Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 19, Number 12, 1 December 2002 — Hālawa-Luluku effort seeks community input [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hālawa-Luluku effort seeks community input

By Naomi Sodetani Honolulu-based engineering firm R.M. Towill was recently hired to serve as primary planning consultant to advise the Office of Hawaiian Affairs-administered project that seeks to preserve, interpret and perpetuate the cultural, historical and natural resources in areas impacted by H-3.

Tasked with implementing an interpretive development plan with full input from the community, the Hālawa-Luluku Interpretive Development (HLID) project invites eommunity "stakeholders" to participate in its threephase planning project. A 1 a n Fujimori, vice president with RM. Towill and HLID project manager, said

that community input is integral to the development of a Plan to Plan, a Strategic Plan and a detailed Interpretive Plan to be implemented by August 2005. A working group composed of 12-15 individuals will be finalized in January. With the help of a eultural facilitator, the body will outline the path the project will take and the methods to be used in order to develop the Strategic Plan. Community involvemeat in crafting the Strategic Plan will then establish the priorities, goals and objectives that the community wants to serve as the foundation for the Interpretive Development Plan. HLID Project Coordinator Kahikina Akana said that anyone who is interested in getting actively inr''olved with project planning or being kept informed about the project's progress shouldcontactHLID at 587-4391 or kina@hlid.org, or visit the website at www.hlid.org. Akana said that consultation with community "stakeholders" is required by the National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 "to keep this process as open as possible. The project is already in touch with a core group of a dozen individuals who are deeply interested in this process, he said. "We just want to make sure that other parties we may not know of are given every opportunity to also participate." The Plan to Plan sets the process for the project, Fujimori explained. "That doesn't sound like a whole

lot, but to get formal consensus among various points of views, we needthe community stakeholders to defrne how we're going to be making decisions, define a schedule, and decide how we take the various steps in the strategic plan." "This is a such an important project and thare's a lot of decisions to be made," the planner stressed. "We needa fastmobile group that's willing to meet, attack the issues hard

and eome out with a good direction for the project. Our goal is to eome to some form of resolution and let the land rest finally." The next phase will identify major issues of eoneem suchas archaeologieal sites presenration, cultural access, hunting, or two interpretive centers in Hālawa and Luluku in a Strategic Plan. "Focus groups will develop and prioritize key objectives and plan for their implementation in

the Interpretive Development Plan as a fully defined program," Fujimori said. Akana noted that R.M. Towill was hired "for their expertise in planning work and the different kinds of mles that might apply to whatever issues eome forth, whether it's water or conservation district regulations, cultural access or traditional rights." H-3 constmction began in the 1970s and community protests and legal battles over its cultural and environmental impacts delayed its completion to 1997. Fujimori said R.M. Towill hadbeea sub-contract-ed for aerial topographical mapping and engineering of the approaches to the Hālawa portion of H-3. In 1999, following up onthe 1987 Memorandum of Agreement signed by the Federal Highways Administration, State Historic Presen'ation Division and Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the State Department of Transportation and OHA agreed to undertake a project that would preserve and interpret the cultural resources located in Hālawa Valley and Luluku Terraces in Kāne'ohe. The HLID project is funded by $1 1.2 million of Fedaral Highways Administration and State Department of Transportation monies, in eomplianee with federal law that requires highway projects impacting historic properties to fund the preparation of a preserva~ tion plan. ■

^ Nt"t Hoti

Aricient terraces at Luluku in Kāne'ohe are among sites to be preser\'ed in the Hālawa-Luluku Interpretive Development Plan.

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