Spike OHA’s Kakaako proposal

Consider how passionately Honolulu residents have defended Kakaako Makai as a public asset to be managed carefully. With that memory as a backdrop, the proposal to allow residential development on waterfront parcels the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs owns stands as an appalling idea.

Ensuring that this land is reserved for more public uses was the result of a hard-fought campaign waged only eight years ago. Lawmakers should discard this revived plan, and quickly.

The new legislation, Senate Bill 3122, would erase the 2006 ban on condominiums makai of Ala Moana Boulevard, at least where OHA is concerned.

The measure, not yet scheduled for a public hearing, states that the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which oversees Kakaako, "may approve any plan or proposal for any residential development in Kakaako on lands owned by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs."

There’s a condition attached: Approval could follow "only after the Office of Hawaiian Affairs conducts a public hearing."

As concessions go, this one is all but worthless. Every development the HCDA reviews has a public hearing, regardless of this bill.

What’s worse, this bill is even broader than the version introduced in 2012, which tried to carve out an exemption from the residential ban on only two of OHA’s nine Kakaako parcels, the two that face Ala Moana Boulevard.

The current bill would enable development on any of the parcels, six of which have water frontages.

Further, creating an out clause for OHA constitutes a basic unfairness to private developers unable to secure the same deal.

The furor in the years leading up to the 2006 ban arose over a proposal by Alexander & Baldwin Inc. to build high-rise condominiums on the waterfront land, which then was owned by the state. Activists argued, correctly, that the last stretch of waterfront in Honolulu should not be walled off by private condos benefiting from an unobstructed view.

The ban was passed by the Legislature, and only one lawmaker in each chamber opposed it.

HCDA officials voted to seek a veto from Gov. Linda Lingle, but she decided to let it become law without her signature.

Isn’t that a sufficiently clear statement of public sentiment?

Apparently not.

Today’s bill to reverse the ban was introduced at OHA’s request by members of the Senate’s Hawaiian Caucus.

Kawika Burgess, OHA’s chief operating officer, said returns from the land would further the agency’s mission of helping Native Hawaiians.

However, OHA officials knew from the start that the land had a development restriction. Once the A&B project was shelved, the land became part of the deal the state struck with OHA in 2012, a settlement of past debts.

Burgess said the intent is to derive the full value of the land, which at the time of the pact was estimated at $200 million.

He added that a financial analysis recently acquired has informed OHA trustees that recouping this value would only be possible with residential development.

Surely such an assessment would have been available to the agency before the agreement was made.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs was established to manage a trust fund and other assets for the benefit of Native Hawaiians. But its mission involves stewardship over environmental and cultural resources as well, and those are clearly at risk here.

Some lower-rise commercial development of the agency’s waterfront land is still possible. That would be a better outcome for the larger community than exclusive condo towers that will tend to limit public use of the waterfront.

In 2006, when the ban was passed, A&B CEO Stanley Kuriyama announced the withdrawal of the condo proposal.

"The Legislature has spoken," Kuriyama said at the time.

What the Legislature said in 2006 was correct, and the residential ban remains the right plan for Kakaako Makai. This time the lawmakers should listen to the people, who have already spoken on the subject, loud and clear.