Stakeholders discuss Chinatown’s future

Pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets and transforming the River Street-Nuuanu Stream corridor into a bustling walkway are among the more popular ideas suggested for inclusion in the Chinatown Action Plan.

The plan, expected to be finalized in early 2016, will serve as a guide for future development and improvements in Hawaii’s oldest urban center.

“The beat of our island starts in Chinatown,” Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said at a community meeting last week on the plan. “Chinatown lives and thrives if you participate as part of that community and you step up and you help government do the things that we need to do to get Chinatown even better than it is today.”

Harrison Rue, the city’s community building and transit-oriented development administrator, is leading the action plan effort. He sees it as an advisory guide for city agencies, landowners and other community stakeholders.

One of the upcoming rail line’s 21 transit stations is slated for Kekaulike Street and Nimitz Highway, and Chinatown is within the Downtown Neighborhood Transit-Oriented Development Plan. Some of the projects proposed in the action plan dovetail with ideas mapped out in the Downtown Neighborhood TOD plan, including pedestrian- and bike-friendly improvements and the River Street-Nuuanu Stream corridor project.

A draft action plan, which began taking shape after a July community meeting, identifies and prioritizes near-term actions while refining long-term strategies.

Among the draft’s highlights:

>> Prioritizing pedestrian safety and comfort

>> Addressing potential safety issues, such as lighting, homelessness and crime

>> Improving the “identity and vibrancy” of the River Street-Nuuanu Stream corridor

>> Improving the commercial waste flow and public restroom situation in the region

Funding improvements to the River Street-Nuuanu Stream corridor, from Nimitz Highway to Foster Botanical Garden, was another priority.

Also important was making Hotel Street, which is now mostly unavailable to vehicles except buses and taxis, more friendly for walkers.

Makiki resident and frequent Chinatown visitor Elliot Van Wie, 28, said at the community meeting that he and others in his discussion group supported designating key streets as pedestrians-only. He said police officers in the group liked the idea of making streets more pedestrian-friendly because people eating and shopping, “just having a presence there … would make it safer and more enjoyable.”

Kukui Plaza resident Taylor Ellis, 30, said his group supported lowering the speed limit along the major corridors of Chinatown and making streets more “walkable.” A bike rider and frequent walker, Ellis said motorists should share the area’s roads more equitably.

One idea that drew mixed reviews: forming a business improvement district, which would require property owners and major tenants to contribute payments to an account. The funding would be matched with city dollars to pay for improvements, such as increasing the frequency of commercial trash pickups and cleaning public restrooms.

Former City Councilman Leigh-Wai Doo, 69, of Palolo, said he liked the idea, which is already in place in Waikiki.

“The owners of the many businesses around Chinatown, while struggling to survive, have an obligation to share (the cost of providing) cleanliness, safety, good lighting,” Doo said.

“Change is inevitable,” he said, adding that he thinks rail will be beneficial for the area. “With a rail station at the harbor, finally Chinatown can have people come without struggling for parking.”

Doo is part of an effort to place a statue of Sun Yat-sen, considered by many modern father of China, at Foster Botanical Garden. That would provide incentive for rail riders to walk the entire length of the district, he said.

Ellis said he appreciated the opportunity to be involved. “The main thing is engagement,” he said. People in an affected community tend to get upset “anytime you just drop something on people. Let them pick the colors, let them pick the design. Then they feel invested in it.”

Salt Lake resident Rina Chung, 40, said she also liked the idea that public input was sought on how to “re-imagine” Chinatown. “I think very often people assume, ‘Ah, we’re stuck with what we have,’” said Chung, who spent much of her youth in Chinatown and still goes there to shop. “This is a very good example of the city being proactive.”

More information about the Chinatown Action Plan is available online at bit.ly/1LU3yYG.