Building code may allow for tradition

County would be first to permit indigenous hale

The Maui News
August 9, 2002

By HARRY EAGAR
Staff Writer

WAILUKU — After three dozen lengthy meetings, a task force of the Land Use and Codes Administration has produced a draft for an indigenous architecture chapter for the Maui County building code.

This would allow for Hawaiian hale of up to 30 by 60 feet, built by traditional methods. Such buildings, constructed without any metal, are not now provided for in any county in Hawaii.

LUC Administrator Ralph Nagamine and architect Hans Riecke presented the proposal to the Urban Design Review Board on Wednesday. 

In order to be flexible, the Maui County Indigenous Architecture Task Force is recommending that the standards be enacted as rules rather than as a county ordinance.

To be adopted as rules, the proposal will require a public hearing. And the task force has plans to explain the complicated issue to bodies such as the county Cultural Resources Commission.

There will be a public informational meeting at 2 p.m. Monday in the conference room of the Planning Department.

Unlike other building codes, this one also includes a cultural element. For traditional Hawaiian builders, the protocols and ceremonies involved in putting up a building are as important as the materials and methods.

The draft provides for four kinds of hale: hale halawai, hale kuai, hale noa and hale waa.

Three examples of these are on display, erected by special permit, at the Hana Cultural Center.

A hale halawai is a thatched roof on posts with open walls, used for eating and assemblies. Modern uses could also include retailing and workshops.

Hale kuai are like open lean-tos. Hale noa, the only type with sides and doors, are sleeping or storage rooms. Hale waa are for storing canoes.

Fitting ancient building practices into modern building codes will require compromises.

For example, the draft does not allow these hale to have electricity or water, except for sprinkler systems.

State Sen. J. Kalani English, who was a County Council member when he asked to have LUCA prepare amendments to the building code, said Wednesday that he would be satisfied if the new rules applied in only the rural and agricultural districts. It would be a “huge problem” fitting thatched buildings into an urban environment, he says.

However, the draft would not restrict the use. Nagamine says he can imagine that there would be some demand for them as, for example, pool cabanas. 

But some structures around the island that appear to be of native construction, such as at Lahaina Center or the Old Lahaina Luau, are built with metal fasteners and meet codes. Building permits for these structures have been obtained by getting variances through the Board of Code Appeals.

At the Urban Design Review Board, questions were raised about liability, materials, inspection and qualifications.

In outline, the proposal will work like this: 

• Standards for construction, using simple graphic descriptions of what is allowed, will be adopted. A list of approved materials also will be adopted.

Riecke said a $23,000 fund is being sought for strength testing of candidate materials. The draft specifies unmilled timbers of ohia, ironwood, eucalyptus, strawberry guava, mangrove or inkberry. Loulu (fan palm), pili or coconut are listed for thatch.

The architects and engineers on the board, used to working with milled lumber of known characteristics, were concerned about the actual strength of the materials.

English, speaking by phone from his home in Hana, said they were being too Western in their outlook. “We’re talking about thousands of years of engineering from the Pacific islands side.”

Chairman James Berg, a general contractor on Molokai, said he had no doubts about the stability of native structures.

But board members did have questions about who would inspect and pass them.

• Inspection is provided for in the draft. Builders would have to show a certificate in native construction from the University of Hawaii. The first such course is being prepared at Maui Community College, with Francis Sinenci of Hana as instructor.

Sinenci is the master builder who erected the three hale at Hana Community Center.

• Builders would have to fulfill any relevant parts of the other chapters of the Maui Building Code.

• The property owner or lessee would have to sign a hold-harmless agreement, in case of damages arising from using indigenous architecture.

Vice Chairman David Taylor was concerned that English’s county ordinance, passed in 2001, says that the rules “shall express general approval of such practices, customs, styles and techniques, to the extent that they do not conflict with the building code’s overall purposes.”

Taylor said that since the overall purpose of the code is to protect life and safety, the hold-harmless provision implies that indigenous buildings will fall short of that.

He suggested perhaps that statement should be removed, though board members were doubtful that, in these litigious times, that would protect the county from being named in any lawsuit.

English, who was not at the meeting, said Taylor was misinterpreting the intent of his proposal. It is not, he said, to exempt native buildings from the building code, but to create a separate chapter of the code to allow them.

He said that, for example, Hawaiian hale stand up better to a hurricane than a Western-style building because they are open.

That was Berg’s experience too. He said the thatch blows off but the framework remains.

On the other hand, he said, at Kaneohe during Hurricane Iwa, he had seen Western-framed buildings, not yet sheathed, blown apart.

There was no opposition on the board to the concept of allowing native buildings, only concerns about how to go about it.

Nagamine says the other counties are watching Maui to see what it comes up with. And on the Mainland, other states also are watching Maui, because they have requests to allow other types of indigenous building, such as adobe in the Southwest.

Since the materials for native building are not commercially available — or hardly available at all in the case of pili grass — the question was raised of what to put on the OK list.

Berg noted, for example, that mangrove is on the list, but on Molokai all the mangrove (a pest species) is on state land.

And he asked what would happen if approved species were only available on private land. Would that lead to trespassing?

English noted that on undeveloped land, Native Hawaiians have a state constitutional right to gather traditional materials.

The only traditional materials on the list are ohia, loulu and coconut. The rest are post-Contact introductions.

But English said he did not think that would create a problem.

Riecke said flexibility will be necessary. 

“These hale are really works of art developed over centuries. It’s very difficult to codify a work of art,” he said.

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