Hawaiian Paradise Park residents are urged to submit feedback about a proposed new district park that will be built in the subdivision.
Construction of HPP’s first public park could begin in two years, and a draft environmental assessment published last week is the latest step in the project’s development.
The park would be built on a 20-acre Hawaii County-owned parcel on Kaloli Drive between 25th and 26th avenues and is estimated to cost upwards of $80 million.
The draft EA proposes several potential facilities to be included in the park, including a baseball diamond, soccer field, two tennis courts, three pickleball courts, a community pool, dog park, skate park, two covered playground areas, about 218 parking stalls and more.
The county Department of Parks and Recreation held a community meeting about the park in October, where Puna Councilwoman Ashley Kierkiewicz said she hopes the project will be completed in a single phase of work, rather than be split into multiple phases to spread out the cost.
However, the draft EA states it is likely that the high cost of the project will necessitate a multiple-phase approach, although no details about how those phases will be split have been determined.
Parks and Rec Director Maurice Messina said any determination about whether the project will be broken into phases will be made based on the county’s ability to secure funding and how it prioritizes its major projects.
“It depends on the availability of capital improvement funding, which all the county agencies compete for,” Messina said, adding that major high-priority projects like the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant likely will take up the lion’s share of county CIP funds, leaving other projects to fight over the remainder.
Messina said Parks and Rec itself has several other projects in need of funding, including deferred maintenance work at dozens of parks islandwide.
As for whether the HPP project can receive enough funding to be completed in one fell swoop, Messina remained ambivalent. While an $80 million district park might be a tough sell compared to other county projects — “I’ve never seen it happen before,” Messina said — he added he also has never seen such focused community support for a project before, either.
The October public meeting about the park was widely attended by residents who urged the county to accelerate the project, since the growing subdivision is in dire need of community spaces.
Messina urged residents to submit comments on the draft EA during its current public comment period, since those comments will not only be used to influence the final EA, but also could be used to amend the HPP District Park Master Plan.
A master plan for the park was first drafted in 1997, and was amended more than 20 years later to include a preliminary design based on community feedback.
Messina said feedback on the final EA will help finalize the master plan and determine what park facilities the community thinks are most important to include.
The final master plan is slated to be completed in January.
A broad timeline included in the draft EA estimates the final design and permitting processes could be completed in one year. The contract bidding process would add another six months, and construction could possibly begin in two years and take another two years to complete.
The draft EA can be read at tinyurl.com/y22vmhab.
Community members are asked to submit comments to Jennifer Scheffel at consultant group SSFM International at jscheffel@ssfm.com.