How has volcano eruption affected Big Island real estate market? (if any) (insurance, houses)

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by Open-D

In that they are private roads, will not the responsibility for removing the lava and rebuilding affected sections of road be the financial responsibility of the HOA, and would sufficient reserves or insurance coverage exist to handle the cleanup if and when activity ceases in LE?

Considering annual HOA dues are $110 yearly in Leilani Estates and I believe they pay an equally modest road maintenance fee - there will certainly be no money to fix the roads.

I'd be shocked given that given the small fee, a) there is insurance and b) an insurer would insure it to begin with.

My guess - when all this erupting stops someday, the affected areas will simply not be rebuilt nor the roads repaired - it'll simply become a much smaller subdivision.

[hotzcatz]

Someone with a D9 will clear the roads, but not much more than the roadway itself, most likely is what I expect.

If it's just a short lava incursion. If it takes out a whole street, they may decide to do something else, hard for say until this whole thing is over.

Royal Gardens got covered by lava, the lots and places for the roads are still there, but under twenty feet or so of lava. At some point, once the road across the bottom gets regraded, then folks will move back and start living on the lava again. But since the whole area was covered, there wasn't anyone left to fix roads. No roads, not a lot of new folks.

A lot of what folks liked about Leilani was that it was a forested area. If a significant part of it is covered with lava, it may not have as much appeal as before.

[Open-D]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

Someone with a D9 will clear the roads, but not much more than the roadway itself, most likely is what I expect.

If it's just a short lava incursion. If it takes out a whole street, they may decide to do something else, hard for say until this whole thing is over.

Royal Gardens got covered by lava, the lots and places for the roads are still there, but under twenty feet or so of lava. At some point, once the road across the bottom gets regraded, then folks will move back and start living on the lava again. But since the whole area was covered, there wasn't anyone left to fix roads. No roads, not a lot of new folks.

A lot of what folks liked about Leilani was that it was a forested area. If a significant part of it is covered with lava, it may not have as much appeal as before.

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems like one of the nicer subdivisions in Puna.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

Someone with a D9 will clear the roads, but not much more than the roadway itself, most likely is what I expect.

How do you envision that happening? A bulldozer can't push away those lava flows. The rock would have to be broken up to some degree-probably a lot-before it could pushed into piles, loaded up and moved. Hours and hours of expensive work. Simpler would be to grade a road over the top of a flow, I would think. Depends on how deep the flow is. If the road clearing was somehow done, complete with prominent, recent lava flow mixed with forest on either sides, it could be a strikingly beautiful landscape.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Open-D

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems like one of the nicer subdivisions in Puna.

By most accounts, yes. That's what the said about Kalapana too. So why are the nicest subdivisions built in hazard zone one?

[terracore]

" A bulldozer can't push away those lava flows."

FEMA money paid to bulldoze the lava flow over the road and repave near the Pahoa transfer station after the 2014 flow. Granted it wasn't that high but I think the expensive part was the repaving.

Ripping lava is a normal part of construction here in Puna, I think the only real difference in this case is removing it as opposed to rolling it. We have 6 acres of ripped and rolled lava on our farm, I'm guessing those roads in Leilani are only 40 feet wide including the easement. You'd be surprised what a D9 can do in an afternoon. They have a gigantic steel "stinger" on the ass end of them that literally rips the lava into smaller rocks. A couple of passes over where the road was would reduce it to a pile of rubble. Moving that out of the way wouldn't take a front loader and dump trucks much time at all.

[Open-D]

Originally Posted by Blind Cleric

By most accounts, yes. That's what the said about Kalapana too. So why are the nicest subdivisions built in hazard zone one?

Maybe M. Pele and Co. don't like people living "large"!!

[hotzcatz]

Originally Posted by Open-D

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems like one of the nicer subdivisions in Puna.

Yup, it was. One acre forested lots with lots of CCRs (Codes, Covenants & Restrictions) which required folks to build houses larger than a certain minimum size (although I forget at the moment what that size was), required garages or carports, had to have the plans approved by the HOA before building, etc., etc. This also means that the lava has been taking houses with permits and not just jungle shacks. Which means they could at least, be insured if they had permits. Hopefully they had at least fire insurance and hopefully the house caught fire before the lava got to it.

Nanawale also has restrictions to what size house has to be built, but they're on much smaller lots so they were never as nice. Both Leilani and Nanawale have/had nice community areas.

Pele could take them both, but she's mostly in Leilani so far. Or she could be happy with what she has now and entirely stop. She's very unpredictable.

[Open-D]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

Yup, it was. One acre forested lots with lots of CCRs (Codes, Covenants & Restrictions) which required folks to build houses larger than a certain minimum size (although I forget at the moment what that size was), required garages or carports, had to have the plans approved by the HOA before building, etc., etc. This also means that the lava has been taking houses with permits and not just jungle shacks. Which means they could at least, be insured if they had permits. Hopefully they had at least fire insurance and hopefully the house caught fire before the lava got to it.

Nanawale also has restrictions to what size house has to be built, but they're on much smaller lots so they were never as nice. Both Leilani and Nanawale have/had nice community areas.

Pele could take them both, but she's mostly in Leilani so far. Or she could be happy with what she has now and entirely stop. She's very unpredictable.

I suspect that before this "episode" subsides, the independent fissures will connect into one continuous, fountaining curtain. I've been following events prettly closely, and both the summit vent and Puu oo have dumped a tremendous amount of fresh, hot magma down the system pushing what is suspected to be leftovers from the 1955 even out. When the fresh stuff hits, I suspect events will accelerate and spread more broadly. Fissure 18 has opened, and I suspect much more will follow as the 1955 magma is purged.

[hotzcatz]

Seems odd to think that lava could just lurk around underground for sixty some odd years and then reappear as liquid, well, sorta liquid lava. I wonder if this is a new thing they just learned about eruptions?

It almost seems to be heading for the old Kapoho Crater. Will whatever had it stop then and become a crater instead of continuing to flow still be in effect?