Not cleared for takeoff: DLNR confusion puts model flying club in holding pattern

KAILUA-KONA — The Kona RC Flyers have been grounded for months with no end in sight.

The Hawaii Island chapter of the Academy of Model Aeronautics has been flying model airplanes in Kona for close to 40 years. Members flew at the Old Kona Airport Park for decades, but five years ago moved to a plot of state-owned land behind the Big Game Fishing Club at Honokohau Harbor with permission from the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation (DOBOR).

The club, numbering more than 30 members, figured it had found a permanent home. They constructed a small airfield equipped with two runways, a shade structure and a container for storage on a small plot of empty land. Then, one day in September of last year, the flyers were displaced without warning.

“All of the sudden, there was a notice at our flying field that we were evicted,” said Don Irwin, president of the club. “We needed to leave the area that belonged to the DLNR Land Division. We were trespassing and we would get penalties and go to jail if we didn’t get out of there.”

Thus began a long, confusing and bureaucratic process from which the club has yet been unable to extricate itself more than seven months later.

Doug Lanterman, the club’s secretary, said the catalyst for the eviction was unclear. The club was told, however, the land on which they’d built their airfield was under the jurisdiction of the Land Division and not DOBOR, as the members had initially thought. Both are subdivisions of Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR).

The club was told they’d need to deal with a land agent and ultimately conduct an environmental assessment (EA) to return to the parcel. Lanterman said the state had concerns about both the construction the flyers had done to build two small runways as well as the potential environmental impact of the model airplanes themselves.

The two runways were built with sand and soiltac, which Lanterman said is a biodegradable, glue-type substance used to create a smooth surface. One runway is roughly 20 x 175 feet, while the other is roughly 25 x 350 feet.

The largest planes flown there are 3 x 5 feet, Lanterman said, and well below the 55-pound limit set for model airplanes by the Federal Aviation Administration. The aircraft are radio controlled and most are electrically powered, although there are a few that have small engines and run on fuel.

The RC Flyers moved forward through the process, contacting a biologist to conduct the EA required by the Land Division. They then found out they’d need to obtain a right-of-entry permit from the Land Board to allow the biologist onto the site.

The club finally felt it was on track. They were in the process of procuring the right-of-entry permit and had scheduled a site visit with a land agent out of Hilo earlier this month, which was then abruptly cancelled.

Lanterman said the explanation the club was given by the agent was that she’d been directed to stop conducting any business involving the parcel as it was to be transferred back to DOBOR. It was DOBOR that initially granted the flyers permission to use the parcel, while it was the Land Division that suspended the club’s use almost five years later pending an EA.

“The problem is we’re now in this limbo thing where we’re not sure who we talk to,” Lanterman said. “The (Land Division) isn’t going to talk to us, but we go talk to the harbor guys and they haven’t been told anything.”

DLNR spokesperson Deborah Ward explained the complicated history of the parcel.

“The land adjacent to Honokohau Harbor was under (DOBOR) jurisdiction until it was transferred some years ago to the Land Division for a commercial harbor development project that did not materialize,” she wrote in an email to WHT Friday. “Now the divisions have agreed for the parcel to be returned to DOBOR. At present there is no time frame for Land Board approval of this set aside (executive order), then approval by the Legislature.”

Lanterman, who is also a member of the Keauhou Kona Yacht Club, said he’s heard from other members there that the transfer of the parcel from the Land Division back to DOBOR has something to do with interest from the Yacht Club in renting out the parcel from the state.

WHT was unable to confirm that with the DLNR as DOBOR and Land Division department heads were unavailable for comment.

Ward added the Land Division will try to help the RC Flyers procure a temporary revocable permit on a month-to-month basis in the interim, which first requires an EA. However, this seems to contradict the departmental directive referenced by the land agent who cancelled her meeting with the club earlier this month.

Lanterman shared an email sent last week to the club by Jade McMillen — manager of the office of Rep. Nicole Lowen, whose district encompasses the area surrounding Honokohau Harbor — after Lowen’s office looked into the matter in an effort to help the club get clarification.

“As you know, it was discovered that the particular parcel that the RC Flyers (were) using was held by the Land Division and not the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation,” McMillen wrote in the email. “The land agent I spoke with said the April 12th meeting was cancelled because it has since been determined that the parcel should be transferred to the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation but is currently still under the Land Division, (and thus) there wouldn’t have been anything that Land Agent could approve.”

It is unclear whether the Land Division has since been given official clearance to help the club procure a monthly permit as Ward said, or if that decision has either been held up or its communication hasn’t yet circulated throughout the DLNR and all of its subdivisions.

But after seven months on the ground, the RC Flyers are ready to get back in the air and are imploring the state to act more quickly so they can move up or move on.

“At this stage, we’re at loose ends,” Lanterman said. “We’d like to proceed forward because we’ve been flying for years.”