A vote clearing the way for the 400-foot Mana‘olana condominium-hotel tower at Atkinson Drive and Kapiolani Boulevard was delayed until next week by the City Council Zoning and Planning Committee on Thursday.

By continuing the hearing until Wednesday morning, committee members say they hope to satisfy themselves that the Los Angeles-based Mana‘olana Partners is contributing its proper share toward affordable housing.

Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga, the first to raise the idea of continuing the hearing on the resolution, said she and colleagues have been talking to the developers and “believe there is some room for us to craft an affordable housing set of requirements and incentives.”

Mana‘olana Partners wants permission from the Council to build higher, at a greater density and with less parking than existing zoning allows for the site. Existing zoning allows for a condominium of up to 350 feet but no hotel rooms, city Department of Planning and Permitting officials said.

In exchange for the allowances, the developer is promising $7 million in community benefits including either $2.4 million in a cash “in lieu” payment, or 16 off-site affordable housing units.

Plans call for a 36-story tower with 109 residential units and 125 hotel rooms, as well as a street-level commercial plaza facing the busy intersection where there is now a 7-Eleven and several other restaurants, bars and stores.

Housing advocates have voiced strong objections to the current draft of Resolution 16-172, arguing that the developer should be made to provide more in affordable housing than either $2.4 million or 16 off-site rental units.

The Interim Planned Development-Transit permit being sought by the developer is the first of its kind as a policy that could be used until the city can formally set up Transit Oriented Development rules for each of the regions along the 20-mile transit route from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center. That’s one of the reasons the policy is flexible about how the affordable housing amount is tallied, said Harrison Rue, the city’s TOD administrator.

The city has not yet approved an Ala Moana TOD plan, nor has it approved an overall affordable housing requirement policy that Mayor Kirk Caldwell first discussed in 2013.

Rue said while the administration has made progress on a list of 20 initiatives aimed at producing more homes, a formal affordable housing policy should be done “within the next few months,” he said.

A staff study for the tower’s permit concluded that $45 per square foot of residential floor area higher than the currently allowable 350 feet would be used to determine how much the developer would need to pay as an affordable housing condition.

Zoning Chairman Trevor Ozawa stressed that Council members want to move cautiously because precedent is being set, as Mana‘olana is the first to seek such a permit.

“I think that the policy for affordable housing as it relates to IDP-T (permit) as of right now … needs to be created and drafted to provide crystal-clear options … so as not to prevent development from moving forward but also to provide a benefit in affordable housing as well as workforce housing,” Ozawa said.

James Ratkovich of Mana‘olana Partners warned Council members not to take too long. “This project won’t be around if we have to wait for policy changes,” he said. He promised, however, to continue meeting with Council members if they anticipated moving the legislation out next week in time for a final vote of the full Council on Oct. 5.

Mayoral candidate Charles Djou held an afternoon news conference Thursday to blast Caldwell for failing to provide affordable housing at a time when it’s badly needed. The former councilman and U.S. representative said the $2.4 million now on the table for the Mana‘olana developer to pay is not enough.

Djou pointed out that in the past two weeks, news reports have emerged on federal housing officials criticizing the city for failing to spend $26 million in an affordable housing fund and a federal housing audit questioning how $15.9 million in Community Development Block Grant funds was spent.