we can't protect from the potential for massive hotel development."

There's an irony to the angst against the plan, Machado said.

"The people who want to intervene against Laau Point were on the committee to get the hotel going. At this point, their argument is all about ego," she said.

Machado and many other supporters of the plan have said that what's really at stake is a healthier economy on the Friendly Isle, where unemployment -- 4.4 percent in October 2006 -- as well as many prices are two to four times higher than the other islands. The population of Molokai has grown from about 6,100 to about 8,000 in the last few decades, but jobs haven't kept pace.

"If this plan doesn't go through a lot of my children and grandchildren won't have jobs," said Janice Pele, a Molokai kupuna who support the land trust. "I remember when my brother lost his job at the hotel. It was really rough for my family."

Tourism, thought to be the most viable source of job growth the west end of Molokai, has come with a mixed bag. Total arrivals to Molokai grew 5 percent through November 2006 over the same month the year before, but the 68,948 visitors who came to Molokai represented only about 1 percent of all visitors to Hawaii. Infrastructure costs have continued to rise, but by November 2006, visitor spending on Molokai had fallen 2.8 percent to $29.8 million.

Clayton Pastrana, a clerk at West End Sundries on the grounds of the former Kaluakoi Hotel, can recall what it was like to work at the store in the days when hotel guests frequented the shop along with condominium owners.

"It was at least 50 percent busier. We're looking forward to the resort reopening," Pastrana said. "I was lucky. When the hotel closed down, many of my friends had to go to Maui to find work."

Rob Nedwick, who rents a condo at Kaluakoi Resort, said he is torn in regard to Molokai Ranch's master plan.

"I think it would be beneficial to the community to see the Kaluakoi Hotel reopened," Nedwick said when queried at the resort's sundries store. But, while Nedwick feels that the reopening of the hotel "would be a nice shot in the arm for the local economy," he views the method as "left-handed extortion."

Steve Morgan, a farmer on Molokai who works on Oahu to supplement his income, said he doesn't trust Molokai Ranch.

"They have not been highly motivated to reopen the existing hotel but instead have found it more valuable to use the hotel as a dangling carrot in the form of jobs, with the purpose to help bolster support for Laau development," Morgan said.

There is no guarantee that Molokai Ranch, whose track record for profitability has been spotty in the past and who has scaled back its visitor-camp operation on the island, can make a hotel work, Morgan said.

The ranch has said it cannot pay for the $30 million-plus renovation of the Kaluakoi Hotel without revenues from the sale of lands near Laau Point. Molokai Ranch has estimated that it will cost about $80 million to develop a community near Laau Point, but expects a return of more than $1 million for each of the 200 lots that surround the federally protected lands, said John Sabas, general manager of community affairs for Molokai Ranch.

Richard Cooke III, one of the founding members of the Molokai Land Trust and a developer of Molokai Ranch's master development plan, said the company plays a vital role in the island's sustainability.

"The ranch is important to me and to the community," said Cooke, whose family once owned Molokai Ranch and were responsible for selling lands in the 1970s to the original developers of the Kaluakoi Resort.

"They've been losing money for at least 15 years and it's important that we find a way that they can continue to function and keep their employees employed," he said.

Returning the bulk of Molokai's privately owned lands to the community will help conserve the island's culture and environment, while redeveloping the Kaluakoi Resort and its golf course with funding from the Laau Point subdivision will create at least 100 much-needed jobs, Sabas said.

"We want to protect Molokai and preserve Laau Point," he said.

Since Molokai Ranch filed applications and a draft environmental impact statement with the Maui County Planning Department to create a subdivision at Laau Point, community discussions have heated up. A 45-day comment period on the draft EIS began Dec. 23 and will run through Feb. 6.

Review of the various applications, as well as the draft impact statement, will serve as an important educational process for the Molokai community, said Sabas, who grew up on Molokai and is one of Ritte's childhood classmates.

News of the controversy even reached the vacationing Tesseners by way of the myriad of signs that dot Molokai's houses, fields and roadways between the airport and the resort.

"There's a lot of controversy going on," Jim Tessener said.

Molokai has been dubbed the Friendly Isle, and it is the kind of place where residents wave to passing cars. Still, it's clear that visitors to Molokai can easily overstay their welcome.

Most Molokai residents support a limited visitor industry, where tourists come to visit, not to stay. Most say a small hotel is OK, but they don't want to see development of second-home resort communities that bring increased taxes and infrastructure improvements.

Stoplights aren't currently part of the landscape on Molokai.

"No need," Ritte said. "And, we like it that way."

