Health Haven at Hakalau?
Can an eco-tourist development work?

by Alan D. McNarie

The old Hamakua Coast plantation town of Hakalau was once a thriving community with a hospital, a movie theater, a gymnasium, an elementary school, a Japanese school, several stores, 2,000-5,000 residents (depending on who's estimating) and, of course, a sugar mill that powered the local economy. After Big Sugar left, so did most of the people. By the late 1990s, the former town had dwindled to a few houses, a Buddhist church and a post office.

Steve Shropshire wants to replace Big Sugar with a new economic engine. He and his wife, Beth Anne, own about 900 acres of former plantation land, including the mill site and Hakalau Gulch. He's already put in a small subdivision, Hakalau Plantation Village, on the site of a former plantation camp just mauka from the old mill. At a community meeting at the Hakalau Jodo Mission on November 15, he unveiled a tentative proposal for the rest of the land.

It's a far different approach from the usual Hawai'i Island development plan. Shropshire's ideas encompass the ahupua'a, from upper reaches of the gulch all the way down to the sea, in one coordinated plan, instead of just plopping down a resort or a subdivision. Instead of a high rise hotel or golf-course subdivision, Shropshire plans an "adventure and wellness center" where visitors can stay in low-visual-impact bungalows and get native Hawaiian healing treatments such as lomilomi massage from local practitioners. The spa would be headquartered in a pair of concrete plantation-era warehouses, which would also hold a cultural center and a natural foods restaurant featuring locally-grown produce. Early estimates have pegged the cost for getting the center up and running at around $7-8 million.

Shropshire wants an "ecoadventure" zipline facility, developed in conjunction with a Maui company, to supplement forestry and ranching in the uplands. The old canefields would support diversified agriculture. In the bottom of Hakalau gulch, Shropshire wants to establish a nonprofit garden specializing in native plants.

The November meeting was unusual because Shropshire's company, Aloha Green, has not applied for the necessary county permits and zoning changes. In the past, developers have seldom met the public until they had fairly complete plans in hand. Councilman Dominic Yagong (Hamakua, North Hilo) advised Shropshire to get the proposal before residents early. For the current proposal to work, the property would need to be rezoned as "village commercial" to allow up to 50 housing units on ten acres on and around the old mill site. Under the current General Plan, those acres are zoned either "light industrial" or "light residential." Yagong's support is crucial to those approvals. At the meeting, Yagong pledged to follow the will of the community.

But Shropshire still has a long way to go to earn the community's support. Many residents expressed emotions from skepticism to hostility. Another meeting is scheduled for January 15, 6 p.m., at the Hakalau Jodo Mission.

Adding zip to ag
At the proposed "zipline" facility, tourists would zip back and forth across a feeder branch of the gulch, suspended from pulleys on steel cables and pulled only by gravity. The cables stretching across the gulch would be up to 500 feet in length, and would have wooden platforms at each end for takeoffs and landings. According to Tim Boche of Skyline Adventures, which would build and run the facility, visitors would come up to the zipline complex on 4WD vehicles, and hike from zipline to zipline on trails. The facility would provide an estimated ten full time jobs.

Boche, a former forestry teacher at Hawai'i Community College, says the total facility would take up less than 15 acres, and that the trails and platforms would be on the gulch's rim, which is dominated by non-native species. He hopes to replant the trail's edge with native and canoe plants to make the facility an eco-educational experience. He says that all the ziplines would be out of site of the current highway and the main gulch, and that no roads would need to be constructed in order to build or run the site.

Re-green the gulch

The Shropshires want to turn their gulch property over to a nonprofit that would work in partnership with native Hawaiian groups and the University of Hawai'i's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) to clear invasive species from the valley's floor and create a tropical botanical garden specializing in native plants. Steve Shropshire believes that as the valley floor is cleared, the sites of ancient lo'i (wetland taro patches) will be uncovered. He told residents that any sites found, could be turned over to Native Hawaiians to farm again. Clearing out the invasives would require a conservation area use permit.

Shropshire told the HIJ he plans to provide some of the funding for the nonprofit garden, and hoped to bring other foundations and like-minded individuals on board to help with the rest. He doesn't have an estimate, yet, of what it would cost to get rid of the invasives, but he hopes to get help from both local volunteers and "voluntourists" to help.

Many skeptical
But the majority of residents who spoke at the meeting-both newcomers who'd moved in since sugar's collapse and kama'aina who'd stayed on-have apparently chosen to live there because of what the area now was, not what it once was or what it could become.

"I came here from Hawai'i Kai," said one. "Fifty years ago, it was like here. Today it's a concrete jungle.... We don't want that here."

Residents also raised specific questions about water supply (Shropshire said his company would supply the site for a new well and a holding tank), public access (Shropshire pledged to keep the valley open), and about spa guests potentially crowding out locals at tiny Hakalau Beach

"We get little bit beaches left," said one resident. "We fish, we hunt, my son do boogie board.... Keep the country, country, brah!"

Another worried about what he called "Creeping non-agriculturalism."

"We have people who are building these beautiful big houses up here just to watch the whales," he said. He called Shropshire's plans "a big crack in the armor that protects the agricultural uses of these lands."

Shropshire noted that his current agricultural enterprises were barely turning a profit; he argued that his tourism projects could help keep local farming afloat.

Shropshire also took some heat for the subdivision he's already constructed. One kama'aina noted, despite Shropshire's assurances, that "any water that we generate as a result of rooftops and asphalt has to be mitigated by a storm sewer system," the road below his new subdivision now floods regularly. Another complained that the houses that were built in the subdivision were larger than the ones Shropshire had promised.

"The problem that we had in Hakalau was not with Steve," argued one Aloha Green supporter. "It was with two construction contractors."

Another supporter made a different point. "There is a huge part of the community that are having to drive to Waikoloa every morning," he said. "[Shropshire] hopes to offer some of those folks an alternative."

Shropshire later told the Journal that the two houses residents complained about where already under construction when the subdivision's homeowner's association started, and he didn't have the money for a legal battle to enforce the subdivision's restrictions and covenants.

Restrictions
Could financial constraints cause problems with new plans, as well?

Shropshire didn't think so. He said he would either bring in a partner to help finance the healing center, or use the equity in his land, which he said was currently "basically unencumbered." He pointed out that his current plan entailed no new residences, so the problem that happened with Hakalau Plantation Village's independent building contractors won't happen with his tourist bungalows.

Before coming to Hawai'i, Shropshire owned Green Connection, a large nursery operation in Alaska. He also chaired the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce and started a green business initiative called Green Star. He originally founded Aloha Green in Hilo in 1998 to supply tropical foliage to his Alaskan ventures, then sold Green Connection and moved here in 2004.

Plan B
If the current plan for the spa resort is not approved, Shropshire told the Journal the next alternative probably would be "residential lots on the ocean bluff and establishing some type of compatible commercial usage for the buildings in the industrial area." But he thought the current proposal would "benefit the greatest number of people, through health and wellness, through connecting to the 'aina, as well as the economic benefits created by the chain of goods and services required by this community."

"We're working on an advisory visioning team to try to evaluate the concerns that were expressed at the community meeting and how to address those concerns so as to make the project viable," he maintained. He also said he'd gotten notes and e-mails of encouragement from area residents since then.

"We still believe there's a large portion of people within the Hakalau community and islandwide that believe that this type of land use is progressive and the direction that we need to be going towards in our own community," he said.

Top of Page