Kingdom of Hillsborough Makes Peace With Tonga

Here in the hills south of San Francisco, in this moneyed town of big houses and fancy cars, an international crisis is subsiding. Madeleine Albright can stay home. The Kingdom of Tonga can rest easy.

What started as a public spat over traffic, parking and noise coming from a house owned by the South Pacific island nation ended with an evening of teacup diplomacy. Residents of this upscale neighborhood, where the 80-year-old king of Tonga stays on trips to the Bay Area, invited Tonga’s consul general into one of their homes for a chat Wednesday night.

Two hours later, an issue that made waves in the daily papers in Honolulu, New Zealand and Fiji was old news. Talk of zoning, lawyers and tow trucks turned to the uncertain joys of living with teenagers. The group was transformed from adversaries into neighbors. Handshakes all around.

“I’m quite happy and feeling much chirpier,” said Emeline Uheina Tuita, consul general of Tonga, who serves the 3,000 Tongans who live in the Bay Area. “Just the fact that they wanted to meet was a signal to me that they were willing to talk things through. We were able to come to an understanding.”

The understanding centers on just who owns the 6,000-square-foot house in Hillsborough and who will live there. The short answer--the kingdom of Tonga owns the residence and Tuita and her family live there. But reality is more complicated.

The rambling white house, set on two wooded acres and outfitted with a swimming pool and spa, was purchased by the kingdom in July 1997. It was adequate for Tuita’s household of six children, two parents and a small staff. But Tuita’s family was squeezed for space once a suite of rooms was set aside for the exclusive use of her royal house guest, His Majesty the King of Tonga, Taufa’ahau Tupou IV-Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, Knight of the British Empire.

Twice-yearly visits by the king, which involve a motorcade of staff, dignitaries, police escorts, bodyguards and Secret Service agents, overwhelmed the quiet neighborhood. With each visit, hundreds of Tongans trek from San Francisco to pay respect to their monarch. Parked cars clog the narrow, winding roads, and their sheer numbers sometimes give the house the look of a rock festival. Residents feared that the place was becoming a de facto Tongan embassy.

So when the kingdom of Tonga submitted plans this year to build a 2,000-square-foot addition to the house, neighbors organized. They countered with a petition urging city officials to deny the request and asked the city attorney to review the legality of how the property was being used.

The house was “not being used as a single family residence, but rather as a place of entertainment for visiting officials and nationals,” the petition read.

Residents warned that vehicles parked on dry underbrush could start fires. They complained about noise and garbage, and they worried about political demonstrations and the carte blanche given to drivers with diplomatic immunity.

Consul General Tuita met with city officials and explained her dilemma: that the house became too small for her family once the royal suite was set aside. The city’s Architecture and Design Review Board approved plans to expand the house. Anthony Constantouros, Hillsborough’s city manager, wrote a recent letter to residents explaining the decision.

“This was a little different for us--a design review issue with the Secret Service involved,” Constantouros said. “I’d have to call this unique.

“Some misunderstandings took place, and the matter got blown out of proportion,” he said. “It’s not too surprising--not a lot of royalty visits the United States.”

Tuita met with residents Wednesday night to assure them that the house would not be used as a consulate. In the future, she said, parking during royal visits will be handled with valet service or vanpools.

“I think part of the difficulty is many people don’t really know what Tonga is,” Tuita said. “To most, we are just a tiny dot on the globe.”

Tonga, a six-hour flight south of Hawaii, is one of the least-developed regions of the South Pacific. The 30,000 tourists who visit each year either revel in or rebel against the rustic, rural character. Tonga’s 105,000 residents enjoy few amenities: The nation just recently got CNN, and there are few rental cars. On Sundays, taxis don’t drive, planes don’t fly, and it’s illegal to write a check.

Tongans who want to seek their fortunes often make their way to San Francisco. There, they find a modern world--and equally modern problems.

“They need the opportunity to experience the world, to get an education, to experience something new,” Tuita said. “They hear all about the U.S. and of the great things that come from America and they want to come here.”

As consul general, Tuita helps Tongans who have run afoul of urban life. Families fall apart, children lose direction. Some succeed and get their green cards. Others are sent home.

“It’s why we maintain a consulate here,” Tuita said. “We’re here to help out citizens, not to make headlines about the king of Tonga’s visits.”

But it’s not the first time Tonga has made international news.

Capt. James Cook, the 18th-century English explorer, fell in love with Tonga on his first visit in 1777 and named it the Friendly Islands. Capt. William Bligh’s infamous mutiny on the Bounty occurred off the island of Tofua in 1789.

In 1953 Queen Salete Tupou II attended Queen Elizabeth’s coronation and won the hearts of the people of England when, out of respect to the new queen, she refused to open her umbrella in a sudden downpour.

More recently, Tonga made headlines when the king beefed up the royal treasury by selling Tongan passports for about $40,000 each. When he slimmed down from a majestic 400 pounds to a more healthful 300 pounds, he essentially put the nation on a diet too.

Tonga--where residents speak English and have a 99% literacy rate--has gone into the lucrative business of selling Internet domain names. On Dec. 31, Tonga will be the focus of millennium attention when it becomes the first inhabited landmass to enter the year 2000.

For now, however, it’s business as usual for Tonga. Tuita hopes her expanded Hillsborough house will be ready in time for the king’s summer visit. If not, he will stay in a hotel. As for the brouhaha, it was instructive.

“At first it was difficult--there were misunderstandings which made the papers in Fiji and Honolulu, which are our neighbors,” Tuita said. “It affected the way people there perceive Tonga.”

And now?

“I’m very hopeful about the way things have turned out,” she said. “We could have handled the issue of cars better, but I didn’t know how strongly people here feel about parking.”