George Atta

George Atta was born in Okinawa 63 years ago after his mother and her parents moved there from their Maui home. But after her marriage and with their 5-year-old son in tow, the family moved back to Hawaii. Besides his years earning his master’s degree at Harvard University, Hawaii is where his personal and professional roots were planted.

Right out of college, the city’s chief planner worked for what was then called the state Department of Planning and Economic Development. His first projects included developing the initial draft rules for the Aloha Tower Development Corp., which has since been dismantled, and the environmental assessment for portables on the Kapiolani Community College, which are still there.

Atta was urged to apply for the job as director of the city Department of Planning and Permitting by another experienced government hand, consultant Ray Soon. Until then he hadn’t really thought of leaving his job of 25 years at the planning and architectural firm Group 70 International, where he was a principal.

Ultimately he made the leap, and since he started Feb. 19, the pace has been fairly nonstop.

A new transit-oriented-development manager, dealing with the rail project, was named this week: Harrison Rue. Development conflicts from Aina Haina to Ewa also fell on his plate, along with a remnant from his own past: While at Group 70, Atta had prepared the plans for a New Hope church project that will come under review by his department.

The city administration announced that Atta had disclosed that association in advance, has divested himself of his Group 70 interest and will recuse himself from the review of that project.

Atta is the divorced father of a grown daughter and a hiking and running enthusiast, but he finds the unending debates over Oahu’s land use absorb most of his time. On that issue, he said he foresees no major shakeup in urban blueprints.

"Growth will happen, and growth has to go somewhere," he said. "Either it’s going to go in a higher density form within the transit corridor, or it will spread out in subdivisions. That’s the choice the General Plan made ages ago: ‘OK, we’ll try to contain it within this corridor between the second city and the primary urban center, and not push out too far into the countryside.’"

QUESTION: When the mayor offered you the job, how did that decision process go?

ANSWER: It wasn’t that hard. … I was in the mood of thinking, the more I thought about it, I was in this mode of transition thinking already. … Once I submitted my resume, I started thinking about it. What if the mayor asks me to be the director? What would I do? Would I take it? … And the more I thought about it, you know this would be kind of a good way to cap my career.

And if I was the director, what would I do? What kinds of changes would I make within the department policies and programs? The more I thought about it, the more I thought, this could be fun, actually.

Q: So, do you have a plan for what you want to accomplish?

A: Early on, there were several things I wanted to work on, even before I got the job, I was thinking about it, once I was on the short list. The thing is, although I voted for the mayor, I didn’t campaign for him. I didn’t give him any money.

The week before the mayor called to offer me the job, Ray (Soon) called me up and said, "George, I’ve been pushing for you, but I don’t know if you’re going to get appointed." So I said, "What’s happening?" "Well, you know all the mayor’s supporters, people who gave him lots of money?" "Yeah." "Well, they’re all advocating for their people. So the mayor is being bombarded with recommendations to select all these people who are supported by these big campaign donors, right? So he’s under a lot of pressure, and so of course because the position is very important, people are wondering when he’s going to make a selection." Ray knew I hadn’t contributed.

Q: Was he preparing you for bad news?

A: Maybe that the mayor might not select me. … He said, "Of course, you’re one of the pure planners in the short list." And I go, "OK." (Laughs)

Q: Nice to be pure, right?

A: Especially this department. And he said, "Most of the other nominees are lawyers."

So that was the context. But once I started thinking about it, I thought, yeah, it might be interesting. …

The first thing I thought was I’d like to change the General Plan, so that it’s more of a visionary document. Right now it’s just a wish list of desires and doesn’t integrate into a holistic vision.

The other thing is the issue of Important Agricultural Lands. It’s been a thorn in everyone’s side since the

1978 Constitutional Convention, and no one’s been able to get a handle on Important Ag Lands. So I thought during my four-year term, I’d love to tackle this issue. …

The third thing was rail. Rail represents a new kind of urbanism. I wanted to make sure that smart-growth principles around live-work-play stations are something that is done well. …

Q: What’s the next step with transit-oriented development?