Molokai: Battle for Survival (part 2)

Molokai Ranch says an upscale community at Laau Point will pump needed cash into the economy. Residents fear the development will impair their food gathering and alter the culture of the area.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Sunday, January 14, 2007
By Allison Schaefers

Rodeo record holder Hanohano Naehu, 29, rode out of Molokai during his college years to make a name for himself on the mainland, but soon returned home to greener pastures.

"I wanted to spread aloha all over the place, but I witnessed a lot of prejudice and bad stuff outside of Hawaii, where I grew up sheltered on Molokai," said Naehu as he moved lava rocks to form an offering site near a palm-leaf covered encampment at Laau Point.

While Naehu worked gathering and configuring lava rocks on a recent Friday afternoon, other Hawaiian activists and supporters fished in the ocean and cooked an evening meal over a fire pit. The pristine point has been occupied by activists and supporters since Molokai Ranch revealed plans to build a luxury subdivision near the federally protected lands.

Laau Point, which according to ancient Hawaiian legend was created when the people of Molokai retrieved a floating hau tree branch from the shark god of Kainalu and planted it on a fertile bit of land, has become the tree from whence all branches of Molokai controversy grow. It's the source for all wrongs, imagined or otherwise, on Molokai.

While the area is an attractive economic resource for developers who prize its dramatic views and unique terrain, Laau Point contains a vast array of cultural, archaeological, subsistence, environmental, agricultural, recreational and subsistence resources for Naehu and others who do not view land as a commodity but rather as the foundation of their identity as Hawaiians. The shallow reef area off Laau Point, called Penguin Banks, is known for ophihi, pupuawa, pipipi, and aama crab that inhabit the boulder coastline. Algae and limu kohu are in abundance near the shore.

Life for Naehu is simple on Molokai, where he works at the private, nonprofit Hawaiian Learning Center and supplements his wages by hunting and fishing. Living off the land is vital for Naehu just as it was for his father and all of the kupunas that came before on Molokai, Hawaii's most primitive island next to Niihau, the forbidden island.

"Subsistence is something that I have to pass onto my future son," said Naehu, who estimated that he gets two to three of his meals a week from the land. There are few jobs on Molokai, but no matter because most work only to supplement their subsistence efforts and to pay for other necessities, he said.

When it comes to Molokai, the economies of scale are much smaller than on any of Hawaii's other islands, said Naehu, who traces his roots to the French Dudoit family which married into Hawaiian royalty.

"This is the greatest battle of my generation," Naehu said. "If development comes to Laau Point, it would be the first time that we have different classes on Molokai. We don't want to be Honolulu or Maui. We don't want development or service jobs, we want to live as one with nature."

Developer Molokai Ranch, which has earmarked 1,432 of its 65,000 acres to create a development and conservation district near Laau Point, has said it is sensitive to the needs of Molokai's permanent residents and has set aside large tracks of land in the region to protect cultural sites and to provide areas for subsistence.

Still, development at Laau Point is a subsistence issue for Molokai Ranch as well, said John Sabas, general manager of community resources for Molokai Ranch and a resident of the isle for more than 30 years. To realize economic viability, the company needs the economic boost such a community would provide, he said.

The company's operating cash flow has been strained for many years, Sabas said.

From 2001 to 2006, the company's net loss from operations has been about $31.6 million, according to an internal economic report provided by Molokai Ranch. In addition to operating losses, annual capital expenditures averaging over $800,000 per year for the past five years have put another drain on the company's cash flow, the report said. Molokai Properties Ltd. has subsidized the continuing operations and upkeep of Molokai Ranch to the tune of $36.9 million over the past six years, it said.

Without the Laau Point development program, Molokai Ranch would be forced to cut ranch operations or break up the property by selling entitled lands on a piecemeal basis, Sabas said. Without the increase in support for golf and hotel operations that will come from development at Laau Point development, the company also would have to consider reducing operations or closing those facilities, as well as the other operations that it subsidizes, such as its maintenance, nursery, and gas station services, Sabas said. The impact of these reductions significantly would affect existing employment at the Molokai Ranch and in Maunaloa, he said.

In exchange for developing 4.7 miles near the shoreline for the Laau project, Molokai Ranch has agreed to give the community more than 50,000 acres, which include 15 miles of undeveloped pristine shoreline property, Sabas said.

A broad cross section of community members support the plan and want to see the jobs and increased economic development that it will deliver, Sabas said, adding that some are conservationists and environmentalists and others are practitioners of native Hawaiian culture or subsistence fishing, hunting, and gathering.

"We all want to preserve Laau Point -- that's the one thing that we all agree on," said Sabas, who has seen the issue of Laau Pont divide many longtime friends and neighbors.

