Dan Lutkenhouse, director of the Hawai`i Tropical Botanical Garden, portrays himself as a victim of foot-dragging bureaucrats and environmental poseurs.
“I have committed seventeen years of my life, and several million dollars, toward acquiring the land, developing a beautiful garden for the public’s benefit, and to preserving the beauty of Onomea Bay,” he has written. But his efforts to expand and improve the garden, which lies north of Hilo about seven miles, resulted in such frustration that he has now decided to scrap the project. The $1.6 million that he said had been allocated by “the estate of Dan J. Lutkenhouse” to carry out the garden’s “master plan” expansion “had to be spent before December 31, 1991,” he informed the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. “This was not accomplished, the $1.6 million is now gone. Of necessity it was invested OUTSIDE of the state of Hawai`i (to be specific in Texas).”
Another Picture
To look to other sources knowledgeable about Lutkenhouse’s operations, quite a different picture emerges.
In the course of developing the garden, Lutkenhouse appears to have blocked public shoreline access and to have denied to the public the use of an old government road known as the donkey trail. Kayakers seeking to land along Onomea Bay have complained of razor wire dangling in the water, posing a hazard to their craft and, more seriously, to themselves.
The garden itself was faulted (in a detailed Conservation Assessment Report) for the absence of documentation and record-keeping concerning the plant collections. The forest that Lutkenhouse has planted “is entirely artificial and the educational value, in the strict sense, is extremely limited and the scientific value essentially non-existent at this time,” the report noted.
Financially, Lutkenhouse’s management of the garden is questionable. Although the garden has been incorporated as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, Lutkenhouse himself owns outright the land that the garden occupies, and the garden leases it from him (at a cost of more than $3,300 a month). The leases are revocable.
Finally, as to the Texas investments: although Lutkenhouse indicated that money was from a source outside of the garden’s own funds (namely, “the estate of Dan J. Lutkenhouse”), it would appear as though the garden’s own funds were being used for the purchase of property in Texas. A photocopy of a page from the garden’s checkbook register shows that on October 23, 1991, two checks (number 1423 and number 1424) were written to First Interstate Bank. The checks, totaling more than $108,000, were to “purchase Texas duplex,” according to the notation in the checkbook register.
Like a Jungle
The garden was established formally in 1978, the same year Lutkenhouse bought about 17 acres of land in the area of Onomea Bay. According to the Conservation Assessment Report, Lutkenhouse “planted the original parcel with mostly exotic trees from all over the tropics in order to create … a ‘jungle-like feeling’ for visitors.” The report continues:
“He created a non-profit organization as a vehicle for achieving his vision of a tropical garden. This vision was based upon little or no experience of the role a botanical garden of the sort he had in mind plays in the larger scheme of things, but with a concept that the entity had to be run on sound management principles.” In 1982 Lutkenhouse received permission from the Board of Land and Natural Resources to establish an arboretum and botanical garden on the site.
The first parcel of land Lutkenhouse bought constitutes the heart of the garden as it now exists. In recent years, he has purchased two more parcels to the north, adding more than 40 acres total to the original 17. In late 1990, he had prepared a “Master Plan for Long-Range Development” for the garden. Improvements included a footbridge over Onomea Stream (separating the 17-acre parcel from the one immediately to the north); a parking lot and resurfaced road for access to the second parcel; a pavilion and a “vista point, rain shelter, and picnic area” overlooking Onomea Bay — all on the second parcel. The third, northernmost parcel was to be the site of a visitors’ center (including museum, gift shop, snack shop, and garden offices), a parking lot, a conference building, a heliport (“to accommodate small helicopters for guests and visiting dignitaries”), and a vista platform, among other things.
The improvements were estimated to cost more than $1 million. The cost of planting a “native Hawaiian demonstration forest” was placed at $800,000 more.
Growing Pains
At the end of March 1991, Lutkenhouse began approaches to the Hawai`i County Planning Department. Initially, he described the project as consisting only of the footbridge. However, County Planning Director Norman Hayashi rejected Lutkenhouse’s application, stating that it was part of a larger expansion planned for the garden.
