Tower obeys rule’s spirit, builder says

The developer of a condominium tower that opened in Kakaako earlier this year made its argument Wednesday to a state board for why the firm should be excused for violating an ineffective rule aimed at limiting reflectivity of high-rise building glass.

The argument basically was that the tower’s design achieves the intent of the rule even though the rule can’t.

Downtown Capital LLC presented its case to the board of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency that regulates development in Kakaako and cited the developer for violating its glass rule with a tower called 801 South St. Building A.

The developer’s arguments followed a Sept. 15 decision made by the board to allow another Kakaako tower developer, OliverMcMillan, to finish building its Symphony Honolulu condo with very reflective glass that violates the HCDA’s rule while making a $1 million mitigation payment.

Downtown Capital, a firm led by local affordable-housing developer Marshall Hung, emphasized that 801 South A isn’t like Symphony.

“We comply with the spirit and intent of the rule to limit reflectance,” Ryan Harada, a Downtown Capital principal, told the HCDA’s board.

The agency’s glass rule specifies that tower glass above the ground floor transmit at least 50 percent of light into a building. This specification, known as visible light transmission, or VLT, was adopted in 2011 and sought to keep towers from being highly reflective in Kakaako where dense high-rise development is envisioned.

But different glass consultants retained by the HCDA and OliverMcMillan agreed that no direct correlation exists between VLT and reflectance, and that it’s possible to have highly reflective glass that meets the VLT rule, rendering the rule ineffective.

The glass on 801 South A has a VLT of 35 percent.

Another HCDA rule states that “highly reflective, mirrored and opaque” windows are prohibited, but this rule is not considered enforceable because the terms can be subjective.

Harada said 801 South A doesn’t reflect a lot of sunlight because two-thirds of the building’s exterior is concrete, while lanai glass doors are recessed 4 feet. “There’s just no reflectivity,” he said. “There’s not much glass on there. It’s a different kind of building than what’s going up in Kakaako.”

By comparison, Symphony’s exterior is a continuous wall of silvery glass that an analysis showed is about as reflective as can be for commercially available tower glass.

The Symphony project drew complaints and significant public testimony in opposition to allowing the glass to remain.

Only two people have submitted written testimony in the 801 South case, and they support waiving the glass rule. No one from the public testified in person at Wednesday’s hearing.

Harada said no one from Downtown Capital knew about the HCDA’s VLT rule until the agency informed the company about it in January. By that time, exterior construction including all glass installation was done. The tower, with 635 moderately priced units, opened in June.

A sister tower called Building B is under construction and was going to have the same glass, though plans were changed so that the glass will have a VLT of 53 percent.

HCDA is holding a second hearing on the 801 South A glass issue today at 9 a.m. in its 547 Queen St. conference room to accept any additional input. A decision is scheduled to be made Dec. 2 at a meeting scheduled for 1 p.m.