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Honolulu attorney Howard Luke had a sense of deja vu when he read the most recent report on the Lahaina wildfire, which highlighted the dangers of having a crowded, older neighborhood at the edge of an unoccupied stretch of land.

“They’re writing about our road,” Luke recalled telling a neighbor in Manoa.

Luke has seen fires spread on Waahila Ridge near his street. While the wildfires have never spread enough to engulf homes of neighboring Manoa Hillside Estates or Pamoa Road, where Luke lives, Luke said the flames have come perilously close.

“The fire never really concerned me until I saw it,” Luke said, recalling the in 2020. “The fire coming down the hill, it was scary.”

Now, he’s worried that increased traffic from a controversial proposed 93-home development in the neighborhood will magnify the risk.

Luke and other opponents of the development have seized on the Hawaii attorney general’s report on the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui fires, which was released Friday, to show the risks of living near what fire experts call the .

Concerns about wildfires are hardly the only issues , which developer Christine Camp’s Avalon Group is planning to build on the former campus of St. Francis School, near Woodlawn Drive and the upper end of the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus.

“But what they’re talking about is a totally different scale.”

Paul Krushelnycky

Worries about added traffic in already crowded streets, the idea of a profit-making venture replacing a former school and concerns about potential Native Hawaiian historic sites are also stoking objections.

But the opponents say all of the issues are connected. The project is controversial enough that the Manoa Neighborhood Board has passed a resolution opposing it. The city’s Department of Planning and Permitting will hold a public hearing Oct. 7.

Camp says the project won’t increase congestion because the parcel is already heavily used and will be developed as a residential neighborhood, which it’s zoned to be.

Camp’s proposal is a bold one for Manoa, where residents frequently oppose change. Another recent project, which would have provided affordable rentals for older adults in a cluster of low-rise buildings near an old cemetery, stalled against vocal opposition.

A Historic Campus

Founded in 1924 by the Sisters of Saint Francis as the Saint Francis Convent School for girls, the school moved to Manoa in 1932, according to  published in the Hawaii Catholic Herald newspaper. 

Originally a nursing school, over the decades St. Francis grew to accommodate boarding students from Japan, the Philippines, Guam and other Pacific islands. By the 1970s, it became a college prep school and ultimately admitted boys as well as girls.

By the time it closed in 2019, the school had 452 students and 68 faculty and staff on its 11-acre campus, which also included housing for retired nuns. After the school closed, the order sought to sell the campus, and eventually Camp emerged and acquired the property for $23 million.

“Our property is zoned for residential. We’re using it for exactly what it’s supposed to be used for.”

Developer Christine Camp

Camp is planning 79 single-family homes and 14 duplexes. The single family homes will likely be priced at $1.5 million to $1.8 million, she said. In addition, each single-family home will include the option to build out a one-room accessory dwelling unit with a kitchenette, bringing the total potential separate households to 172.

Responding to critics, Camp says the ADUs will essentially be small attached properties intended for extended families, not separate dwellings.

Regardless, the current design calls for 360 parking stalls, including 316 for the single-family homes. And that’s a major red flag for the neighbors.

When St. Francis was in session, traffic clogging the narrow lane to campus was bad enough, according to Paul Krushelnycky, Luke’s neighbor and ally in the fight against the development. Neighbors were tolerant, given St. Francis’ educational mission.

“But what they’re talking about is a totally different scale,” he said.

On Sunday afternoon, Krushelnycky and Luke were joined by Ted Churchill, a building contractor, and Ellen Sofios, a medical doctor with an interest in Manoa’s Native Hawaiian cultural sites. On a walking tour of the area, they pointed out how Aria Lane will be accessible only by Pamoa Road, a narrow street reduced to a one-lane artery thanks to cars parked on one side.

In addition to neighborhood cars, the Pamoa is often used by joggers and bicyclists, Luke said. Pedestrians taking a shortcut to the UH typically walk in the street because of a lack of sidewalks, he said. The homes tend to be older, located close to each other.

As Luke noted, the neighborhoods around Pamoa Road are similar to Maui’s Lahainaluna neighborhood, which was described by Lopez in her report on the fires that destroyed much of the area.

“The neighborhood has many narrow, winding streets branching off of Lahainaluna Road, which is the main ingress and egress for the entire neighborhood,” Lopez wrote. “It is common for multiple generations to live together. As such, many of the residential structures had additions, such as ohanas or ADUs, adjacent to the primary structures.”

“Multiple residents per lot increased the number of vehicles within driveways, between structures, and along both sides of the street,” the report said. “Additional outdoor furniture, patio coverings, and other miscellaneous belongings created ladder fuels, which aided fire spread between structures.”

Cultural Concerns

Pamoa Road in the past got some relief during rush hour, as the University of Hawaii would open a gate so cars dropping kids off at St. Francis could exit through UH’s East-West Road. But East-West Road won’t be an option for Aria Lane residents, except during emergencies, Camp said.

In addition to the traffic and safety concerns, Sofios said she was worried because a historical record shows there was once a Native Hawaiian heiau, or temple, on the St. Francis campus.

Camp says the concerns are misplaced. Avalon is hiring a consultant to conduct a full archaeological inventory survey of the site to find if there are in fact any Native Hawaiian heiau or other sites, and it’s spending $1 million and delaying the project a year to do the work. Avalon is also in contact with in case Native Hawaiian burial remains are found at the site, Camp said.

Avalon is developing the site under Honolulu’s planned development housing ordinance, which is designed to group homes and other uses together to help reduce infrastructure costs. A hearing is scheduled before the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting in October.

Camp said the development fits squarely in the intended use of the property as stated in Honolulu’s land-used ordinances.

“Our property is zoned for residential,” she said. “We’re using it for exactly what it’s supposed to be used for.”

As for fire safety, she said, Manoa Stream provides a 200-foot-wide barrier between Waahila Ridge and both Aria Lane and Pamoa Road.

“It’s never crossed over on our side,” she said of fire on Waahila Ridge.

Perhaps most important, Camp said the property now has far more users than it might seem. Avalon rents the school gym to Hawaii Pacific University for basketball and volleyball and has a separate facility for gymnastics and cheerleading. There’s also a weight room next to the gym.

Plus, the Leahi Swim School uses the site. All told, she said, it adds up to more than 1,000 users a day. Aria Lane will mean less traffic, she said.

“When we are in, we’re not going to add to congestion; we’re going to reduce it,” she said.

That’s hard for neighbors like Luke to believe.

“That’s insane,” he said. “It’s not only a mistake; it’s disingenuous.”