Two groups have gazed upon this area and come away with two radically different visions.
Landowner Bishop Estate and lessees, Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. and Maunalua Associates, see 335 residential units, an 18-hole golf course and clubhouse, a 140-room hotel and 40-acre commercial center in the valley and surrounding ridges.
The state has created a master plan for a park that would create numerous recreational activities. The state would clean up rubbish, block out off-road vehicles, restore wetlands and improve water quality, restore shoreline vegetation and reforest the valley and keep the area as open space.
Tour companies, area residents, the Legislature, the governor, the mayor and most of Oahu's neighborhood boards support the state plan.
The challenge is getting some public entity to acquire the land. To that end, the Legislature has allocated $17 million in federal transportation money and $3.4 million in state funds to get 350 acres of Bishop Estate land in the Wawamalu-Queen's Beach area.
Additionally, the Ka Iwi Action Council has secured help from Trust For Public Land, a national foundation that helps communities buy land for public benefit. A trust spokesman is meeting with Bishop Estate to work out a reasonable resolution to the two visions for the land.
Bishop Estate and the lessees have asked the city to allow development on land around Queen's Beach in exchange for dropping eight lawsuits that seek compensation for property that the city downzoned in the 1980s.
No movement on the matter is expected until later this year when the developer releases its environmental report. The City Council will then take up the matter again.