Info on Hilo neighborhoods please (Hawaiian Paradise Park, Waimea: condo, crime, big house)

[Haoligirl66]

I would love to get some feedback from people who either live or are familiar with the Hilo/Puna area. I plan to move to the area in a couple years and was looking at buying a piece of land to build on eventually. I'm seeing some very reasonably priced land and wanted to get some information about some of these neighborhoods. I'm specifically wondering about crime, traffic, lava flow, and anything else you think may be worth considering. I would love to have a piece of property big enough for a small garden, perhaps some animals.
The neighborhoods I'm looking at are Hilo, Mountain View, Fern Forest, Volcano, Hawaiian Paradise Park, and Hawaiian Beaches.
Any info on these areas or others I haven't mentioned in the Hilo area is greatly appreciated!

[terracore]

You should add Orchidland to your list.

Personally I wouldn't consider anything in lava zones 1 or 2.

Volcano is probably a lot colder and wetter than what you are expecting. Prices in Hilo are too high. Mountain View and Fern Forest- those areas are so huge that things vary widely depending on where you are. It's impossible to generalize those properties. Hawaiian Beaches are small lots. Hawaiian Paradise Park (HPP) are generally 1 acre lots. Last I looked they were going around 40-50k an acre. Orchidland is on the other side of the highway and the lots are (generally) around $30-40k for 3 acres. Almost all lots in Puna are "spaghetti" lots, thusly named for their resemblance to spaghetti, long and narrow. Square lots are available, however usually much more expensive.

Outside Hilo your biggest problem will be getting a place that has access to internet.

[hotzcatz]

Well, "neighborhoods" isn't exactly an accurate term for any of them other than perhaps Hilo. Hilo has shops, restaurants and things other than houses. Volcano has a few shops and two restaurants? Mountainview even less. Keaau has a small shopping area. Pahoa has a small shopping area if the volcano doesn't eat it. It looked like it was going to be munched last year, not so much this year. I'm not even sure if Fern Forest could be considered as having all that many houses. Think of it as a wilderness with an occasional small structure. HPP is all houses on one acre lots without much of anything else. So, it's a bit of a trek to go somewhere to get any supplies. Same with all of the areas other than Hilo.

First off, don't buy anything until you've lived in the area for awhile first. It's really hard to pick the right place to live from far away.

Also, in most of these areas there's no real soil. You can stack rocks and add soil and do some raised bed gardens, but most of the soil is leaf litter composted on top of rocks. No casually digging a hole to plant anything, you generally get a big iron rod called an "o'o bar" and pick a hole into the lava rock to plant. There's usually enough rain, though, that things will grow.

Hilo has shops, restaurants, services, hospitals, clinics, library, swimming pool, museums, churches, etc. Most places in Hilo have pavement, mail delivery (check the specific property first), electricity, County water (check specific property first) and cable (check the specific property first). Generally there's no trash pickup, there may not be sewers. Hilo doesn't have rampant crime but people do generally lock their doors. Traffic in Hilo isn't too bad. Lava almost ate it about thirty years ago, but it's not considered a high risk lava zone. It does rain a bit in Hilo, about ten or twelve feet a year, I think, but a lot of it comes down in several inch increments so it adds up quickly. Hilo is a comfortable town, there's a University there which is getting bigger so the town has a youthful yet laid back feel to it.

Mountain View & Volcano are somewhat similar in that they have a few shops and stores and a couple of restaurants. Volcano is at a cooler elevation. As you get higher in elevation, things get cooler so a lot of differences in temperature as well as what you can grow in your garden is determined more by elevation than by rainfall. Mountain View has a lot of folks growing things, there's some areas there with soil. Also, if you miss the turnoff to the Pahoa highway at Keaau, there's a lot less traffic in your life.

Fern Forest, Fern Acres, Hawaiian Acres and most of the big "sub-divisions" (note: they probably aren't like what you expect when you hear the word "sub-division") up along the Hilo-Volcano highway are mostly unimproved lots with a few houses scattered here and there. Roads may be rocky or gravel, no water service (look into "catchment" water), no mail service, most of the areas have power now, but check to make certain if you want to have electricity. Cell phone reception may or may not work, check the specific carrier and property to see if it works there. No trash service, no sewers.

Ainaloa, Leilani, Nanawale, etc., are pretty much the same as the ones between the Keaau-Volcano subdivisions, but they are accessed via the Keaau-Pahoa highway which is getting traffic jams on it. Also, they are in a higheer lava risk zone and thefts and burglaries are higher out in that area. Although theft is real common in the others, too.

If you can afford the other side of Hilo, the side towards Waimea, then there's a lot less crime and much deeper soil.

[terracore]

Hotcatz brings up a good point, much of Puna has no useable soil in it's raw form. If you are planning on growing things, you need to get your lot ripped. That means hiring a bulldozer with what looks like a gigantic steel "stinger" underneath that rips up the top layer of lava and turns it into rocks. Then the area is flattened / shaped by the bulldozer. This will allow things like fruit trees etc to be planted. If you want a lawn you need additional cinder/soil brought in and spread on top. Last I checked it was about 10k / acre to get a lot ripped. Ripped lots can grow just about anything but you need to fertilize after (about) every 10 inches of rain for rigorous growth. Less once the trees take hold and roots reach the nutrients under the ripped area. Ripped lots are also destroyed ecosystems, so you can't let them go wild or else the invasives will overpower everything else. A ripped lot requires maintenance or else it goes to crap really quick.

Another option is container growing or hydro/aquaponics.

Rats, toads, and centipedes especially like ripped lots. Chickens help to keep the centipedes down.

[smarino]

I remember seeing someone mow their entire lawn w/ a weed eater when I first moved to the BI. Thought they were nuts. But they weren't, it's just that, as mentioned, there's hard lava under that thin topsoil, and it will take the crank right out of a mower if you hit it a few times. Ergo the weed eater.

Hilo generally has OK neighbors, but avoid the Wainaku area. That place goes through up and down times, and friends tell me it's in a down cycle right now. We once had a condo over there, and I did not feel comfortable walking around at night, and I have lived in Harlem in NY and the Tenderloin and Mission districts in SF. Not saying the Wainaku is anywhere near as edgy as those places, but the vibe was still not good. Too many housing projects on that side of the bridge. Ohai St was a real piece of work. From what I understand the downtown is having issues w/ a lot of homeless and vandalism too, but during the day I'm sure its fine. My favorite area was pretty much all of Kinoole St. Lots of old time big houses, and most of them had decent size lots, which is always a rarity in Hawaii towns. As you go up slope, the areas and houses tend to get more expensive. I never cared for it up there though because there was nothing to do. Its all residential and you had to drive to a store, while downtown you could walk to literally everything.