While community feedback from meetings in May showed strong support for rebuilding Lahaina’s King Kamehameha III campus in its original Front Street location, Department of Education officials are now saying that won’t be possible.
“In reviewing the options and taking in the community feedback, the department has come to the conclusion that the original site is not feasible due to factors beyond our control, including the parcel being too small for rebuilding, the discovery of iwi kūpuna, development constraints such as the shoreline setback, and the height regulations," said Rebecca Winkie, DOE Complex Area Superintendent, to Lahaina residents.
A permanent site for Lahaina’s King Kamehameha III campus has not yet been found. Winkie said the department is "continuing to look at options and to do their due diligence," while the temporary campus continues to serve students.
New elementary school sites require at least 12 acres to develop on, while the original property is about 5 acres.
In addition to a large amount of iwi kūpuna, or human ancestral remains, found during debris removal on the property, officials say environmental requirements — such as including shoreline setbacks and tsunami inundation zones — also make rebuilding on the site unfeasible.
Keʻeaumoku Kapu, head of Nā ʻAikāne o Maui Cultural Center of Lahaina, said his organization worked with ʻAha Moku O Maui and Nā Kūpuna ʻO Lahaina to initiate placing a burial crypt on the former school site.
He described the area as the sacred royal compound of Kamehameha's dynasty. Kapu said there are 14 flex burials still in place where the burial crypt is.
"The area where we put the burial crypt is the actual location of where the Hale Kamani was ... The sacred Chiefess Keōpūolani, when she passed, her iwi, or her crypt, was placed there temporarily until the mausoleum was complete on Moku‘ula," Kapu said.
In a DOE survey of residents in the spring, more than half of respondents did not support building a permanent school near the current King Kamehameha III temporary campus at Pulelehua, while nearly 75% did not support a proposed Kāʻanapali site.
Winkie says the department was recently made aware of a possible fourth school site near Lahaina Town. Details cannot yet be disclosed, she said, but a community meeting with more information will be planned.
In the meantime, the DOE is in the process of returning the original school land to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the County of Maui.
