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October 19, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waikīkī Beach Agreements

Waikīkī Beach was eroding.

As early as 1901, both the government surveyor and Lili‘uokalani had residences at Waikīkī Beach with walls across their seaward frontages that were in the ocean, blocking public passage along the beach.

Another Waikīkī residence and the Moana Hotel also had portions of their structures similarly situated in the water. By the late-1920s, walls were common along Waikīkī Beach.

A 1927 report by the Engineering Association of Hawai‘i pinpointed seawalls as the primary cause of erosion in Waikīkī. The report concluded that beach nourishment and groins could be used to rebuild the beach.

During the same time period, plans were underway to turn Waikīkī district wetlands into an urban community. The Ala Wai Canal was dredged from 1922 to 1928.

In 1927, the Territorial Legislature authorized Act 273 allowing the Board of Harbor Commissioners to rebuild the eroded beach at Waikīkī. By 1930, the Board of Harbor Commissioners reported on construction progress, which included 11 groins along a portion of the shoreline.

On October 19, 1928, property owners at Waikīkī signed the Waikīkī Beach Reclamation Agreement between the Territory of Hawai‘i and Property Owners – an agreement with the Territory of Hawai‘i to not build any obstructions on what would become Waikīkī Beach.

The agreement was to “forever thereafter keep the beach free and clear of obstructions and open for the use of the public as a bathing beach and for passing over and along the same on foot.”

The Beach Agreement illustrated the need to control and limit seaward development on Waikīkī Beach. The agreement establishes limitations on construction along the beach in response to the proliferation of seawalls and groins in Waikīkī.

The 1928 agreement consists of a) the October 19, 1928 main agreement between the Territory and Waikīkī landowners, b) the October 19, 1928 main agreement between the Territory and the Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop and c) The July 5, 1929 Supplemental Agreement between the Territory and Waikīkī landowners.

The agreement provides that the Territory was to use “best efforts” to construct beach area 180-feet seaward for the purpose of beach erosion control together with “maintenance, preservation and restoration thereof as may be necessary from time to time.”

The expanded beach would “be deemed to be natural accretion attached to the abutting property, and title there to shall immediately vest in the owner or owners of the property abutting thereon in proportion to their sea-frontage, subject only to the easement in favor of the public as above stated.”

The private landowners agreed they “will not erect or place on any part of such beach so to be constructed as aforesaid within seventy-five (75) feet of mean highwater mark of such beach as it may exist from time to time …”

“… any building, fence, wall or other structure or obstruction of any kind unless such mean highwater mark shall be more than seventy-five (75) feet from the present line of mean highwater mark.”

The agreement covers the Waikīkī beach area including the area from the Ala Wai Canal to the Elks Club at Diamond Head. The Waikīkī Beach Reclamation Agreement of 1928 gave property owners title to beach fronting their seawalls.

According to the 1928 Waikīkī Beach Reclamation Agreement, no commercial activities are permitted to take place on Waikīkī Beach. All commercial activities originate from private property and people traverse the beach to gain access to the water.

As part of the 1928 Beach Agreement, eleven groins composed of hollow tongue and concrete blocks were built along Waikīkī Beach with the intent of capturing sand. (SOEST)

A lot of the sand to build the beach was brought in to Waikīkī Beach, via ship and barge, from Manhattan Beach, California in the 1920s and 1930s.

As the Manhattan Beach community was developing, it found that excess sand in the beach dunes and it was getting in the way of development there. At the same time, folks in Hawai‘i were in need for sand to cover the rock and coral beach at Waikīkī.

In addition, the segment between the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and the Moana Surfrider (Surfrider-Royal Hawaiian Sector Beach Agreement) is the subject of a separate agreement between the Territory and the subject Waikīkī landowners entered into on May 28, 1965.

State law states that the right of access to Hawai‘i’s shorelines includes the right of transit along the shorelines. (HRS §115-4)

The right of transit along the shoreline exists below (seaward of) the private property line (generally referred to as the “upper reaches of the wash of waves, usually evidenced by the edge of vegetation or by the debris left by the wash of waves.”) (HRS §115-5)

Waikīkī Beach is unique because the State does not own all of the land in front of the Royal Hawaiian, Outrigger Waikīkī and Moana Surfrider hotels.

