Dozens rally against residential Kakaako development

More than 130 demonstrators sporting bold red "Save Our Kaka’ako" shirts lined Ala Moana Boulevard on Saturday to voice fears that "runaway" luxury condominium development, if left unchecked, will replace much of the coastal green space there and block public access to the beach.

"We want to keep the makai lands residential-free for all the people of Hawaii — including Native Hawaiians," Ron Iwami, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Friends of Kewalos, told his fellow Save Our Kaka’ako Coalition members at a rally. Later, the group held signs with messages such as "no residential makai" and "beach access for all" in front of cars passing by on Ala Moana. Some drivers honked in support.

The grass-roots coalition is concerned about two Office of Hawaiian Affairs-backed bills that would allow some residential development on makai parcels owned by that agency, despite a 2006 law that prohibited such projects in the ocean-facing side of Ala Moana Boulevard. Those measures, House Bill 2554 and Senate Bill 3122, have so far moved swiftly through this year’s legislative session.

The bills have also created a wedge between proponents — who feel the measures will grant Native Hawaiians greater autonomy to better use their lands to their benefit — and those who fear the bills merely will assist developers to create "another Waikiki" along Kakaako’s waterfront, as Iwami put it, where condo towers replace the park lands and open space that benefit the public at large.

"They are moving forward, trying to get exception on several parcels," Iwami said Saturday of OHA. "In my eyes, that is not very pono of them."

About 13 community groups, including the Kakaako Small Business Association and the Surfrider Foundation, make up the Save Our Kaka’ako Coalition.

The two legislative measures have already cleared their respective chambers. They would allow the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which regulates development in Kakaako, to approve residential projects in the area makai of Ala Moana, dubbed Kakaako Makai.

SB 3122 originally allowed for residential use on all nine of the OHA lots in Kakaako Makai, covering 31 acres, but lawmakers later amended the bill to reduce the residential exemption to three of those lots.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano and House Majority Leader Scott Saiki (D, Downtown-Kakaako-McCully) also spoke Saturday at the coalition rally. Cayetano, who is backing challenger David Ige in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s bid for re-election, called HCDA a "rogue agency" that has "gone wild" and "answers to nobody" except its board members and Abercrombie.

"What is happening in Kakaako is a form of the wild development that will be going through the state," Cayetano said, adding that when he was in the Legislature he and his colleagues faced lots of pressure to allow more development in that area.

Saiki said "there will be increased scrutiny over these bills" in the legislative session’s second half.

Neither HCDA nor OHA officials could be reached for comment Saturday. OHA sought the bills because it concluded that income from commercial development allowed under current zoning for its makai parcels would fall short of what would typically be expected from land worth $200 million, the estimated value of OHA’s property there.

Nonetheless, coalition members on Saturday asserted the measures would not work in the public’s best interest.

"This is a people’s war. HCDA, the steward of this land, has sold us out," said Sharon Moriwaki, president of coalition member Kaka’ako United. "We have no chance. We have to get to our legislators."

Much of the Save Our Kaka’ako Coalition came together in 2006 to kill a plan by local developer Alexander & Baldwin to build three condo towers in Kakaako Makai.

"We have to fight hard for what we fought for in the past," coalition member Al Balderama, president of the Hawai’i State Bodysurfing Association, said Saturday. "We’re going to fight to the end for this."

The House’s Water and Land Committee will take up SB 3122 at a hearing at 8:45 a.m. Monday.

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Star-Advertiser reporter Andrew Gomes contributed to this report.