Hawai‘i’s Famous Black Sand Beach is Thrown into Tumult in the Wake of Failed Lease Negotiations

In the wake of Hurricane Lala, the already impacted district of Kaʻū on Hawaiʻi Island’s south shore lost access to all facilities at Punaluʻu Beach last month when the county’s lease ran out. The beach’s black volcanic sand, as ordinary to residents as it is arresting to travelers, is a magnet for visitors. Even as it’s not that cold in upcountry Kaʻū, along Mauna Loa’s flank, it’s cold for Hawaiʻi, and the relief residents feel when arriving at Punaluʻu’s black sand beach can’t be overstated. Punaluʻu Beach has long been a balm for shivery residents and incredulous visitors alike. I have a fond memory, though decades ago, of arriving at sea level to warm up, fish and spend the day.

What we know right now is that the beach at Punaluʻu is still open, via the county road, but facilities there are closed — the county no longer able to access them for cleaning and maintenance without a lease. Why?

Though most beaches in the Hawaiian archipelago are part of a public trust ownership system where the shore is accessible by all and stewarded by the state to the “upper reaches of the wash of the waves,” beach facilities such as restrooms are not always on public land. This is the case of the park area at Punaluʻu Beach.

Leased by Hawaiʻi County since at least 1954, the 6.8-acre park facilities’ last lease was signed in 1998 — for $1 a year. It expired on August 29 after two months’ negotiating extension was agreed to and as lease negotiations between the parcel’s known owner, Eva Liu, deteriorated into a stalemate. The county put a ten-year, $159,300 annual offer with 3% yearly increases on the table only to be rebuffed by Liu.

Liu’s refusal was followed by an offer her representing attorney Colin Sakumoto proposed of another month’s negotiating extension. Tom Callis, spokesperson for Hawaiʻi County Mayor Kimo Alemeda, told Hawaii.com that in considering the offer of another extension, “[Hawaiʻi County] did not feel that it would bring both parties to a long-term resolution or provide sufficient time to address maintenance needs for the park area.”

This has left the park area, consisting of public toilet facilities, parking and a campground, in limbo. In a public offer, Sakumoto told Hawaii News Now that in “a sign of my client’s appreciation” for the county’s efforts to aid Punaluʻu residents, many of whom were severely impacted by Hurricane Lala, with drinking water access and other post-disaster services, “we will be extending a 10-year conservation easement over Punaluʻu Beach Park to the county at no cost whatsoever” (Water service is still being restored in the Naʻalehu-Waiʻōhinu water system serving the area as of September 10 and significant repairs to infrastructure remain). But a landowner cannot grant such a dispensation.

Seeking comment on the negotiating status of the easement, Hawaii.com reached out to Sakumoto and was told, “I don't represent Eva Liu,” their relationship apparently having dissolved. In response to the easement offer, Callis acknowledged being aware of Sakumoto’s announcement and said, “While the County will give any formal offer thoughtful review and consideration, we have not received a written proposal from the landowner and therefore are unable to comment on the purported easement at this time.”

Eva Liu herself has not answered Hawaii.com’s attempts seeking comment.

Asked about public rumors and appeals for the county to pursue an eminent domain action, taking control of the park area to bring it under the wing of Hawaiʻi County, Callis responded, “The County will consider all legal options available for protecting the public interest.” An eminent domain claim is not a simple taking and would require fair market payment for the park area in question. The county has already made an offer for the park area in dispute through the Public Access, Open Space and Natural Resources Preservation Commission (PONC) acquisition mechanism. A formal appraisal required by this process valued the park area at $1.46 million.

This offer, too, was rebuffed. Presumably the PONC valuation would also become an eminent domain payment offer, which, clearly, was not satisfactory to Liu.

What is it, exactly, that Liu wants? As far as can be reported in this moment, it appears to be the signing of a single year’s “trial” lease with the county to allow for her flexibility “to evaluate with respect to determining the feasibility of a longer-term lease, intend[ing] to incorporate those evaluations in the lease negotiation at the end of the one-year trial period,” per an April 10 letter from Sakumoto, Liu’s ex-lawyer, to the County of Hawaiʻi’s legal office.

Sakumoto wrote that on the one-year term his “client remains intractable.” Sakumoto goes on to state, “My client will not consider a longer initial lease term as it would undermine its ability to negotiate at the conclusion of the trial period.” Sakumoto ends the letter, “Accordingly, the lease agreement will terminate on Tuesday, June 30, 2026.”

Callis, the mayor’s spokesperson, says that, other than the two months’ negotiating extension, this finality of contract has not been amended by Liu or her counsel, contrary to statements made to the press by Sakumoto.

Through this, the questions remain — who is Eva Liu, the named manager in what might be a development hui (partnership), and what are her goals? The answers to such questions aren’t entirely clear, even as Sakumoto told West Hawaiʻi Today that Liu “is committed to ensuring public access to Punaluʻu Beach Park.”

What is clear is Liu’s entity, Punaluʻu Black Sand Beach, LLC, purchased the 433-acre parcel, including the existing park facilities, in 2020. BSB LLC lists one managing officer, Xiaoyuan Liu — known as “Eva.” The LLC may have been created in a hui with two unnamed partners in California, both it and a related Kaʻu Valley LLC list the same Dublin, Calif. post-box service mailing address. BSB LLC’s listed principal location is a bed and breakfast in Naʻalehu. Last year, BSB LLC’s mortgage holder took it into foreclosure on the parcel.

In June of 2025, Liu paid enough on the debt she faced on a $3.4 million mortgage default to stave off foreclosure.

In 2021, an earlier apparent blunder set Liu off on a very wrong foot with Kaʻū community members — resort developer Tower Development posted on its website a “Master Planned Wellness Community” plan for 700 units at the “infamous Black Sand Beach on the southern shoreline of the Big Island of Hawaii.” Liu worked to distance herself from Tower’s plan, calling it “too aggressive” in contemporary reporting by Kaʻū Calendar News Briefs. By June of last year, BSB LLC had withdrawn a Special Management Area Use Permit Application for “Approximately 225 Residential and Short Stay Units, Village and Wellness Center, Retail Uses, Rehabilitation of Golf Courses, and Dedication of a Portion of Coastline as a Conservation Area.”

The application was met with overwhelming public opposition and oppositional standing in the planning process granted to the conservation groups Center for Biological Diversity and ʻIewe Hānau o Ka ʻĀina. Where any development stands on the larger BSB LLC parcel knit together of smaller lots having a variety of zoning designations ranging from environmentally sensitive to resort, is unknown today.

Kaʻū has a long history, reaching well past contemporary residential and tourist appreciations of Punaluʻu Beach. Hawaiians have lived — fishing and farming — on this face of Mauna Loa since prehistory and have sustained substantial historical settlement in the area since at least the fifteenth century. Sixteen miles from Punaluʻu, a visitor can walk through evidence of these early Hawaiian worlds at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park’s Kahuku Unit, where the Kaʻū Agricultural Field System is located. It’s not hard to imagine people working these fields appreciating Punaluʻu Beach — located along the southernmost tip of the U.S. where beaches are neither common nor readily accessible due to the area’s volcanic topography — just as it is treasured today.

For now, this beloved beach will remain in limbo until a resolution is forged between Eva Liu and Hawaiʻi County. If you are visiting the Kaʻū area, travel with patience, empathy and care.