The 1965 agreement between the State and the hotel landowners gave the owners of the abutting hotels 75-feet of the beach in exchange for cooperation with the State’s proposal to extend Waikīkī Beach up to 120 feet from the existing shoreline.

The abutting private beach land is subject to a 75-foot public right of way for the public to pass along the Beach, sunbathe or do other beach activities. The easement in favor of the public restricts commercial activities in the right-of way.

According to the agreement, the State is responsible for maintaining and policing the easement. This easement would be extinguished upon the State building 75-feet of beach seaward of the existing beach, but since that has never happened, the easement remains in effect. (DLNR)

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Waikiki-Moana_Hotel-1920
Waikiki-Moana_Hotel-1920
Waikiki-fronting_old-Seaside_Hotel-seawall-1915
Waikiki-fronting_old-Seaside_Hotel-seawall-1915
Royal_Hawaiian-rice-taro-duck_ponds-in-background-1929
Royal_Hawaiian-rice-taro-duck_ponds-in-background-1929
Royal_Hawaiian_Hotel-Aerial-December 5, 1928
Royal_Hawaiian_Hotel-Aerial-December 5, 1928
Moana_Hotel-Aerial-1929
Moana_Hotel-Aerial-1929
Royal_Hawaiian_oceanside_construction-(HSA-HHF)-1926
Royal_Hawaiian_oceanside_construction-(HSA-HHF)-1926
Seaside_Hotel-noted-(Moana_Hotel-Apuakehau_Stream-marshland_behind)-1920
Seaside_Hotel-noted-(Moana_Hotel-Apuakehau_Stream-marshland_behind)-1920
Waikiki_Beach_Houses_(UH_Manoa)-1924
Waikiki_Beach_Houses_(UH_Manoa)-1924
Natatorium-1928
Natatorium-1928
Honolulu_and_Vicinity-(portion)-(UH_Manoa-Hamilton_Library)-1923
Honolulu_and_Vicinity-(portion)-(UH_Manoa-Hamilton_Library)-1923
USGS_Map-Waikiki-1927
USGS_Map-Waikiki-1927

Filed Under: General, Place Names, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Waikiki, Waikiki Beach, Waikiki Beach Reclamation Agreement

March 22, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Waikiki Beach

In the late-18th century, European and American trade and travel into the North American continent’s interior was largely by water. Merchants used canoes to trade with the tribes for the continent’s most valuable natural resource: furs.

Eastern and central North America had many navigable rivers. For western traders, finding a great western river became an obsession for fur traders and scientific and government expeditions.

The first non-Indian to encounter and identify the river was Spaniard Bruno de Heceta. In August, 1775, Heceta mapped what he called Cape of Saint Roc and Leafy Cape, respectively. He attempted to cross the bar under full sail, but was unable to do so.

In 1778, the great British navigator Captain Cook sailed by the river in the night. While he did not find Heceta’s river, his expedition traded for otter furs. Cook was killed in Hawai‘i early the next year, but his ships carried the furs to China where they discovered a lucrative trade market with the Chinese.

The reports of a potentially trade between western North America and China would spur traders from all nations to the West Coast.

In 1788, Britain sailor John Meares also failed to find a river; he give Cape Disappointment its name to commemorate his failed search. (This is what Heceta called Leafy Cape.)

In April, 1792, British naval expedition Captain George Vancouver passed by the river mouth and noted muddy water flowing into the sea. Noting the sand island and waves breaking on the bar, he discounted the entrance as the mouth of a small river as it looked like most of the rivers emptying into the Pacific north of San Francisco.

On the morning of May 11, 1792, American merchant Captain Robert Gray sailed across the bar and into the Columbia River estuary, the first documented non-Indian to do so.

That was the river’s discovery via sea; by land, after acquiring the ‘Louisiana Purchase’ in 1803, under the directive of President Thomas Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the ‘Corps of Discovery Expedition’ (1804–1806,) was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific coast undertaken by the US.

