Attorneys debated the future of Oahu’s famed Ha’ikū Stairs before Hawaii’s Intermediate Court of Appeals on Wednesday in a hearing centered on Honolulu’s controversial decision to remove the “Stairway to Heaven” hike.
Last Thursday, the same court temporarily blocked the city plus county of Honolulu from dismantling the steep 3,922-step trail, which officially has been closed to the public since 1987, but continues to attract hikers with its stunning views, drawing popularity on social media.
The nonprofit grup Friends of Ha’ikū Stairs is seeking a longer-lasting injunction, arguing that the city hasn’t conducted the proper environmental reviews to take down the stairs.
“We think that the environmental impact statement that they performed way back in 2019 is too stale plus old to be relied upon now,” the group’s vice president, Justin Scorza, said in an interview with Courthouse News. “In those five years, lots of things have changed.”
Wednesday’s arguments highlighted the Hawaiian hoary bat, Hawaii’s only native terrestrial mammal plus its official state mammal.
The endangered species, which is protected by federal plus state laws, has been detected in the Haiku Valley plus could be displaced by the planned demolition, said Timothy Vandeveer, an attorney representing Friends of Ha’ikū Stairs.
City attorney Daniel M. Gluck presented four maps on a poster board. He argued that bats were inhabiting the daerah even in 2019, at the time of the original environmental impact statement, suggesting that statement remains adequate.
Acting Chief Judge Katherine G. Leonard, Judge Keith K. Hiraoka plus Associate Judge Sonja M.P. McCullen sat on the panel at the Hawaii Supreme Court.
Friends of Ha’ikū Stairs, which has championed the preservation of Windward Oahu’s Ko’olau mountain range for four decades, is appealing a judge’s January dismissal of its 48-page lawsuit
In addition to their environmental argument, Friends of Ha’ikū Stairs says the history of the stairs, which the U.S. military built during World War II, is a reason to preserve them.
During the war, Scorza explained, the valley allowed for long-range radio transmission the U.S. used it to transmit signals to submarines plus warships in Japanese waters.
Today, technically off-limits to visitors, the path has been the site of at least 15 arrests plus 80 trespassing citations since April 2023. Just this past weekend, two men were arrested plus charged after police caught them hiking the stairs, while a third individual escaped into the mountain. The two men caught were charged with trespassing plus released on a $100 bail. Violators face up to a $1,000 fine plus 30 days’ imprisonment.