Updated September 2, 2026: This story has been updated with the landowner’s new offer of a free 10-year conservation easement to Hawaii County.
Punalu’u Black Sand Beach has already taken another turn. After Hawaii County’s 72-year arrangement to operate the park ended August 29, private landowner Black Sand Beach LLC offered the county a free 10-year conservation easement intended to keep the park open and preserve public access. The county has not yet said whether it will accept it.
That offers an unexpected lifeline for one of the Big Island places that always seemed so permanent to us. Last December, we pulled off Highway 11, parked near the shore, walked onto the remarkable black sand and often found turtles resting there. Now there is at least a possible path toward preserving much of the familiar public beach experience, although exactly what the proposed easement would cover has also not yet been made public.
The beach was never disappearing. The question now is whether this new offer can replace enough of the county arrangement visitors had known for more than 70 years to keep Punalu’u functioning much as it did before this.
The 72-year county arrangement ended.
Hawaii County says it has leased the Punalu’u property from successive private owners since the 1950’s, providing recreational use and shoreline access for residents and visitors. The prior lease, executed in 1998, was for $1 and covered the parking, pavilions, bathrooms, and campground.
That arrangement was almost invisible over time. Punalu’u simply felt like another public beach park, one where generations of visitors arrived without thinking much about the fact that it was privately owned.
The county and the current owner, Black Sand Beach LLC, had been negotiating new terms for two years. The county says it ultimately offered a 10-year lease beginning at $159,300 annually with 3% yearly increases and also pursued buying the property outright, but no agreement was reached.
There are already differences over why this resulted in an impasse to begin with. The county says the landowner declined its offer and chose to terminate the existing lease, while an attorney representing Black Sand Beach LLC says the owner did not terminate it and had offered another 30-day extension that the county itself rejected. Whatever actually happened here, county management ended August 29.
What happens next at Punalu’u isn’t clear.
County park services stopped when the lease ended, while the improvements on the property reverted to the owner. What hasn’t been established is what the day-to-day visitor experience will become now.
Hawaii law protects public rights along the shoreline and provides for public shoreline access, but that doesn’t answer all the practical questions for Punalu’u. How visitors will get there, where they will park, and what facilities will be available are among practical questions now that the county lease ended.
That conservation easement has now been offered. Black Sand Beach LLC is proposing a 10-year easement to Hawaii County at no cost, with its attorney saying the owner remains committed to keeping public access at Punalu’u. Hawaii News Now reports that the county has not yet said whether it will accept the offer.
Since the easement itself has not been made public, it isn’t yet clear how it could impact parking, bathrooms, pavilions, maintenance or other parts of the county-run experience.
Punalu’u was already part of a changing Hawaii.
We wrote last year about why Hawaii black sand beaches come with a catch, and Punalu’u stood out because it was so easy to visit. Unlike some of Hawaii’s volcanic shorelines, you didn’t need a difficult hike or detailed planning in order to see it.
That easy access had also become part of the problem. Earlier this year, when we wrote about Hawaii beaches becoming overrun, Punalu’u was among the Big Island locations identified as under strain. Our own photo from the beach showed just how many people could be packed onto that relatively small stretch of black sand.
The beach remains. Now there’s a possible way forward.
There is a tendency to jump immediately to whether something is open or closed, while Punalu’u still doesn’t neatly fit into either category. But at least the free 10-year easement offer gives the story a possible ending that wasn’t there when we first wrote about it.
The black sand, coastline and turtles remain, while the county arrangement dating back to at least 1954 has ended, at least for now. What happens next depends in part on whether Hawaii County accepts the landowner’s offer and what the final easement actually provides.
For those of us who thought Punalu’u would simply always be there the way we knew it, this isn’t a resolution yet. But it is the first real sign that much of what people feared losing could have a new path forward.
Lead Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at Punalu’u Beach.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
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What is happening there right now? Can people still park and use the beach normally while the county considers this, or has anything actually changed since August 29?
We were there this spring and the crowds were overwhelming. Beautiful place for sure but there were people everywhere, especially around the turtles. Keeping access is important, but maybe this can be an opportunity to manage the number of visitors better.
I really hope the county accepts the proposal. We have stopped at Punalu’u on almost every Big Island trip since the 1990s. A free 10-year easement sounds like a pretty good place to start.
The owner of this property is an offshore Chinese national who owes back taxes. It should be taken from them via eminent domain just on the tax violations alone and then kept as a county property.
Now is the time for the County and/or State to take action by exercising is power of eminent domain through condemnation. This valuable beach should not stay in private hands but belong to the public.
At the moment, is it possible to even drive on the road to Punalu’u, given the recent flood + destruction of the bakery, etc?
Been going there since ’66; a favorite destination primarily for Honu. My big questions are will there now be no lifeguard and who will oversee/protect Honu?
Exactly. Lifeguards will be up to the owner to hire or not. Lifeguard’s duties do not include protecting the Honus. Looking at the numbers of visitors at Punalu’u, they will need protection. Nature Conservation or another vendor would have to step up to enforce regulations.
Sounds like something public might become private. Milk it for all the money possible. Maybe the property owner feels they can do better than the 162,000 a year offered by the county. To a billionaire this beach may be worth their owning outright. If it’s in Hawaii it’s all about the money or investment potential.
Had not been there for many years but last month took a visiting friend there in the middle of the week and was shocked by way too many people so that this once very special Safe haul out for Honus, many still endangered, can no longer use that beach to rest, warm up and recuperate! Don’t know how many were visitors but you now have to pay for parking at the south end too. My big beef is also Big Island turning into paid parking lots that as a boomer growing up in the islands, I refuse to pay! Thankfully, Honu still have the NW islands to procreate …. but it has been protection too late as we have lost many different kinds except for the Green Honu …. which locals want to hunt again. So we are being squeezed in so many ways not good.
I’m still astonished that, with how important the beaches are to Hawaii, you haven’t done what Oregon did back in 1967 (my birth year, incidentally)
From the water to the first dune, the Beach is an Oregon state highway you can even drive on parts of it. But you can’t block access or own it.
Hawaii law says that all beaches are public and landowners cannot prohibit access. (I have seen hotels put the beach access parking in the back 40 of the parking lot so you get your daily step goal walking from parking to the beach).