Lawrence Ellison, the Oracle founder whose 2012 compensation topped the list of well-paid CEOs in research conducted for The New York Times’ Sunday business pages, would be one of the few who might consider a $9 million condo affordable.

His $96.2 million earnings package, though most of it in stock and options, would certainly qualify him for a favorable mortgage rate for the most expensive of 210 luxury units to be built atop the charming Nordstrom parking structure at Ala Moana Center.

But Ellison probably doesn’t need an apartment since he’s already bought himself a Lanai, about 97 percent of the island, give or take an acre or two. He’s also bought an interisland airline, though the qualified pilot would more likely fly a jet from his fleet of planes rather than take a commercial flight.

While Ellison is the most visibly wealthy of recent investors in Hawaii, a moneyed class continues to attend.

Condo units are flying off the easels of artists’ renderings in Kakaako. Sales of yet-to-be-built apartments in Honolulu’s hot spot appear to be unimpeded by price, such as at the 45-floor Symphony Honolulu that range from more than $500,000 to $3 million for 672 to 2,000 square feet of space.

A couple of blocks makai, on unprepossessing Queen Street, the less expensive condos at Waihonua at Kewalo with units priced between $375,000 and $1.9 million are about 20 short of full occupancy.

The shopper-friendly Nordstrom project with bottom-priced units at $583,000 is sold out while a cheaper option, called 801 South St., is also out of stock.

When these and other towers are completed, Kakaako will be home to tens of thousands of people or more. Not all of them may occupy their premises at the same time since many are part-timers who plan to be frequent isle visitors. But a lot of them — particularly people who are fortunate enough to win a lottery for the moderately priced condos developers tout as “giving back to the community” — will call the tight neighborhood home.

At present, Kakaako’s streets are mainly two lanes wide with parking on both sides. Four-way stops, not traffic signals, govern much of the vehicle movement and pedestrian crossings.

Four-way stops are an annoyance for some drivers, but I see them as efficient and, more importantly, considerate. They call on drivers to acknowledge and pay attention to others. There’s a certain amount of civility in a process that is often seen as combat as motorists muscle through an intersection before and after lights change.

With four-way stops, driver safety depends of obeying the principle of allowing the one who arrived there first to go ahead, with the next in line following.

There are those who are impatient for traffic lights, seeing the red, yellow and green as evidence that Kakaako has come into its own.

Well, when new left-turn, right-turn and contraflow lanes decorate its boulevards and avenues, when multi-phased lights with arrows and flashing pedestrian countdowns garnish intersections, when cars, delivery vans and garbage trucks jockey through Pohukaina and Cooke, Kakaako’s congestion will testify to its urban status.

Even the wealthy will have to deal with that.