Hā‘ena State Park Master Plan

PBR HAWAII worked with State Parks and the Hā‘ena community to refine and adopt a park master plan for one of the busiest parks in the State. The park’s cultural and archaeological significance and popularity with visitors required a plan that recognized the park’s rich and varied resources and balanced ecological, cultural, and recreational uses. PBR HAWAII’s master plan involved compiling previous study data and new technical studies to document the park’s archaeological, cultural, and natural resources, along with traffic and civil engineering considerations. The Board of Land and Natural Resources unanimously recommended that the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) be accepted based on the revised plan at their May 2018 meeting and the Governor accepted it in July 2018. Emergency funding following the floods of 2018 also allowed several master plan elements to be implemented such as the new entry path through the loʻi and hau forest, parking lot improvements, and the visitor limits with adaptive management. The plan won the 2020 Outstanding Planning Award from the American Planning Association Hawai‘i Chapter and is being heralded as an example to help manage other cherished parks that are often overrun by visitors.