While the ancient Hawaiians depended on the ocean and land for survival, in recent years Laau Point's resources have been depleted by an alarming number of subsistence and commercial fishermen who are using improper harvesting methods, taking undersized animals or ignoring seasonal prohibitions, Sabas said. To protect resources and the environment, Molokai Ranch has banned commercial fishing and hunting and limited access to foot traffic on trails, he said. In this zone, cultural sites and the environment would be protected, and harvesting of resources would be limited to subsistence fishing, hunting and gathering, Sabas said.

"This will allow Molokai's west end to recover from offshore and onshore commercial activities that have seriously depleted fish, opihi and other resources in the area," he said.

Walter Ritte, a longtime Molokai activist and former classmate of Sabas, treasures Laau Point's land and water and believes that despite built-in restrictions Molokai Ranch's development plans will create opportunities for overuse in the region.

"Access is difficult in Laau Point," said Ritte, who is one of the protesters currently occupying the region. "When they put in infrastructure, everything will change."

Though Molokai Ranch has promised to protect subsistence rights, there's no place for palatial homes near native Hawaiian hunting and fishing grounds and cultural sites, said Ritte, who once served on the Molokai Land Trust Board but left due to differences regarding Laau Point.

"We don't want to hunt and fish alongside millionaires and their homes," said Ritte, who has long enjoyed exercising his subsistence rights on Molokai Ranch's Laau Point lands.

If Laau Point gets turned into a resort, the culture of the place will change as well, Ritte said.

"Hawaiians won't be able to afford to live there anymore," he said, citing the real estate appreciation that has occurred as a result of Kaluakoi Resort's entry into the community.

While total real estate sales in Molokai were about $83 million in 2005, up slightly from a record $79.8 million in 2004, Kaluakoi sales prices are substantially higher than elsewhere on Molokai. The average price for a lot at Kaluakoi in 2005 was $503,000, compared to $182,000 elsewhere on the island, according to economic information obtained from Molokai Land Properties.

Molokai Ranch has argued that property taxes are likely to be unaffected by development of Laau Point, which is physically separated from the rest of the community by hundreds of acres of ranch lands.

The ranch's moratorium on further ranch development and its creation of protective and agricultural easements will further enforce the status quo and limit development, said James E. Hallstrom Jr., a Honolulu-based real estate consultant hired by the ranch.

Still, access could change everything, Ritte said. Since the land between both access points to Laau Point is owned by Molokai Ranch, those who currently wish to visit must get permission from the ranch or hike along the coast, where the shoreline up to the high-tide mark is considered state property, he said.

Such limitations have kept Laau Point rich, but widespread access could rob the region of its cultural and subsistence resources and create class levels in Molokai.

Once the millionaires come to stay at Laau Point, Molokai is surely going to change, Naehu said.

"Guys like them will be going to the mall and guys like me will be going to jail," he said.

Increased development and access will bring traffic to Molokai, said Tarrah Horner, a 28-year-old isle resident.

"It's already happening. The other day, I had to circle the post office three times to find a parking spot," Horner said. "In all the years that I've lived on Molokai, I've never had to do that before. It sounds minor, but it's the start of something."

Though Molokai Ranch's plans aren't palatable to the entire community, they were formed by more than 1,000 isle residents and have been endorsed by many opponents of the ranch's previous development efforts such as Colette Machado. An activist and Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee, Machado said that she has taken hits from fellow native Hawaiians whom she said have accused her of turning her back on Molokai.

Time will prove that sanctioning a guided development in Laau Point in exchange for establishing a community-based land trust for Molokai is the right action for the island's future, she said.

"I'm looking down the road 50 years and this plan will still be protecting our hunting, fishing, archeological and cultural resources," she said. "This is the best solution."

Janice Pele, a Molokai kupuna whose ancestors once lived near Laau Point, said that she seconds Machado's viewpoint and that she supports the creation of a land trust that will open many formerly private lands to Molokai's community. Pele said that she and most other isle residents have never had the opportunity to visit Laau Point because the region was difficult to access without trespassing on ranch lands.

"If Laau Point were opened, I'd be tickled," Pele said. "I want to go there and see where my parents walked before I die."

Hawaiian homesteaders concerned development will strain water resources

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Sunday, January 14, 2007
By Allison Schaefers

Tuddie and Kammy Purdy, who run Purdy's Macadamia Nut Farm on Hawaiian homestead lands that have been in their family for more than 30 years, want to see Kaluakoi Resort reopened.

But not if it means straining the isles' water resources to develop Laau Point.

"We have a consistent business, but we've had a lot less visitors since the resort closed," Tuddie Purdy said.

