The imposing Symphony Honolulu luxury condominium tower, now rising on Kapiolani Boulevard across from the Blaisdell Arena, gleams brilliantly in the sun — so brilliantly, in fact, that neighbors have complained about the glare from the glass exterior.

The glass has become a headache as well for the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which regulates construction projects in Kakaako. The glass doesn’t just reflect the sun; it reflects HCDA’s haplessness at developing and enforcing its own rules.

The glass violates HCDA’s rules on visual light transmittance (VLT, or the amount of light allowed to pass through). The minimum is 50 percent for glass above the ground floor; in response to an HCDA query in January, the tower’s developer, OliverMcMillan Pacific Rim, acknowledged that its glass violates the rule.

“Symphony tower glass VRE 1-30 is 28% VLT and does not meet the 50% requirement,” the San Diego-based developer said in a statement to HCDA in February.

The developer did not plead that it was unaware of the rule, or that the rule was not clear. Rather, OliverMcMillan claimed that the VLT rule conflicted with another rule about energy efficiency, and that it was too difficult to follow both.

So without seeking clarification or a waiver from HCDA before installing the windows, the developer chose to put up the glass anyway.

HCDA said that the energy efficiency requirements can be met by means other than violating the VLT rules, and ordered OliverMcMillan to remove and replace the non-confirming glass.

The developer refused.

Instead, it appealed HCDA’s decision and continued to put up the non-conforming glass so it can meet its construction deadlines and its commitments to those buying the expensive condos.

After five public hearings and for the third time, HCDA’s board of directors on Wednesday deferred a decision on OliverMcMillan’s appeal.

There’s a good reason HCDA can’t seem to make a decision about a developer that flouted its rules. According to glass experts, there’s no clear correlation between VLT and reflectiveness; in theory, OliverMcMillan could install VLT-conforming glass that’s just as glaring and reflective as it is now.

Ironically, another section of the rules prohibits “highly-reflective, mirrored, and opaque window glazing,” but HCDA did not find OliverMcMillan in violation of that standard, probably because the standard is too vague.

Furthermore, OliverMcMillan noted that other towers in Kakaako have VLTs lower than 50 percent, including Howard Hughes’ luxury projects Waiea and Anaha, which are at 27 percent. Other Kakaako projects cited by OliverMcMillan include Koolani, at an eye-catching 9 percent.

Of course, this “all the other kids are doing it” defense doesn’t justify ignoring the rules. But OliverMcMillan raises a solid point.

The other projects are grandfathered in under an earlier version of HCDA rules, which don’t address VLT at all; rather, they make vague references to “reflective surface” standards specified by manufacturers as “having reflectance (designated by such terminology as average daylight reflectance, visible light reflectance, visible outdoor reflectance, and comparable terms) of over 30 percent.”

These rules, which no longer apply, prohibit reflective surfaces over more than 30 percent of a building wall’s surface area.

Looking at all the Kakaako towers covered in wall-to-wall glass, one wonders if there is, or was, any enforceable standard at all — much less one that accomplishes the goal of reducing glare and reflections that can heat up neighborhoods.

It’s obvious that HCDA needs to revisit and revise its so-called “glass rule” for Kakaako, especially if the coming dense cluster of high-rise towers will comprise the wall-to-wall glass monoliths developers seem to favor.

HCDA should ensure that glare and reflectivity are reduced to a minimum through rules that make sense.

Those rules should be uniformly enforced.

And developers should bear full responsibility, not just for knowing the rules, but for the full cost of ignoring them.