Fund grows to save
Pupukea bluff

$5 million is still needed to keep
the lot from being developed

North Shore residents have raised nearly $7 million of a $12 million price tag to preserve a bluff planned for luxury 1-acre lots.

But Blake McElheny, spokesman for the North Shore Community Land Trust, said he is worried about $2 million in state and county funding.

McElheny said he hopes that Gov. Linda Lingle will release $1 million set aside by the Legislature last year. Those funds will lapse on June 30, 2006.

Another $1 million approved by the City Council last year must be encumbered by the end of the year, or it too will lapse.

The Japanese company had wanted to build a 765-acre development of 1-acre lots.

However, McElheny said he is "not apprehensive. I am wildly optimistic because it has been acknowledged by the public" that this area needs to be protected.

He said an additional $2 million was secured by Sen. Daniel Inouye through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the Army entered into an agreement with the Trust for Public Lands and pledged another $2 million to purchase and protect the land.

There is also $1 million from the state Department of Land Natural Resources, McElheny said.

Obayashi Hawaii Corp. purchased the property, which abuts the Boy Scout and Girl Scout camps and the Kahuku Military Training Area, for $7 million in 1974.

McElheny said that "because of skyrocketing land values, one alternative that has been discussed is a conservation purchase of a large section of the property."