Castle & Cooke Hawaii is now one Honolulu City Council vote away from obtaining rezoning for its 576-acre Koa Ridge project between Waipio and Mililani.
The Council Zoning and Planning Committee voted 5-0 Friday to send Bill 48 to the full Council for a final vote, tentatively scheduled for Nov. 13. But as historically has been the case with Koa Ridge, where the demand for housing and jobs has clashed continually with concerns over traffic, urban sprawl and the loss of agricultural lands, approval did not come easily. Committee members Ann Kobayashi and Ron Menor voted with reservations.
Menor, who represents the region from Ewa to Mililani, asked colleagues to consider six pages of new conditions on the developer designed to address lingering concerns about traffic and the affordability of the up to 3,500 housing units that would be allowed by the rezoning.
Castle & Cooke officials managed to fend off most of Menor’s proposals, arguing that many of them would be contingent on factors beyond their control such as market demand and government timetables.
But Menor was successful with some of his proposals. Specifically, they require the developer to:
» Not allow any Koa Ridge homes or businesses to be occupied until 11 key road improvements are completed. All deal with the area’s major existing roads: Ka Uka Boulevard and Kamehameha Highway, and the heavily used H-2 Ka Uka Boulevard interchange. Castle & Cooke had previously agreed to the condition in principal, but Menor wanted the specifics in writing.
» Not allow any homes to be occupied before Jan. 1, 2016.
» Provide a 90 percent subsidy for the cost of one annual city bus pass for each occupied household during the first five years of occupancy. Castle & Cooke had previously agreed to provide a 50 percent subsidy for one pass for three years. Menor had tried to get a 90 percent subsidy for a pass for each member of a household for 10 years.
» Provide updated traffic impact analysis reports to be submitted to four area neighborhood boards.
Menor further wanted to limit the developer to building no more than 1,000 units before 2020, and that 500 of the first 1,800 units be reserved for senior housing as specified in the developer’s own documents. Menor said he chose 2020 because the Kapolei-Ala Moana leg of the city’s $5.26 billion rail project is scheduled to be done in 2019, thus minimizing the traffic impact Koa Ridge would have by phasing in the units.
Harry Saunders, Castle & Cooke president, said limiting the number of units, and the type that are built in a short period, would tie the developer’s hands and could ultimately doom it by hurting its ability to gain favorable financing.
"Market forces drive the economy," Saunders said. "Artificial limits can hurt the viability of a project." Such a limit could drive market prices higher by quelling demand, he said.
Menor also tried unsuccessfully to get colleagues to require the developer to provide more affordable housing units geared to lower-income families. Much of Friday’s five-hour discussion centered on how best to get more families into affordable homes.
The city’s affordable-housing policy now requires a developer to make up to 30 percent of its homes available for families making no more than 140 of an area’s median income for a family of four. It does not require a developer to make any affordable rentals. Menor wanted to retain the 30 percent requirement but make the affordable homes available to families making no more than 120 percent of median income.
Additionally, Menor wanted a larger percentage of homes dedicated to those making 80 percent of median income and below, and that a percentage of those units be required to be rentals.
Menor said after the meeting, "Affordable housing units aren’t going to be built in a market controlled by a few large developers who own substantial acreage of land and whose primary objective is to build market-priced housing in order to maximize profits."
The changes in affordable-housing requirements Menor sought for Koa Ridge are similar to proposals he wants made to the city’s overall affordable-housing policy.
Castle & Cooke officials said Koa Ridge could be at a disadvantage if it were required to abide by stricter requirements if Menor’s proposal to change the overall city policy fails.
Several of Menor’s colleagues and city Deputy Planning Director Art Challacombe said they agreed with Menor that changes to the affordable-housing policy should be discussed, but not in the context of a single project.
Menor said he would’ve preferred that an overhaul of affordable-housing policies had been completed before Koa Ridge and the proposed 7,500-unit Hoopili project came for approvals, but that city officials have been slow to form a position on his suggestions.
He acknowledged he did not have the votes to delay a decision on Koa Ridge until the affordable-housing policy could be reviewed.
Meanwhile, Robert Harris, director of Sierra Club Hawaii chapter, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that councilmembers should consider one other thing before the final vote.
An opponent of Koa Ridge for more than a decade, the Sierra Club still has two judicial appeals pending in the courts. Both tied to the project’s approval from the state Land Use Commission, one is before the Hawaii Supreme Court and the other before the state Intermediate Court of Appeals.
"The City Council should act carefully because if the Supreme Court reverses the Land Use Commission decision, the project could be changed entirely or not be allowed to move forward at all," Harris said.
