The owner of Hawaiian Memorial Park has filed a new draft environmental impact study in a bid to add 30,000 more burial sites to the Kaneohe cemetery nearly a decade after a similar effort was rejected by a state commission.

Hawaiian Memorial Life Plan Ltd. recently submitted the report to the state Land Use Commission ahead of petitioning the commission to reclassify 53 acres of conservation land for urban use that would allow cemetery operations on 28 acres.

The new report is expected to attract renewed opposition from many nearby residents who criticized a similar prior plan. However, the cemetery owner has tweaked its plan and has addressed a key deficiency linked to the commission rejecting the earlier proposal in 2009.

The LUC unanimously rejected the earlier land-use change in large part because urbanizing the conservation area wasn’t consistent with county guidelines indicating where urban growth should be allowed. Those county guidelines, spelled out in the Koolau Poko Sustainable Communities Plan, were amended last year by the City Council after Hawaiian Memorial sought changes to the community plan that would permit its expansion.

If the LUC approves the land-use change now sought by Hawaiian Memorial, the cemetery owner anticipates starting construction in 2020 and finishing work in phases over 10 years, the environmental report said.

The plan would add 28 acres to the cemetery that opened in 1958 on six acres and now has about 41,000 burials on 80 acres. The proposed 28-acre expansion area is along a hillside above a neighboring residential subdivision, and would be graded to provide burial plots and an access road. Unlike the prior plan, no mausoleum structures are proposed.

The estimated $29 million project includes making 10-foot to 75-foot cuts into the hillside, and building retaining walls as tall as 25 feet but averaging 10 feet. Other parts of the plan include creating storm-water-retention basins, rockfall-prevention fencing, a 150-foot buffer of open space next to homes and a 14.5-acre cultural preserve to protect existing features on the land including a heiau.

Another roughly 130 acres owned by Hawaiian Memorial in the area would be placed under a conservation easement that would be held by the nonprofit Hawaiian Islands Land Trust and restrict any future development.

Hawaiian Memorial said expansion is needed to satisfy future demand for burials because space at existing cemeteries is filling up.

The company said in the report that there are 20,100 available plot, crypt and niche spaces at Oahu’s seven cemeteries, including 3,600 at Hawaiian Memorial where 700 to 800 spaces are filled annually.

Expanding the Kaneohe cemetery, however, has been challenging for the property owner that is an affiliate of the largest funeral and cemetery service provider in North America with annual revenue around $3 billion, Texas-based Service Corp. International.

The company’s previous draft environmental report received 148 written comments, largely from community members who expressed concerns over traffic, flooding, loss of the natural hillside and living next to a graveyard. The Kaneohe Neighborhood Board, Kaneohe Outdoor Circle and Life of the Land also opposed the earlier expansion plan.

Hawaiian Memorial has supporters as well, including employees who filled a City Council hearing room last year wearing “Support HMP” T-shirts. The state Office of Planning in 2009 recommended allowing 29 acres to be urbanized for expansion.

The cemetery owner last year made three informal presentations to the Kaneohe Neighborhood Board as it worked on conceptual plans, but the board has not taken a position on the latest proposal.

Bill Sager, the board’s vice chairman, said he anticipates the revised plan will still be a contentious issue.

“The hardliners will be totally opposed to anything, and the people who are supporting the expansion of the cemetery will be equally vocal,” he said.

The public may review and comment on the new report, which is available at health.hawaii.gov/oeqc Opens in a new tab. The comment deadline is Oct. 23. Comments should be sent to the LUC along with contacts for the cemetery and its consultant listed in the report.