Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 24, Number 2, 1 Pepeluali 2007 — Kuleana quandaries [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kuleana quandaries

Amid escalating taxes and a variety of legal issues, some kuleana land owners are struggling to hold on to their ancestral property

Stūry and phūtūs by Sterliūg Kini Wūng Publicatiūūs Editur

This past winter, Dawn Wasson was considering the unthinkable. With building fines and back taxes on her family's cherished kuleana lands in Lā'ie, O'ahu, topping a million dollars, she began searching for another Hawaiian family to whom she could sell a portion of her interest in the property to help offset some of her costs. The decision was difficult because this wasn't just another pieee of real estate. Her family first acquired title to the 13-acre property 150 years ago. Generations of her 'ohana were born and later buried on the land. Over the last 30 years, she has watched her children and grandchildren grow up in the house she helped build on the property. "It wasn't an easy ehoiee," she said of the possible sale. "I cried thinking it over. In what appears to be another chapter in a long history of land dispossession for Hawai'i's native people, escalating property taxes and a variety of legal issues are forcing some Hawaiians like Wasson from their family lands - many of them rural properties that directly connect Hawaiians to their ancestors and to a sense of old Hawai'i that in many ways is gone. Family treasures In the 1850s, the Hawaiian Kingdom distributed house and agricultural lots, eaeh called a kuleana, to Native Hawaiian commoners, or maka'āinana, already living on the land. The kuleana awards process represented the last phase of the

Māhele, the historic land division that introduced private property to the islands. The cost to apply for a kuleana and the Hawaiian people's misgivings about the Western concept of private land ownership were major reasons why just a quarter of the adult male native population received kuleana awards. In the end, the 28,600 acres of kuleana parcels that were issued to maka'āinana accounted for only a fraction of a percent of the total land in Hawai'i, according to the Native Hawaiian Rights Handbook. Those few who did acquire parcels were often cut off from water and access to roads by plantations growing sugar eane on the huge swaths of land surrounding the kuleanas. Because of this and other factors, many Hawaiians abandoned their lands. "When you look back at the last two centuries, land in Hawai'i has been very susceptible to being taken by outsiders," said Andrew Sprenger, an attorney for Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. (NHLC) who has represented families in cases involving kuleana lots. "Land to Hawaiians is everything. It's critical to their identity and their subsistence. That's why we have to do everything to protect family lands such as kuleanas." The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is aiming to help address several of the challenges facing kuleana land owners. This legislative session, OHA will onee again push a hill that would exempt kuleana land owners from paying real property taxes on their lots. OHA Trustee Rowena Akana, who initiated the agency's kuleana efforts, said that kuleana land owners are struggling to pay land taxes, whieh are steadily increasing as neighboring areas

are developed. "We would like the state to recognize that these lands are absolute treasures to Hawaiians and all of Hawai'i, and that the parcels should be treated differently," she said. The hill would also make OHA a party to all court cases that seek to establish clear title to a kuleana when a deceased landowner has failed to designate heirs. In addition, the measure would prohibit the claiming of kuleana lands through adverse possession, a controversial legal process of acquiring property by occupying the land for 20 years. OHA has also tried to pass a similar kuleana land tax exemption hill in the Honolulu City Council. While the measure was stalled for some time, Councilmember Todd Apo recently indicated that he plans to schedule a hearing on a new version of the ordinance for Feb. 28. Courtroom threats Another major challenge kuleana land owners have to deal with is the huge number of heirs eaeh property accumulates as the land is passed down from generation to generation. Large families with many individuals who all have an undivided interest in the property often have difficulties determining who

should pay the land taxes, or who should be allowed to reside on the lot. A more threatening p r o b 1 e m , h o w e v e r ,

occurs when an individual sells their interest in the property to a non-fam-ily member who wants to cash in on their purchase. Since it's easier to divide, say, a tenth of the monetary value of the lot than a tenth of the actual acreage, a judge will usually force the family to sell the entire lot, even if the person who wants the money owns only a fraction of the interest in the property,

said Sprenger. The Ho'okano family of Kahalu'u, O'ahu, was thrust into this situation 15 years ago with their four kuleana parcels. Fortunately, NHLC helped them establish a family land trust, whieh created a eolleetive voice for the family members who joined, providing them See KULEANA on page 09

Calling Kuleana Landowners OHA would like to hear from you to help gather information that could assist in the creation of laws to exempt kuleana lands from certain property taxes. If you hold an interest in kuleana lands on any island, please contact the Kuleana Land Survey Call Center at 594-0247. Email: kuleanasurvey@oha.org. Mailing address: Kuleana Land Survey, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, 711 Kapi'olani Blvd. Ste 500, Honolulu, HI 96813.

NŪ HOU • NEWS

Above: Gene Naipo and Dawn Chang look over the Ho'okano family cemetary on one of the 'ohana's kuleana parcels. Right: One of the few burials on the property that has a tombstone; many are simply outlined I by stones, while others bear no markers.

KULEANA Cūntinued fram page 08

leverage during negotiations, said Sprenger, who is working on their case. "The trust was successful in preserving some of the property for the family," he said. "But for every case we do, we miss ten." But the Ho'okanos' property isn't safe yet. The parties have agreed that the family land trust will keep the two most culturally significant parcels, one of whieh contains the family cemetery. However, a judge cannot approve the settlement until the properties are brought into eomplianee with city building regulations, accord-

ing to Dawn Chang, a Ho'okano family member who onee served as an attorney in the state attorney general's office. She said those regulations require the family to install infrastructure such as sidewalks and water hydrants on properties that don't even have houses. "That construction cost far exceeds the monetary value of the land," said Chang, adding that the only development they have planned is to one day open up lo'i kalo on the property again. "These are financially difficult times. We stand a ehanee of losing it all." Chang said she hopes the state Legislature or Honolulu City Council will exempt kuleana parcels from these burdensome

building regulations. She said she would also like to see OHA or some other organization set up seminars to provide kuleana land owners with information and advice. Meanwhile, after mueh soul searching, Dawn Wasson decided against selling any of her interest in her family's kuleana parcels. She plans on appealing the property's building fines, and her extensive 'ohana continues to try to pay off their back land taxes. "I couldn't bring myself to sell," she said. "We're kuleana land owners. We are country people. We live and breathe it, and we will 'ai pōhaku (eat stones) before we give that up." E3