Farms / You know you’ve reached Kamilo Nui when you pass the last California-style subdivision and have to brake suddenly when an entire family of feral pigs walks calmly, in single file, across the road that leads up the tiny, picturesque valley in the back of Hawaii Kai.

On a recent Saturday, the families who have worked 87 acres of farms and nurseries in Kamilo Nui since the early 1970s held a well-publicized open house, designed to draw attention to their long-standing plight: They work land they don’t own–the last sizeable chunk of agricultural-zoned acreage in the Honolulu urban corridor–and it’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the various developers who have tried, over the years, to ease them out.

Their leases, with the state’s largest private land owner, Kamehameha Schools, actually run until 2025, but the lease rent is scheduled to be renegotiated in April, and the farmers worry whether they will be able to afford to stay in business after the ink dries on their new arrangements.

State Rep. Gene Ward, whose district includes Kamilo Nui, seemed to be in a nostalgic yet somewhat revolutionary mood in his opening remarks to a crowd assembling around food and informational booths at the Nii Nursery. “Anybody here remember how the Hawaiian Renaissance really got started?”

“Kalama Valley!” someone shouted from the crowd.

“That’s right. Just over there,” Ward said, pointing south-east. In 1970, Kamehameha Schools (then known as Bishop Estate) wanted the 68 families holding short-term leases in Kalama out of the way, so they could sell the valley to developers. By 1971 everyone was gone except George Santos and his 200 pigs. Protesters sat-in, the eviction went forward anyway, and Kalama Valley today is just another subdivision.

For Ward, a lonely Republican in the House, the current situation in Kamilo Nui is not a partisan issue. “It’s about the community and what it wants in the way of quality of life… 2025 is not that far away–it’s about those who come after us. What we leave them.”

Until recently, developer Stanford Carr had an agreement with Kamehameha Schools that would allow him to purchase the fee simple interest in Kamilo Nui, provided he could obtain the leasehold interests from the farmers first. He tried, says Tom Yamabe, Kamilo Nui leaseholder and member of the Liveable Hawaii Kai Hui, a community organization that advocates for what it calls “sensible growth.”

Yamabe, a steely-eyed octogenarian looks like he wants to squash a cockroach at the mention of Carr’s name.

“We let Kam School know we don’t need Stanford Carr around–or anybody else who plans to develop this place,” he said.

According to Kamehameha Schools spokesperson Kekoa Paulsen, “Mr. Carr was not able to get enough of the leaseholders to sign away their interest to him. Therefore his proposal didn’t go anywhere.”

Second-generation nurseryman Glenn Nii, whose father Charles secured the original lease on his six-acre parcel, was one of the featured farmers at the Day on the Farm Event, and has long been a front man in the effort to preserve his family’s way of life in Kamilo Nui. While I was talking with him, a weathered-looking man who identified himself as a Hamakua farmer, inquired as to the possibility of sub-leasing a parcel from one of the farmers no longer working parts of their land.

“I’ve had several inquiries like his,” Glenn said. “I tell them, yeah, it’s allowed on our current lease, and it’s something that can keep Kamilo Nui in ag. But I also have to tell them to wait–until we see what the new rents are gonna be.”

The event on Saturday was two years in the planning and centered around a topic that’s been at the forefront of local discourse, at every level, for even longer.

“Look,” said Gov. Linda Lingle, who made a brief appearance. “I ran on getting rid of the (State) Land Use Commission, not to mention the Water Commission…local opinion on these land use issues should be given credence.” In other words, the governor suggests the debate ought to be under the purview of City–not state–officials.

And at least one City official was there with her. Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz, whose presence so far from his Mililani, North Shore, Windward Side district may have had something to do with the fact that he is running for mayor, stressed that his district contains the majority of Oahu’s ag-land.

“Ultimately it’s a serious decision–and our future is involved. Do I want to pass on the white picket fence, or open space to the generations to come?” he said, referring to the endless density-versus-sprawl debate.

But with 30-story Kakaako apartment buildings steadily climbing into the sky and Kapolei spreading horizontally, it does not seem as though one path is being favored over the other by City or State agencies. Building up and out is bad news for Kamilo Nui.

And as usual, many of the answers to future land-use questions, particularly on Oahu, rest not with government, but with big landowners such as Kamehameha Schools. In Honolulu proper, the trust holds extensive commercial real estate, with plans to redevelop properties in Moiliili and Kapalama. Since there has been no move by local government to force a fee conversion on commercial leasehold land it is presumed that Kamehameha Schools will hold onto its fee interest in these properties and do what it has always done: lease out commercial space at highly profitable rates.

So-called residential holdings–and, its current ag-zoning aside, Kamilo Nui could easily become just that in the future–are a different story. Kamehameha Schools representatives have said that they want to see their residential holdings developed into their “highest and best use.”

Which begs the question: what exactly is the highest and best use for Kamilo Nui?

82-year-old Doris Enomoto, whose family has farmed acreage in the valley for 40 years, has perhaps a partial answer to this question, as she lists the vegetables she has arrayed for sale, on a long table in her garage.

“We grow Manoa lettuce, bok choi, daikon, beets. And, oh yeah–corn in season.”

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