STAR-BULLETIN / 1990
Forty-eight native Hawaiian families displaced when Kalapana was destroyed by lava 16 years ago will finally be able to start rebuilding their homes under a recent agreement.
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Kalapana can finally rebuild
Native Hawaiians get long-delayed funds to fix homes after an eruption 16 years ago
Associated Press
KAIMU, Hawaii » Finally, 48 native Hawaiian families will be able to start rebuilding their Big Island homes that were buried by molten lava 16 years ago.
The victims of Kilauea volcano can begin reconstruction today of their tightly knit Kalapana community destroyed in 1990.
"It's been so many years, people can't wait to get on it," said Kimo Peleiholani-Blankenfeld of the new 67-lot Kikala-Keokea subdivision being built on state land.
The state relocation program of the shattered community was created in 1991 as a way of preserving the former fishing village on 89 acres a few miles away from the former site.
But lack of money, changes in state administrators and other factors have repeatedly postponed the project. Some former residents have died since signing leases for their new subdivision in 1995.
"We want to get going and start building our house," said Peleiholani-Blankenfeld, who has fathered six children with another on the way in the interim. "It's just delay after delay."
Water lines and paved roads were previously installed, and Hawaii County will take over responsibility for the subdivision's infrastructure, although some documents still need to be prepared for easements for utility-pole anchors, said Debbie Ward, spokeswoman for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which is managing the project.
The leases for the property were to last 65 years since they were signed in 1995, at a cost of $132 per year over the next 15 years, Ward said. After that time, rents will be renegotiated.
The additional 19 lots included in the property should be distributed to former Kalapana residents who were children in 1990 and now head their own households, said Edleen "Aunty Tootsie" Peleiholani, an original lessee and Peleiholani-Blankenfeld's mother-in-law.
She said she will ask the Legislature to approve such a provision.
Some lessees want to get involved in constructing each other's homes to help lower costs and build up the community.
"I'm almost wanting to go down there and build me a little lean-to so I can be back on the land again," she said.