A: The way things are happening right now is, my planning division is actually working on the transit-oriented development plans right now. We’ve got most of the plans in some kind of draft form. One’s at (City) Council right now — Waipahu — and we’re working on the last set. We’re not doing anything for Kakaako because we don’t have jurisdiction in Kakaako, so we’re doing 19 of the 21 stations. …

Q: What function will the new TOD manager fill?

A: We were looking for skills that were related to communication, education and negotiation. The negotiation side is that as developers come into the TOD district, then we have to negotiate either land use or entitlements for those things, and in the negotiation decide what kind of public benefits we’re going to ask the developer to provide as part of our zone change.

Q: Some examples of public benefits?

A: It all depends on the type of permit that you’re asking for. If it’s a zone change, which is one of the more significant kinds of entitlements, that’s when the 30 percent affordable housing requirement would kick in….

Other things that we also ask for: street improvements that relate to the traffic impact of the project. … Sometimes we’ve linked in the DOE (Department of Education) schools requirement. Although we’re not required to because DOE is a state agency, we’ve asked developers to provide school sites as part of the condition of approval. …

All of those things that have either direct impact resulting from the project, and sometimes a little extra because of the changes in value that are created by these entitlements. Sometimes it might be provide a community center for the new community or the existing community as a kind of public benefit. …

Some of the developers, now that transit-oriented development is coming on, are starting to ask us to do development agreements as opposed to unilateral agreements. In development agreements, we can ask for more things, but in exchange for the development agreement they want us usually to freeze the regulations for 10 years. … Essentially, it gives them some certainty and security of the kind of land-use regulations they have to comply with. …

The only people who have come to us to ask for development agreements are people in TOD districts. It’s interesting. And yet the TOD plan has not been adopted yet. … Within the TOD district we’re going to change the zoning regulation to encourage a greater live-work-play type of community. … Once the plan for each TOD area is adopted, we would then follow with a zone change for that TOD area. So that would be the next step, after the plan is adopted. …

What we’re finding is they’re actually a little nervous about the TOD plans, the developers, because they’re not sure what’s going to come from these TOD plans. Are they going to be asked to do even more? And the subsequent zoning that’s going to come? It’s going to change, they know, but they’re somewhat nervous about the change, and they prefer to make a deal under the current regulations. … They’d rather lock it in under the current rules than be subject to unknown future rules.

Q: Is it your sense that there’s a lot of interest in development?

A: It’s mixed. Right now, it’s not around every station, and each station area is different. … We’re not seeing any activity around the Kroc Center (at the East Kapolei end of the rail route), or the Ho’opili station, because those are the greenfield stations where there’s no development around them. … Where we’re seeing interest from the developers is around the Pearlridge station area; there’s been some interest around the airport area. It’s been in the more urban, denser, existing developed areas where developers have shown an interest. …

There’s interest and actually some concern as well. For instance, the Downtown station, there’s some concern that the TOD around the Downtown station might gentrify Chinatown. … That’s why the mayor is very strong on the need to plan affordable housing around the stations.

Q: So they’re talking 30 percent of units built being affordable?

A: Well, 30 is the standard, so if we go into development agreements, we can actually ask for more than that.

But there’s a kind of balancing act going on whenever you ask developers for entitlement, because we want to get the public benefits, and we want to capture some of the increased value of their property from the new zoning, but we don’t want to ask for so much that it makes their development not pencil out and unfeasible, and they give up on doing it. …

Q: On another subject, what is the distinction between development plans, such as the one in Ewa, and those called "sustainable community plans"?

A: That was done intentionally. The understanding was that in Ewa and the primary urban center we are encouraging development, whereas the other areas they’re trying to have sustainable communities. Those plans have not intended to accommodate a lot of growth. …

Central Oahu is a kind of hybrid. … The urban growth boundary goes up to Mililani; it encompasses Koa Ridge and that’s it. The rest of Central Oahu is supposed to stay relatively stable, or at least that’s what the intention is.

Q: How do you view the opposition to the Ewa plan, for example?

A: Frankly, I don’t agree with their positions. The issues that they raise, even this thing about the loss of ag land. It’s true that with Ho’opili you will lose some good ag land. Nobody questions that. But that decision had been made back in the ’70s and ’80s.