Hawai'i needs to do a better job when allowing development in coastal areas to save beaches, property and lives when natural disasters strike, according to Sam Lemmo, administrator of the state Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands.

"In the past, we didn't really consider our coastal hazards — erosion, flooding — in the development process, and we are paying for it today in the way of lost beaches, property damage, retrofitting our public facilities and armoring our highways," Lemmo said. "We need to start the planning process so that when these events do occur, the impact and the costs and the conflict is mitigated as much as possible."

About 80 people attended a coastal hazard mitigation planning workshop yesterday at the Honolulu Mission Memorial Auditorium. It was the second of a statewide series of meetings to learn what can be done to preserve and protect beachfront property.

Lemmo said a combination of better home construction, planning to protect beaches and government regulations are needed to preserve coastal areas around the Islands.

Dennis Hwang, author of the new guidebook "Hawai'i Coastal Hazard Mitigation," said homes, roads and business have been built too close to the ocean in some cases, and that new projects can be designed to be close to the water and yet leave a safe buffer zone.

Hwang said leaving an erosion buffer zone of natural sand and plants, and building homes either higher off the ground or with construction that would allow water to drain away after a flood, would help lessen flood damage, wave inundation, and the effects of hurricanes and tsunamis.

"Hawai'i is subject to almost every imaginable natural hazard, and erosion increases the hazard to homes on the coastline," Hwang said. "Why wait for a natural hazard to build better homes? We can start now in the design process."

Others ideas to protect property include beach restoration using offshore sand and placing development restrictions in areas at high risk of flooding.

Kaua'i resident Jonathan Chun attended to workshop to see what alternatives are available to land owners to protect the shoreline other then just building rock seawalls, a technique that has been shown to permanently erode beaches.

"There are a lot of people out there that just don't know what to do or how to do it," Chun said.

Chun said two new brochures the state is about to publish on buying coastal property and erosion management should be very helpful to potential beachfront property owners.

Dawn Soderquist Okana, who lives on the beachfront at Kualoa, said her property is enclosed by a highway on one side and the ocean on the other. Two seawalls have been put up to hold back the erosion and have not worked, she said.

Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.