Advocates for the Ha‘ikū Stairs hope a court appeal can prevent plans by the City and County of Honolulu to demolish the popular historic site.
On June 12, the Friends of Ha‘ikū Stairs filed an appeal in Honolulu Circuit Court challenging a ruling by the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ State Historic Preservation Division that approved the city’s plans to eventually demolish the nearly century-old stairway, sometimes referred to as the “Stairway to Heaven.”
The appeal stems from an April 2024 letter by SHPD, which notified the Honolulu Department of Design and Construction that it could proceed with a demolition of the stairs. This was a surprising pivot for SHPD, which had previously written another letter to the city in 2019 stating that SHPD would prefer to keep the stairs intact.
Justin Scorza, vice president of the Friends of Ha‘ikū Stairs, told Aloha State Daily that subsequent efforts to get the SHPD Hawai‘i Historic Places Review Board to reconsider the SHPD decision came to nothing.
“They couldn’t come to a unanimous agreement,” Scorza said. “So they weren’t able to overturn SHPD’s concurrence with the city.”
With procedural options exhausted, the Friends took the case to court. The suit argues that SHPD’s actions ignored the Division’s own mission to preserve historically significant landmarks — something SHPD already determined the Stairs to be in 2019 — and that the Division failed to secure a full archaeological survey of the project area.
Scorza said polling by the Friends suggests that roughly 70% of O‘ahu residents support keeping the stairs. The Friends website also links to a Change.org petition — titled “Save the unique and historic Ha‘ikū Stairs (Stairway to Heaven) from destruction” — that has received more than 15,000 signatures since being posted 10 years ago.
Construction on the 3,922-step staircase began in 1942 as part of the development of the U.S. Navy’s Ha‘ikū Radio Station during World War II. Since then, the stairs and the decommissioned Navy facility became a popular hiking spot and tourist destination, until they were closed to the public in 1987.
That closure has not deterred people from climbing the Stairs, Scorza said, which is why he believes the City’s plan to demolish them is shortsighted.
“They don’t want to do anything to the other Navy infrastructure up there, that people still want to see and take pictures of,” Scorza said. “So they’re removing the safest and best way to get to the top of the mountain.”
City rationale for the closure of the steps has stemmed from safety concerns and frustrations by neighbors of users trespassing on their properties, both of which Scorza said could be easily mitigated.
For one thing, Scorza said the City and County had previously planned to reopen the Stairs. In 2019, then-mayor Kirk Caldwell stated plans for the City to take possession of the site, with private groups potentially managing access to the Stairs.
Such a plan, Scorza said, could allow users to access the Stairs directly from public roads, instead of having to resort to trespassing.
As for the safety concerns, Scorza emphasized that there has never been a reported death on the stairs. Furthermore, while the city has claimed that there have been hundreds of rescues from the Stairs between 2010 and 2020, those claims are misleading, he said.
“Those rescues were in the area, but not on the Stairs themselves,” Scorza said. “In fact, first responders use the Stairs to find hikers during rescues because they’re safe and direct.
“Besides, other hikes have rescues all the time,” Scorza continued, noting that first responders are regularly called to Koko Head Crater Trail to retrieve injured hikers.
This is the Friends’ second appeal currently in court. A previous lawsuit against the city — this one citing environmental concerns — failed in 2023, but the Friends appealed in 2024, leading the Intermediate Court of Appeals to grant an injunction against the city preventing any demolition work until that appeal is resolved.
As for when either case will get a hearing, Scorza said that’s anyone’s guess. The 2025 case currently has no events scheduled, and no hearing has been held in the 2024 case since September.