The couple's farm, which caters to tourists and is classified as an agritourism business, would benefit from the reopening of the resort, Purdy said. However, the family doesn't support reopening the hotel if it means further west side development, especially at Laau Point, he said.

The trade-off is too high," said Kammy Purdy, who is president of Ahupuaa o Molokai, a group comprised of Hawaiian homestead associations. Purdy, who represents Hawaiian homesteaders on the Molokai water board, said that she and others on Molokai who depend on subsistence agriculture to feed their families fear development near Laau Point will further strain limited water resources.

Molokai Ranch, the Friendly Isle's largest landowner and employer, is seeking state and county approval for a development plan that would turn 500 acres of Laau Point into an upscale subdivision, refurbish the long-closed Kaluakoi resort and give back more than 50,000 acres to the community.

The plan, which has been some three decades in the making, is seen by Molokai Ranch and supporters as a way of uniting the island's rural past with a more sustainable future. It's a move that either can be interpreted as a cease-fire in a 30-year-old war between Molokai residents and the island's primary developer -- or as the starting shot of a development battle the likes of which have never been seen before.

A development at Laau Point also could severely impact those who rely on subsistence farming to protect against downturns in Molokai's cash economy, said Steve Morgan, who farms commercial lime and lemons on the isle's west side and relies on the taro and seasonal vegetables that he grows to feed his family.

If Molokai residents lost their ability to fish, hunt, gather or grow their own foods, it would impair a tradition that has survived when other economic strategies on the island have failed, Morgan said.

"At least 50 percent of my food comes from subsistence," he said. "Subsistence is something that needs to be protected. It's a large part of the lifestyle on Molokai."

Subsistence has been Molokai's primary lifestyle for generations, said Yama Kaholoaa.

The 61-year-old said that while he takes an occasional remodeling job, subsistence hunting, fishing and farming have supported his family, which includes seven children and 17 grandchildren.

"Even with a job, you still have to hunt and fish or farm on Molokai," said Kaholoaa, who estimates that subsistence provides 75 to 95 percent of his family's food.

Molokai Ranch understands the importance of subsistence to the isle's people, said John Sabas, general manager of community resources for Molokai Ranch and a resident of the isle for more than 30 years.

Development plans for Laau Point include numerous checks and balances to protect the aina and the ocean for all the people of Molokai, Sabas said. At Laau Point, water conservation restrictions will be the most stringent in Hawaii, he said.

Numerous restrictions on those purchasing homes in the development were written into the document, Sabas said. Covenants on property owners will include water restrictions, shoreline-use restrictions and environmental protections, he said.

Even with such proposals in place, many such as Scarlett Ritte believe that any more development on Molokai has the potential to rob Hawaiian homesteaders of protected water rights, a means for many of their livelihood.

"The land trust is supposed to protect the future of our community, but once this plan is in place, there will be a countdown to see how fast locals can't afford to live here," Ritte said. "You'll see, eventually the people on the land trust won't be Molokai people."

Noah and Tarrah Horner, a young Molokai couple, echo Ritte's concerns. The family, which has been trying to purchase a home since having a daughter, said they were recently denied the right to subdivide and build on family homestead property because of water limitations.

"Ever since I got out of school, I've been talking about building a home for my family on that land," said Noah Horner. "It was disappointing when they said that we couldn't do it. It confuses me how we can't use our water to build homes for ourselves, but they want to put up a luxury development."

The community has asked the Department of Hawaiian Homelands to study the isle's water challenges and the agency, which preliminarily endorsed the community-based land trust, has begun reviewing the isle's water needs.

While the issue of Hawaiian water rights in the community may be muddied with a variety of opinions, the issue is very clear to Molokai Properties Ltd., Sabas said.

"MPL will never go back to the community and seek more drinking water," he said.

While the ranch has discussed using brackish water to landscape properties and supply home owners with potable drinking water, many in the community are still leery about potential impacts and make no apologies about any apparent fanaticism when it comes to protecting long-fought-for rights for Hawaiian homesteaders.

Theophista Purdy, a Molokai kupuna who lived through drought in the 1940s, said protection of Molokai's water resources is vital to the community's survival. Purdy, who came to Molokai as a Hawaiian homestead bride decades ago and was the oldest kupuna to make a recent protest trek to Laau Point, said she has a need to share her institutional memories with the younger generation.

"When I first came to Molokai in 1944, we experienced water rations every two days," Purdy said. "On the third day when they opened up the water, we'd fill every container that we could find -- even the washing machine -- so that we'd have enough water to live."

Molokai Ranch's existing allocations are subject to reduction if they interfere with the Department of Hawaiian Homelands' rights to water in the future, and due consideration will be given to DHHL's projected needs, Sabas said.

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