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Makiki Skatepark Plans
October 20, 1999
A cement Skatepark is in the works for the Makiki district Park, and there is a $153,000 budget for the 4800 sq. foot project. It is part of City Councilmember Andy Mirikitani's beautification program to renovate his district. The park, we're not quite sure why, will be located next to the H1 freeway, under the Keeaumoku Street overpass. As you drive Westbound on H1, right before you reach the Lunalilo Street exit, you'll see the park site off to your right, where presently a lot of white vans are parked. The site is quite small, and the obstacles are restricted to 4 feet in height by the state. About a month ago, 50-50 was called by the city planners to help consult on the design of the project. After seeing the initial blueprint for the park, we realized that we needed to make some drastic changes to the design.
After working very hard on a new design, we realized what the planners had meant by "consult". It meant they really didn't want us to change anything, they more or less wanted us to approve of the present design. Everytime we came up with new plan, the state planners would call us back and give us some vague excuse why the plan wouldn't work. First they told us that a service truck with a crane needed access to the area in order to work on the electrical conduit boxes on the roof. Our design was redone to accomodate that (notice the service entry and cleared out area in the center). Then we were told that our accessway was too small. So we asked what the dimensions of the truck would be. We got nothing but vague answers. We were then told that our design needed to move further away from the footing of the pillars. So we did that. We then were told that our design was too elaborate for the budget. This might be true, but our viewpoint has always been if you are going to build a cement park, why build stuff you can make out of wood? [see: Waianae and Ewa Beach Skateparks] The justification for our plan being within the budget is, if the whole area needs a cement foundation anyway (since it presently just has a dirt surface), why is it that much more expensive to make more transitions, curves and surfaces that are skateable? All that's required is a bit more cement and a little bit more labor. In the end it sounded like we were getting the runaround.
So this is where we need your help. At the end of October 1999, the contracting bid goes out for the construction of the park. Presently the state planners are sticking with the original design, and they don't want to be bothered with changing it. Since this project is Andy Mirikitani's, the only way the state planners will change the design is by pressure from Andy himself. So call up Mirikitani's office, and tell him what you think of the park design. Especially if you live in his district (Makiki to Manoa), or if you are a parent with skateboarding children. The phone number is (808) 547-7005. I guess he's also got a website at http://www.aloha.net/~andym, if you want to email him a message. We've already tried extensively to change the park design, but so far have come up short.
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