“Ocian in view! O! the joy.” When Captain William Clark wrote these words in his journal on November 7, 1805, he was not standing at the Pacific Ocean but the Columbia River estuary. It would be another couple of weeks before he and Captain Meriwether Lewis would stand at what they had “been so long anxious to see.” (NPS)

Clark and members of the Corps of Discovery explored the headland in their final push to the Pacific Ocean. “I Set out at Day light and proceeded on a Sandy beech … 2 Miles to the inner extremity of Cape Disapointment …”

“… this Cape is an ellivated circlier point covered with thick timber on the iner Side and open grassey exposur next to the Sea and rises with a Steep assent to the hight of about 150 or 160 feet above the leavel of the water … this cape as also the Shore both on the Bay & Sea coast is a dark brown rock.”

“I crossed the neck of Land low and 1/2 of a mile wide to the main Ocian, at the foot of a high open hill projecting into the ocian, and about one mile in Sicumfrance. I assended this hill which is covered with high corse grass. decended to the N of it and camped. I picked up a flounder on the beech this evening. …” (Clark, November 18, 1806)

The Lewis and Clark Expedition would have an immediate effect on American interest in the Northwest. Fur baron John Jacob Astor was excited by the expedition’s success in recording the lands, resources and peoples.

Astor sought to create a global network of land and sea transportation for fur pelts, goods, information and services between China, Russia, Europe, the American east coast and the mouth of the Columbia River.

In June, 1810, Astor and others signed articles of agreement of the ‘Pacific Fur Company.’ They hoped to best the flourishing Northwest Company (who travelled by land,) which was a most powerful concern, by having a great depot at the mouth of the Columbia, in other words, by using the sea.

One of the vessels selected for the pioneer voyage was the ‘Tonquin,’ under the command of Captain Jonathan Thorn. Before getting to the American Northwest, they supplied at Hawai‘i.

They were unable to secure either water or provisions on the Island of Hawaii; on February 21, 1811, Thorn anchored the Tonquin off Waikiki. Here he met Kamehameha I and paid Spanish dollars for hogs, several goats, two sheep, a quantity of poultry and vegetables.

Needing additional manpower, Canadian partners aboard the Tonquin proposed to enlist thirty or forty native Hawaiians, because they had never seen watermen to equal them, not even among the voyageurs of the Northwest.

“Remarkable for their skill in managing light craft and able to swim and dive like waterfowl,” were the words used in describing the Hawaiians. Thorn objected to a large number; twelve were signed for the company and twelve for the ship. The trade-men were to serve three years, were to be fed and clothed and at the end of the term were to receive $100 in merchandise.

On February 28, 1811, the Tonquin sailed for the Northwest coast, and March 22, 1811, arrived off the mouth of the Columbia, where they encountered heavy seas. Thorn sent out several boats to find the river channel; two of them capsized and eight men died. One of the men was a Hawaiian.

Local history says that the “the neck of Land low and 1/2 of a mile wide to the main Ocian, at the foot of a high open hill” noted by Clark (five years before) was named Waikiki Beach in honor of this unnamed Hawaiian who was buried on the beach (Washington State Parks.)

In 1811, Astor’s Pacific Fur Company established Astoria, the first non-native trading post and settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River.

The Astor expedition to the Columbia-Pacific region would also be responsible for opening up the key overland route for western settlement in years to come.

In 1812 on a journey from Astoria to New York City, Robert Stuart, a partner in the Pacific Fur Company stationed at Fort Astoria, discovered South Pass, a low pass over the Rocky Mountains. This route could be made by wagon from the Missouri and Mississippi valleys and became known as the Oregon Trail. (Lots of information here is from NPS.)

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Tonquin at entrance of the Columbia
Tonquin at entrance of the Columbia
Tonquin-June 1811
Tonquin-June 1811
Fort_Astoria-1813
Fort_Astoria-1813
Waikiki_Beach-Cape_Disappointment
Waikiki_Beach-Cape_Disappointment
Cape_Disappointment_from_Waikiki_Beach
Cape_Disappointment_from_Waikiki_Beach
Waikiki_Beach
Waikiki_Beach
WaikikiBeach-400
WaikikiBeach-400
lewis-clark-cape-disappointment-washington
lewis-clark-cape-disappointment-washington
Lewis and Clark-Cape Disappointment
Lewis and Clark-Cape Disappointment
Lewis and Clark-plaque
Lewis and Clark-plaque
Cape_Disappointment-Waikiki_Beach
Cape_Disappointment-Waikiki_Beach

Filed Under: Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Washington, Fort Astoria, Lewis & Clark, Waikiki Beach, Pacific Fur Company, Tonquin

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