On July 25, 1991, Lutkenhouse applied with the Hawai`i County Planning Department for a Special Management Area minor use permit, covering construction of a driveway, footbridge, trails, rain shelter, parking lot, restroom, and garden expansion. One of the criteria used to establish whether a major or minor use permit is required is cost; major permits, which require public hearings and a more thorough environmental review, are triggered when a project’s estimated cost is $65,000 or more. In his SMA use permit application, Lutkenhouse had stated that the total cost for the improvements listed would not exceed $64,000.
Hayashi wrote Lutkenhouse on August 23, stating that “we had determined that the appropriate procedure would be to pursue obtaining a major use permit.”
In a letter October 17, 1991, to Mayor Lorraine Inouye from Nelson Ho, conservation chair of the Moku Loa Group of the Sierra Club, challenged the cost estimates used in the application. In the garden’s quarterly newsletter to its membership mailed out in the summer of 1990, Ho wrote, “HTBG makes a plea for donations to the HTBG building fund. It lists costs for the entire project. The bridge alone is projected to cost $50,000; the ‘new access road into valley … $200,000.’ These estimates put the total way beyond the $65,000 mark … and would seem to mandate an SMA major permit and thus a public hearing on the matter.”
On December 17, however, Hayashi wrote Lutkenhouse: “Upon careful review of your SMA use permit request, we have found that it complies with the requirements for a minor permit.”
Roadblocks
The county SMA permit was necessary but not sufficient for Lutkenhouse’s expansion plans. Because most of the affected land was in the Conservation District, Lutkenhouse still had to obtain a Conservation District Use Permit from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
This was proving more difficult. A number of concerns were raised in the course of processing Lutkenhouse’s application. The DLNR’s Division of Historic Sites found the archaeological survey report submitted by Lutkenhouse to be inadequate. Complaints that Lutkenhouse was obstructing public access to the shoreline and that he was threatening people using the old government trail with trespass prosecution began to reach the DLNR. Photographs along the so-called donkey trail show signs posting the area as private property and warning that “violators will be prosecuted.” People wanting to fish must obtain permission from the garden, according to the signs. More photographs show razor wire dangling in the water of Onomea Stream and Bay.
Lutkenhouse removed the signs — but only after the Hawai`i Tribune-Herald ran an article about them with an accompanying photograph on the front page of its editions of January 22, 1992. The razor wire had been strung along his property boundary, he claimed, to keep people from stealing the garden’s plants. He denied that the wire was in the water.
The most difficult problem for Lutkenhouse, however, concerned an old government road that crossed his property. In 1892, the government of Hawai`i established a system of public trails, which were owned outright by the government. Any road that was “opened, laid out, or built by private parties and dedicated or surrendered to public use prior to 1892” was included in the system. The historic record is replete with evidence showing a coastal road running through the land now owned by Lutkenhouse as early as 1884.
Lutkenhouse was informed by the William Paty, chairman of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, on December 9, 1991, that “the ownership of the government road/trail has yet to be resolved to the satisfaction of the department.” Lutkenhouse had not provided evidence that title to the road had been conveyed to him. Therefore, Paty wrote, “we are unable to proceed with the processing of your application.”
Lutkenhouse responded by asking Paty “specifically what preliminary research or evidence that your office may have, or know about, that reveals that a government road/trail does exist. As previously advised, I have a clear deed and title … which does not show any government road/trail.” He went on to propose that the state “sell to me any written title or interest they might have and give me a quitclaim deed.”
In a reply to Lutkenhouse dated February 5, 1992, Paty set forth the evidence: “The existence of an old government road … was first brought to our attention in the environmental assessment submitted as part of your Conservation District Use Application.” In that EA, Lutkenhouse had noted: “The proposed driveway is intended to be constructed in the right of way of the existing ‘donkey trail’ … which may be a portion of an old government road. The applicant intends to secure any required approvals form the BLNR for use of this trail…”
Texas Beckons?
In January, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit against Hawai`i County over the issuance of the SMA minor permit to the Hawai`i Tropical Botanical Garden. At the same time, the DLNR began looking into possible violations by Lutkenhouse of the rules governing activities in the Conservation District.
In February, Lutkenhouse announced he was dropping plans to expand the garden into the 40 acres to the north. In a letter to Paty, he blamed the state and county governments, accusing them of showing “little interest in our project” and of making “no effort to vigorously support this worthwhile conservation project.”
Volume 2, Number 9 March 1992