A bill stopping the city from installing bulb-outs at two key Chinatown intersections won a narrow 5-4 approval from the Honolulu City Council Wednesday.

But it remains unclear whether the Caldwell administration will need to remove any of the existing bulb-outs that became an instant lightning-rod issue when they were installed 10 months ago as a pilot project.

While city officials said the bulb-outs have not taken away legal parking stalls, merchants and residents opposed to them argue that Chinatown business relies on quick loading and unloading to thrive.

Corporation Counsel Donna Leong, the city’s top civil attorney, told Council members that the bill is not retroactive and that the temporary bulb-outs need not be removed.

What’s more, the 5-4 vote suggests that if Mayor Kirk Caldwell vetoes the bill, Council leadership may not be able to muster the six votes needed to override a veto.

The bulb-outs are at Pauahi and Maunakea streets, Pauahi and Smith streets and Pauahi Street and Nuuanu Avenue but the bill’s latest draft, offered by Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga Wednesday, calls for no bulb-outs at the intersections of Pauahi and Maunakea and Pauahi and Smith only.

Fukunaga and Ann Kobayashi introduced Bill 82 (2017) in response to complaints by residents, merchants and customers who argue that the bulb-outs are an eyesore, were installed without considering the concerns of the community and are behind a reduction in customer traffic that has led some stores to close. They also said the bulb-outs may be harming, rather than improving, traffic safety in the historic, urbanized district.

Terry Kakazu, owner of HASR Bistro, said the bulb-outs leave nowhere for customers to pull over to drop off and pick up passengers. “The homeless are still using them as their personal home,” she added.

But another group of merchants, residents and Chinatown visitors backs up the administration and testified that they support the bulb-outs — which extend the sidewalks and lessen the distance of crosswalks that pedestrians need to cross — because they slow down traffic and make it safer for pedestrians.

Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock, head of the Chinatown Business and Community Association, said her group has collected roughly 6,000 signatures from Chinatown merchants, residents and supporters who want the bulb-outs removed. City officials told the community that the pilot project was supposed to last 90 days, she said. “This was so badly conceived and badly implemented.”

Lisa Bravender, who owns a business on Hotel Street, said she’s a supporter of the bulb-outs and the Complete Streets concept. They represent “a visual reminder” for motorists and others. In 2009, the state passed a law requiring all counties and the state Department of Transportation to adopt a Complete Streets policy to create a comprehensive, integrated network of roads that are safe and accommodate foot, bicycle, mass transit and automobile traffic.

“The Council’s support of this bill means you are making a permanent decision based on the look of a temporary, mocked-up version of the actual bulb-outs that are being used to study (the situation),” Bravender said. “Not only does this set a bad precedent for the future of Complete Streets, but it also hurts the community as a whole.”

Fukunaga said the concept of Complete Streets is designed to “bring everyone together to come up with common-sense solutions that everyone can agree upon.” Efforts by the community to work with the agencies “have been sort of either rebuffed or ignored,” she said.

Transportation Services Director Wes Frysztacki said Honolulu Police Department records show there were 14 accidents recorded at the three intersections during the 10 months before the bulb-outs, and 10 accidents in the 10 months since.

Frysztacki said the DTS would like two more months of study, so that it would have a year’s worth of data before implementation and 12 months of data afterward, before deciding whether the bulb-outs should be permanent.

Leong, under questioning by Council members, also said the bill could conflict with the concept of the separation of powers between the administrative and legislative branches of government.