Now would be good time to update ‘Land and Power’

If there was ever a time for George Cooper and Gavan Daws to redo their 1985 Hawaii best-seller, "Land and Power in Hawaii: The Democratic Years," it is now.

The authors took five years to research and write the book, which was then serialized in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and became the most talked-about political book of the decade.

Cooper and Daws personalized the many land deals and insider trades that showed how political power changed Hawaii’s landscape and enriched those in office.

The lasting key was not just that those who were momentarily dominant made a buck, but how Hawaii’s land changed.

"The story of the last 20 years has been land and how you use the power to control the land," said the late Cec Heftel, who represented Hawaii in Congress when the book appeared.

This week, watch what the men and women in power in Hawaii do. Their actions will be critically important to what Honolulu looks like for the next 20 years.

The most important move so far has been the lack of action to push forward an ill-conceived plan to allow the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to build condos on its property makai of Ala Moana Boulevard, even though residential construction on the property is against the law.

On Friday, the Senate shelved the last of three different proposals in conference that would have caused the land near the ocean to sprout high-rise towers.

It was an emotional deal because the land had been given to OHA in a deal engineered and defended by Gov. Neil Abercrombie to satisfy an existing ceded lands debt. Everyone walked into the deal knowing that the land could not be residentially developed, and even if Abercrombie said it was worth $200 million, OHA could not put $200 million worth of condos on the land.

It was as if both the governor and OHA took their cues from "Land and Power," because they were all betting that in Hawaii, zoning and land use laws are more about exemptions, suspensions and rewrites than about what today’s law says.

Still up in the air is House Bill 1866 (http://goo.gl/tFae8i) pushed by House Democratic majority leader Rep. Scott Saiki, that puts more controls on the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which is speeding along the development of Kakaako and also oversees the land makai of Ala Moana.

Abercrombie has until Thursday to decide if he will veto the bill.

The next act in this year’s land-use drama is the appointment of Brian Tamamoto to an interim position on the HCDA.

Tamamoto is executive vice president of Royal Holdings, LLC, a small holding company of the Kobayashi Group, which is a Kakaako developer. Tamamoto also gave Abercrombie $2,000 for his 2010 campaign.

On Monday, Sen. David Ige, the Ways and Means Committee chairman and Abercrombie’s opponent in the Democratic primary, announced that he would oppose Tamamoto’s nomina- tion.

Ige said he opposes Tamamoto because the position is supposed to be filled by a small-business representative, but the Kobayashi Group is not a small business.

"Citizens are concerned already about the makeup of the HCDA and the pace at which it is approving projects," Ige said in a release.

And finally, if there were not enough players in this Kakaako shark pit, watch the post-session maneuvering with OHA and HCDA over Kewalo Harbor. HCDA gave interim approval to the Howard Hughes Corp. to develop and redo the harbor (http://goo.gl/Mp2dmW), which adjoins the Kakaako Makai land given to OHA. Hughes is already Kakaako’s largest private landowner with 60 acres, including the Ward Centers.

So, yes, part of the final result will be a lot of people getting rich, but the unanswered question is what Honolulu will look like when the developers are gone.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.