The group Friends of Haiku Stairs expects to carry its legal fight to save 4,000 feet of steel steps built on a sheer ridgeline above Kaneohe into the new year.
Friends President Sean Pager said his group will appeal 1st Circuit Judge John M. Tonaki’s recent ruling that granted a summary judgment on the city’s motion to dismiss the Friends’ lawsuit that sought to block the city’s removal of the Windward Oahu landmark.
“Yes, we will be appealing the Dec. 5 ruling,” Pager told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser via email. “The notice of appeal is due mid-January.”
The Friends’ fight counters Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration and its desire to demolish the over 3,900 steps leading to the top of the Koolau Range, above Haiku Valley and the H-3 freeway, over safety concerns, city liability costs, trespassing and other neighborhood disturbances.
The mayor’s office said the city’s timeline to demolish the Haiku Stairs will start soon.
“Work is scheduled to begin early in 2024,” Scott Humber, the mayor’s communications director, said via email. “(The) date has not been set.”
And he noted any further legal challenge to the city’s stair removal plan will be opposed: “The city will continue to defend its position.”
Filed in August, the Friends’ 50-page lawsuit contended that the city had not updated or completed the necessary environmental impact studies required to legally demolish the World War II-era stairs, and had therefore violated basic Hawaii Environmental Protection Act rules.
But on Dec. 5, the judge found the city did not have to conduct new environmental impact statements and that the city did not improperly segment the project — namely, its desire to wholly remove the stairs, according to Tim Vandeveer, an environmental lawyer representing the Friends in its lawsuit.
After the ruling, the mayor’s office said the outcome was clear-cut.
“The plaintiffs in the case argued, among other things, that the city had not conducted the proper environmental review before proceeding with removal of the stairs,” Ian Scheuring, the mayor’s spokesperson, previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Judge Tonaki, ruling from the bench, disagreed with that argument, found that the city had fully complied with Hawaii’s Environmental Policy Act and granted judgment in favor of the city.”
Since 2021, Blangiardi and the City Council have favored a plan to permanently remove the structure that over the years has switched ownership between the Coast Guard, the Board of Water Supply and ultimately the city.
In 2022 the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation became the new steward of what for years was a legally accessible staircase — known by visitors and locals alike as the Stairway to Heaven, with its spectacular views and unique mountain hiking experience — but which has, of late, become restricted property.
Demolition of the metal staircase — first built by the Navy as a wooden ladder system for communications equipment access in the 1940s and later replaced by metal stairs with railings — was to begin at the end of 2022.
The work to remove the stairs is to be done by helicopter, the city says.
On June 1, after nearly a monthlong request for bidders, the city opened just one bid for that demolition project — to be overseen by the city’s Department of Design and Construction — initially estimated at $1 million. The Nakoa Cos. offered to do the work for $2.26 million.
But in a June 29 letter, the city awarded Nakoa a contract for more than $2.34 million — about $80,000 above the Kapolei company’s initial bid submission.
Pager previously stated a saved Haiku Stairs could become a “guided, managed, curated experience” similar to the city’s Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, which might involve online reservations, fees and even video safety briefings required for viewing before hikers venture up the stairs.
This week, Pager said the “goal remains to provide for safe, sustainable, and culturally respectful public access to the Stairway to Heaven.”
“We know that a majority of Oahu and Windward residents want to save the Stairs,” he added. “This majority extends even to the communities who live close to the Stairs, and who have borne the brunt of trespassing as documented by recent door-to-door canvassing done by the Kaneohe Neighborhood Board. We are confident that city leaders will eventually heed the will of the public and abandon their misguided attempt to destroy this historic and much beloved treasure.”
Meanwhile, Humber said no “special town hall meetings” are planned for a demolition project that will require helicopters to hoist steel stairs off a ridgeline above a residential community and an active freeway below.
Instead he added, “Mayor will be doing a series of town halls again in 2024 starting in mid-March.”
Correction: The city awarded Nakoa a contract for more than $2.34 million — about $80,000 above the Kapolei company’s initial bid submission. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect figure for the increase.
