On July 8, the City and County of Honolulu released its 904-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the repair and renovations planned for Ala Moana Regional Park (AMRP), the “People’s Park.” The plan is estimated to cost $144 million (in 2016 dollars), which probably will increase when completed.

Although the DEIS is referred to as a draft, there are no scheduled hearings to discuss the 20 proposed changes to the park. The public has only until Aug. 22 to submit its comments.

The stated goal in the DEIS is to revitalize the park, while maintaining its “local character.” Local people who use the park should define its local character. Why does the city continue to redesign the park so local practices can’t be continued?

Plans for improvement should keep the park usable and convenient for local families, not diminish their ability to enjoy the park.

Take, for example, Proposed Action 2.3.6, Makai Shared Use Path (called the Promenade in earlier plans). There is no need to spend our taxpayer dollars to widen the sidewalks. The width of the current sidewalk is sufficient. Multimodal use on the promenade is dangerous. Walking along the path with bicycles, Segways, electric skateboards or other fast-moving wheeled vehicles will lead to accidents.

Moreover, widening the path comes at the expense of removing the grassy areas where local families like to picnic or rest under the trees. Studies show that climate change along with more cement versus grass causes areas to become hotter. Lots of keiki with burnt feet. The plan’s proposal adds more benches and trees in containers, which will block makai-side parkers from opening their doors on the beach side and force more unloading on the roadside.

Another issue is in Proposal 2.3.5 Parking, where the plan proposes changing most of the mauka parking to perpendicular parking to create 94 more spaces. This creates a dangerous situation from backing out into ongoing traffic and pedestrians. It makes unloading/loading picnic gear and surfboards more dangerous than the current parallel parking. It will also require lots of taxpayer dollars to cut away large chunks of grass and remove trees to widen the road so cars can back out of the perpendicular parking. That’s grass and trees where families or groups hold their reunions, picnics, church meetings, etc.

Furthermore, for the first time since plans were revealed in 2015, the DEIS includes the creation of a dog park near the ewa entrance of the AMRP in Sec. 2.3.1. The creation of the dog park at AMRP would create an unsafe environment for the public and is in violation of existing posted rules that no animals are allowed.

The dog park also would incur unnecessary work for park maintenance crews for waste disposal, fence maintenance, flea-tick control, etc. — all at taxpayers’ expense when current maintenance costs of our public parks are already stressed.

An informational meeting is needed so the public can intelligently discuss the plans and comment. Since the city has chosen not to hold such a meeting, Malama Moana is inviting the public to come to the McCoy Pavilion dining room on Thursday, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., to learn more about the DEIS and how to write a comment letter. We’ve invited the mayor and others to come. City Councilmembers Ann Kobayashi, Trevor Ozawa and Carol Fukunaga plan to attend.

For future park planning, we urge the city to create a city-designated coalition of interested parties to work together to keep Ala Moana the People’s Park.

Sharlene Chun-Lum is a member, and sent this on behalf, of Malama Moana, a group focused on keeping Ala Moana Park the “People’s Park.”