Navy Asks Equestrian Center To Vacate Hawaiian WWII Site
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Aug. 18, 2010
UDPATE: The Honolulu City Council on Wednesday, March 16, 2011, unanimously passed a resolution urging the preservation and continued use of the WW-II aircraft bunker-revetments as horse stables.
For a quarter-century, 32 concrete half-domes built on Oahu in 1941 to shelter fighter planes have been used as stables.
Last spring, however, the U.S. Navy, which owns the land where the structures stand, asked the equestrian center that uses the 30-acre property rent-free to leave. In April, it gave the Barbers Point Riding Club (BPRC) a deadline of 90 days, later agreeing to allow the club to stay until June 2011.
"The Navy is working closely with the BPRC to allow sufficient time to transition from the site, and their requests will be evaluated and considered," Navy spokeswoman Agnes Tauyan said in an e-mail. "We will begin the process to dispose of the property following the guidelines established by the General Services Administration once the site is vacated."
At this point, however, the Navy has no plans for the site or the aircraft revetments, Tauyan says. "The Navy does not have a requirement for the property currently utilized by the Barbers Point Riding Club."
Whether or not the Navy will tear down the revetments is unclear. "Any proposal to demolish or remove the historic revetments or other cultural resources would be the subject of intense discussion and consultation before it could move forward," says Kiersten Faulkner, executive director of the Historic Hawai'i Foundation, a consulting party to the Navy under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
Japanese warplanes dropped bombs on Barbers Point during the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The following year the U.S. Navy established the Naval Air Station Barbers Point, which operated until 1999. That year, the air station closed, a victim of the Base Realignment and Closure Act, which has threatened historic sites on various military bases.
The Navy conducted a cultural resources survey of the buildings on Barbers Point in the 1990s and deemed some of the revetments eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Faulkner's group has urged the Navy to conduct a comprehensive survey to determine what, if any, physical evidence remains on Barbers Point from the Pearl Harbor attack.
Members of the Barbers Point Riding Club did not return phone calls from Preservation. The club has found a creative use for the structures, says Brian Turner, an attorney in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Western Office.
"The use of World War II revetments as stables is a great preservation success story," says. "We hope the Navy reconsiders its plans."
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