Exactly who owns Mapele Road in the rural Kahaluu neighborhood is in dispute after a sizable chunk of it collapsed into a ditch during recent heavy rain.

The finger-pointing over who should repair the damage is the latest example of what can happen when roads created decades ago are never signed over to the government.

Heavy rain caused a collapse that carved a hole about 4 feet wide, 15 feet long and 6 feet deep. An adjoining 20-foot-long section is severely cracked and appears ready to collapse as well.

Property owners say the city should fix the road because city crews have done resurfacing work on it and other evidence indicates at least parts of the road are owned by the government.

The city, which acknowledges it did undertake paving in 2007, maintains that decades ago the original developers never turned the road over to city ownership. Consequently, while the city may be tasked with providing basic resurfacing, it is not responsible for major reconstruction.

Even the number of homes affected by the damage to the road is in dispute. Residents insist there are at least 50, but the city estimates 35.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell told reporters earlier this week that any long-term repairs on Mapele need to be worked out with all stakeholders, including the state, since the damaged section abuts a stream.

But who owns the road?

The city released property tax information showing a list of several dozen names. Among them are Hawaii real estate legend Walter Dillingham and members of his family, including his wife, Louise, and sons Lowell and Benjamin, all of whom are deceased.

Ross Sasamura, the city’s facility maintenance director, said the city is aware the list contains the names of deceased people, but said he believes there may also be successor entities for those people. “But we don’t have the means to search that out,” he said.

An online check of city property records shows multiple listings for “Mapele Road,” including one that lists City and County of Honolulu as the owner. That appears to support the argument that at least a portion of the road is city-owned and, therefore, the city bears some, if not all, responsibility for repairs.

A legislative study done in 1989 identified 437 disputed roads on Oahu. City officials have said they can’t afford to take on responsibility for all of the private roads, something they estimated would cost millions annually.

Frustrated Mapele Road property owners say they will take their concerns to the Kahaluu Neighborhood Board on Wednesday night.

ONE RESIDENT, Nick Lohr, said his daughter noticed a large crack in the road one evening when they were headed home. The next day, the section had collapsed and the city had set up barricades.

“The crazy thing is if (the previous evening) I had had my tires in that area, we probably would have been in the ditch,” he said.

Lohr purchased his parcel on Mapele Road 10 years ago. “I don’t recall anyone ever telling me it’s private, so we dug out my deed and my other documents and we can’t see anywhere in my documents showing me a private road,” he said.

“Regardless of who pays for it, the road needs to be fixed,” continued Lohr, a contractor, who estimated it would cost about $200,000, including putting in a concrete retaining wall. He said he would consider paying a share of the cost.

Gordon Miyamoto, who bought his property in the 1990s, said the city should bear some responsibility. Miyamoto said he would consider paying to help fix the road, “if everybody is willing to contribute.” But because he is not listed as an owner of the road, he said he’s not even sure if legally he can help pay.

Miyamoto said the city has had little direct communication with residents, aside from a notice — stuffed into residential mailboxes — informing them that they needed to take their trash to a transfer station themselves because the damage has made the road impassable for city garbage trucks.

“The city hasn’t communicated to us how safe the road is in the long term,” he said. “That’s a concern to us because if the land underneath the road continues to erode, that thing’s not going to get better by itself.”

Several residents, none of whom wanted to be identified, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that they think one landowner contributed to the problem by driving semi-trailer trucks to and from his house, where they allege he is operating an illegal construction base yard.

BUT THE LANDOWNER, who was cited by the city last year and fined $35,000 in June, said his neighbors don’t have evidence that his trucks caused the damage. He contends that he is unfairly being cast as a scapegoat. “They’re not engineers,” he said, adding he suspects the main culprit is water under the road.

Land use attorney Robert Thomas said the situation is akin to “the old ‘hot potato’ game where there’s a road nobody wants because the darn thing is in disrepair and everyone wants the other guys to fix it back up.”

In another case, the state is tangled up in similar issues linked to a seawall along Waikiki’s Gold Coast. The dispute is now going before the Hawaii Supreme Court, Thomas said. The Intermediate Court of Appeals concluded the seawall was public property because it had been used continuously by the public for years. The state then appealed, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

Generally, Thomas said, if a road is deemed private, owners of adjacent parcels own undivided portions of it, similar to common areas of a condominium. That ownership interest carries to succeeding landowners, he said.

Kahaluu Neighborhood Board Chairwoman Flora Obayashi said, “Most of the roads in the area are privately owned, and the farmers want to limit access to protect their crops.”

In the aftermath of the collapse on Mapele Road, the city has taken at least a few more steps to address short-term health and safety issues.

It was announced Thursday that two refuse bins are now set up at Kahaluu Regional Park exclusively for affected homes. The residences have been without curbside refuse pickup since Nov. 21.

“It’s better than driving to the transfer station,” said Wyeth Crawford, who said he had been taking his trash to the Kapaa Quarry site.

Also, the city has worked out an agreement with a property owner that will allow fire trucks to reach the mauka side of Mapele Road.