KAWAIHAE — A community resource center and emergency shelter is moving ahead at the Kailapa Homestead in Kawaihae.
Community members who have participated closely with University of Hawaii students in drawing up the plans say the center is a vital cultural link and a necessity to protect against natural disasters. A draft environmental assessment released this week found no significant impacts to the landscape from the project, putting the North Kohala community one step closer to its goal.
“We have recently had two big fires close by which knocked out power, cable and most means of communication. That is scary for people, since we have no real emergency centers in our area,” said Stacey Santos, vice president of the Kailapa Community Association. “We are essentially cut off. Tsunami threats, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, fires — an emergency center in this area is imperative.”
A conceptual plan for the center was completed in 2012 — a collaboration between homesteaders and the University of Hawaii at Manoa Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Students helped developed the plan for the center, compiling community input and research and drawing schematics for the site.
The center will be a “piko,” or gathering place to strengthen the community’s economic and social vitality and its ties to Native Hawaiian traditions. The center will serve not only Kailapa but also the fast-growing community on either side.
The center will focus on five concepts: Education, community cohesiveness, Native Hawaiian knowledge and tradition, health and safety, resource management and self-sufficiency.
The effort has been grassroots all the way. The entitlement and environmental process for such a project is onerous, said Tamar DeFries, a homesteader who has assisted the development effort.
“I really applaud them for not giving up,” she said. “These are the people that are building the economic and social fabric of their community.”
Karen Umemoto, chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, recalled the telephone call she received from Kailapa resident Diane Kanealii asking for planning assistance from her students. The community association got together funds to fly the students over from Oahu and put them up in their homes.
“It’s so meaningful to us to hear that their project is progressing,” she said in an email Tuesday. “Through working with them, our students not only learned how to facilitate community-based planning, but learned about the importance of having a place that serves as the piko of the community and the possibilities that such gatherings of community can bring.”
Although designs have not yet progressed beyond conceptual plans, work on the site has begun. The Kailapa Community Association has completed a paved road and installation of water services to the site, and has started on work for a community pavilion and playground through a $65,000 grant-in-aid from the state. New market tax credits, along with private and public funds will be sought to flesh out the plan, said DeFries.
The center will be located on 14.3 acres under the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands Plans and includes a garden, playground. Within the planned center would be a classroom, art and gathering space, pool area, medical storage, a certified kitchen and technology center. Situated on a fairly exposed length of coastline, the center will also serve as a hurricane shelter.
Two historic trail sites and habitation site located on the property would be preserved under the plan. An estimated 600 homesteaders live on 191 parcels in the Kawaihae.
