Park Planning

One of several foundations to be uncovered, this concrete slab shows where the mess hall once stood in the civilian internment compound.

NPS Photo

The Honouliuli site was brought to the public eye by staff and volunteers from the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i (JCCH) in 2002. Since that time, the former incarceration and prisoner of war camp has been the focus of scholarship and awareness campaigns by local organizations, academic institutions, community members and students. It was due in large part to these efforts that Honouliuli was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, was designated as a national monument in 2015, and redesignated as national historic site in 2019.

Planning a new park unit is both an exciting and a challenging task, as each stage of planning and development must be analyzed from multiple perspectives and ensure that impacts to the cultural and natural resources that NPS stewards are minimized. Below is some information on current planning actions which are underway. Although these are the focal points of planning at the moment, these summaries do not adequately reflect all the administrative and operational tasks being undertaken by NPS which will help move park planning forward.

 

NPS Photo

Preliminary Planning Process (P3)

In 2021, the park completed the preliminary planning process to identify what documentation is needed to move forward to the general management planning (GMP) process. The P3 identified that a cultural landscape inventory and a transportation study to include a road engineering study to identify critical access issues and a historic roads and trails study to assess. The transportation study, identifying several possible access options for bringing the public into the site, was completed in 2023. The cultural landscape inventory is underway; it will study the interplay of historically significant landscape characteristics (topography, vegetation, natural systems, etc.) with other historical and archaeological features.

In 2025, the park will begin work on its General Management Plan, a process which will engage stakeholders and the public to prioritize and make choices based on these previous studies.

Meantime, while plans are underway, park staff are working to preserve and stabilize the physical assets of the park. These include restoration projects to preserve the historic rock wall and aqueduct, and brushing projects to manage vegetation and mitigate fire danger.

 

NPS Photo

Foundation Document

In 2019, the foundation document was completed. This document is the first strategic document step necessary for the creation of any new park unit. The purpose of the document is to establish a unified understanding of the site's purpose, significance, major interpretive themes and fundamental values. The foundation document looks at the issues a new park unit is facing and forges a roadmap of planning and data needs to address these issues. Especially because Honouliuli is a new unit of NPS, a primary benefit of the Foundation Document is the opportunity to coordinate all levels of future planning and management from this unified understanding of what is most important about the site. The foundation document overview can be accessed here.