Ocean View residents lacking beach access call for opening Pohue Bay

OCEAN VIEW — The name gets it right — it’s ocean view, but that’s about as close to the water as you get.

For almost 16 miles of coastline stretching north from South Point, there is no public access to the shoreline. Thousands of Ocean View residents who want a day at the beach have to travel north to Hookena or south to Punaluu Beach. The trip can be 40 minutes in either direction.

For years, it’s irked residents who say shoreline access is a basic right.

Now, a group is working to change that lack of availability. Residents have their sights set on the scenic but inaccessible Pohue Bay at the bottom of Hawaiian Ocean View Ranchos. The bay — billed as having the only white-sand beach in Ka‘u — is owned by a company that once planned to build golf courses, an airport, two hotels, a Hawaiian heritage center and a village on 16,456 acres before the project ran into public opposition a handful of years ago.

Gates and boulders have blocked the road to the bay for years. A few hikers have traversed miles of ancient trail from Highway 11 to get to the beach, but even that trail reportedly has fences across it.

Residents who are trying to figure out how to get the beach opened up acknowledge they have to grapple with a number of issues, from gaining access to regulating the behavior of future users. The area has a number of historic trails, heiau, petroglyphs and other cultural features. It’s also a prime nesting area for endangered hawksbill sea turtles.

“It’s a beautiful bay, one of the few beaches that actually has sand and palm trees,” said Naalehu Rep. Richard Creagan. “The question is, how does the public get control of the beach and have access without the beach getting overwhelmed?”

In 2012, the County Council approved a resolution calling on the county administration to begin negotiations to buy a conservation easement on the land. County interest in the land stretches back decades, with the property ranked second on a 2006 list of potential land purchases.

Former Ka‘u Councilwoman Brittany Smart introduced that resolution, and the owner was willing to sell the easement and wanted the land in conservation, Smart told West Hawaii Today this week.

“I think the general feedback we were getting was that so many of the open space lands were in Ka‘u, and they were trying to spread the money out to other locations,” she said.

People like former South Kona Councilwoman Brenda Ford, who worked to get the easement, figured it would both guarantee much-needed public access and assure that an unpopular development never raised its head again. The easement remained on the list of potential purchases by the county Open Spaces Fund for several years, but was never acquired.

“The bay should be open to the public, and those ancient trails should be in public ownership,” Ford said this week.

It’s an open question whether the owner would be willing to sell the land, which is zoned agricultural and conservation. The county uses the eminent domain process to buy such tracts of land for public use, but prefers that the owner be on board, Ford said. Otherwise, the acquisition can become a hostile one that can run up costly court bills.

The Nani Kahuku Aina development was only the last in a series of plans to make the property a resort destination dating back to the 1980s. Attempts to reach the Delaware-based owners were unsuccessful.

The state, meanwhile, is appraising nearly 8,000 acres with a similar shoreline area at Kapua Bay to the north, and may purchase that land.

Hawaiian Ocean View Ranchos resident Ann Bosted said residents would love having easy access to a beach. But she asked, would they love it to death? The bay has no access to fresh water and restrooms, and can’t support intense use, she said.

“Pohue Bay is a small gem, and since legal access is not easy, it is not overused,” she said in an email. “The last few times I have been down, we have had the beach to ourselves. It is quintessential Hawaii — palm trees, yellow sand, rolling surf, great snorkeling. However its chief value is as a primo nesting site for the endangered hawksbill turtles. Each season, a team of young volunteers camp down there and watch the nests and protect them from predators, like the mongoose, and careless beach goers. It really is a community beach and a welcome treat for those who make the effort to visit it.”