Hawaiian Paradise Park mailbox project moved after burial site discovery

A Hawaiian Paradise Park mailbox plan that set off two years of anger, meetings and cultural resistance is being moved away from the original site after workers found a lava tube that had evidently been used as a burial place.

The Hawaiian Paradise Park Owners Association board has decided not to use the parcel at Makuu Drive and 16th Avenue, where crews had cleared land and poured a concrete slab for one of four planned mailbox parks. The site discovery in July 2024 halted the work on the 20-acre parcel between 16th and 17th avenues and turned a routine neighborhood infrastructure project into a fight over iwi kūpuna, sacred places and how residents were treated in association meetings.

Cultural Preservation Committee chair Lanell Lua-Dillard said the board had decided to move the mailboxes, although the new location has not been disclosed. The original plan called for about 1,400 mailboxes at the site, part of a broader rollout meant to serve the subdivision’s roughly 3,000 occupied homes. One of the four mailbox parks is already complete at Kaloli Drive and 4th Avenue, with 1,400 mailboxes there as well.

The dispute was about more than where to place mailboxes. Residents argued that the subdivision should not build over land tied to burial significance, while the board repeatedly pointed to cost. Association leaders said the project’s $600,000 budget covered all four mailbox parks and warned that clearing another acre could add another $200,000 to the bill. That tension, between budget pressure and cultural preservation, defined the argument as the board worked for nearly two years to move the project forward.

The subdivision, one of the second-largest private subdivisions in the country, has more than 8,800 lots across about 12 square miles. In that setting, the mailbox project became a test of who had power over land use and what respect for Native Hawaiian remains would look like in practice.

Resident and community activist Emma Koa said she had attended association meetings for the past year to press for a relocation. She said the move showed that organized community pressure could produce change. For Hawaiian Paradise Park, the outcome means mail access will still be built out, but not on the site where the burial discovery stopped the work and shifted the debate.