A residential high-rise envisioned to become a major catalyst for a new neighborhood master-planned by Kamehameha Schools in Kakaako was approved Wednesday by a state agency regulating development in the area.

The Hawaii Community Development Authority board voted 8-0 to approve the project called Keauhou Lane after public hearings Wednesday and March 19 in which the project received relatively little opposition.

Keauhou Lane includes a 43-story tower with 388 condominiums, a six-story rental building with 209 apartments, a 1,038-stall parking garage wrapped with 35 town homes, and about 39,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space on a 4.2-acre block bordered by South, Pohukaina, Halekauwila and Keawe streets.

The mauka edge of Keauhou Lane along Halekauwila will feature a public promenade adjacent to a planned city rail station, creating one of the first transit-oriented-­development projects in urban Hono­lulu.

"It’s going to be urban living at its best," Stanford Carr, a local developer heading the tower portion of Keauhou Lane, said after the approval.

Carr projects that construction will start next year and be complete about two years later. The rental apartment complex with most of the retail and restaurants is planned for development concurrently by Portland, Ore.-based firm Gerding Edlen.

Rental units must be affordable to households earning 100 percent of Honolulu’s median annual income under an agreement with the HCDA. That translates to monthly rent roughly between $1,677 and $2,157 for studio to two-bedroom units under federal guidelines.

Carr projects that condo prices will start in the low $300,000s and average about $600,000.

Keauhou Lane represents a key piece in a Kamehameha Schools master plan called Our Kaka‘ako covering nine contiguous blocks envisioned for up to seven residential towers and 2,750 homes.

Keauhou Lane is the second Our Kaka‘ako tower project approved by the HCDA under the master plan. The first was The Collection, which is two blocks makai of Keauhou Lane and is being developed by Alexander & Baldwin Inc.

Keauhou Lane also represents the ninth tower approved by the HCDA in the past few years as developers rush to meet what they perceive as strong market demand for housing in the area.

Some of the other towers approved recently, including The Collection and two towers at a project called 801 South St., have drawn heavy public opposition, largely from residents in neighboring towers.

However, opposition to Keauhou Lane was light.

HCDA received 12 written comments before Wednesday’s hearing, and expressions of support and opposition were evenly split. All six testifiers who objected to Keauhou Lane live at One Waterfront Towers, which is immediately makai of Keauhou Lane.

One Waterfront resident Beatriz Rodriguez complained that Keauhou Lane will significantly block views from One Waterfront and decrease property values. Other residents said Keauhou Lane will block tradewinds and result in higher temperatures and serious health risks for tennis players and other users of One Waterfront’s recreation deck.

"The amenities of (One Waterfront) would be severly and adversely affected," Ralph Burr said in written testimony.

Only four concerned citizens testified in person at Wednesday’s public hearing, including Frank Leslie, a One Waterfront resident and real estate brokerage firm owner who said he supports Keauhou Lane.

Some of the opposition was focused on Carr’s request to build the tower’s parking garage 71.5 feet high, which exceeds a 45-foot limit tied to the project under the master plan even though the HCDA raised the limit to 65 feet in 2011.

Project representatives contend that the added height will allow for a more active and aesthetic streetscape by wrapping two sides of the seven-story garage with four-story town homes.

The garage also will provide about 100 stalls for public use that potentially could be a park-and-ride for rail.

Developer Gerding Edlen sought to exceed the 45-foot limit by 20 feet, and said the extra height allows for a pedestrian plaza between ground-floor restaurant and retail spaces in its two midrise buildings leading to the other pedestrian mall fronting the rail station.

Such trade-offs may be considered under HCDA rules.

Anthony Ching, HCDA executive director, said the additional height is justified because it generates a public benefit and minimal impact on public view planes.