HAWAI'I KAI — Public access to a 1.5-mile strip of Portlock beachfront will be preserved under an agreement that transfers ownership of the land from Kamehameha Schools to a group of homeowners, the schools and homeowners said.

However, people concerned about public beach use aren't happy, even though the homeowners have signed an agreement promising that shoreline access will be assured.

Some had pushed the state to take over the strip of remnant land that runs between the shoreline and homeowners' oceanfront properties to ensure the public wouldn't be shut out.

"I think it's a sad day for everyone in Hawai'i when more public beach is given away to private landowners, and the city and state didn't step up and take their responsibility for the community," said Anne Marie Kirk, a proponent of public beach access for the Portlock Beach area.

Advocates were intent on ensuring public access because there are no government-owned beach accessways along Portlock Road, unlike beachfronts in Kahala or Kailua. Kailua and Kahala beaches have city-owned public accessways through oceanfront developments.

"This issue is about all of us having the right to access the shoreline," Kirk said. "We need the city to step forward and complete the purchase of public accessways at Portlock so we're not at the whim of landowners."

The Portlock area was built more than 50 years ago, doesn't have sidewalks and has narrow accessways from the road to the ocean. For years few realized that Kamehameha Schools still owned the land in question, which is 10 feet at its widest. When the homeowners bought their land in the mid-1980s, ownership of that part of the property wasn't transferred.

When the remnant lands became available, the community gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition urging the city or state governments to take over the land and use it for public access. That didn't happen because the land trust had started negotiations with three homeowner associations that represent 30 property owners.

Under the agreement, Kamehameha Schools signed the land over to the homeowner associations, said Kekoa Paulsen, Kamehameha Schools spokesman.

The agreement makes official the long-standing practice between the community and the property owners ensuring a perpetual right of public access to the beach and shoreline for recreational purposes over the existing lanes in the subdivision, Paulsen said.

"The condition is that the beachfront homeowners may, if they wish, establish rules governing access and use, as long as those rules don't interfere with the public use or access to the beach remnants and public beach areas," he said.

In addition, the beachfront homeowners have agreed not to erect new gates or walls, and all existing gates and walls would be governed by the rules ensuring beach access, Paulsen said. The agreement will become part of the deed for each of the oceanfront owners who signed it, he said.

One of the ocean-front property owners — the same one who put a lock on a gate leading into a popular beach accessway several years ago — has not signed the agreement. That owner doesn't have to provide public access in the same way as the others, Paulsen said.

Citing this example, advocates for public access say the arrangement is inadequate. They want the state or city to buy some land and guarantee public use.

When the one holdout homeowner erected a gate and installed a lock to keep people out of the accessway next to his home, the community urged the city to begin condemnation of the accessway. The city began that process, and valued the parcel at $200. The owner did not agree to that price, and now the issue is headed for the courts.

Bruce Robin, a Portlock Road property owner whose home has an unlocked gate leading to the shoreline, said the agreement changes nothing for the people who use the beach.

"The people on Portlock are friendly folk," Robin said. "Everyone sees this as the status quo. Other than the one incident where a lock was put on a gate, there's never been a problem of anyone not being able to go to the beach.

"Things are the same now as they have been for the past 50 years."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.