Extreme Makeover
A community fights to alter the Kaka'ako development plan
Photo Credit: Chris McDonough
There’s no talk about the booming Kaka’ako district that doesn’t include ‘mixed-use,’ ‘economic diversification,’ ‘urban core’ or ‘urban village.’ All are close cousins of the mother of all master-planning buzzwords–’smart growth.’
The idea behind smart growth is, well, a smart one. It fights urban sprawl and encroachment on agricultural and open spaces, a paramount value in Hawai’i, where people have a culturally significant connection to the land.
Last September, the Hawai’i Community Development Authority, which manages the development of the 670-acre Kaka’ako district, selected a proposal by Alexander & Baldwin to develop Kaka’ako makai, 36.5 acres of the only undeveloped waterfront property remaining in Honolulu. A&B’s plan (viewable at [www.kakaakowaterfront.org]) incorporates elements of residential, commercial and recreational use.
The unveiling of the $650 million project and its potential impacts immediately provoked a charged response from the public. At the center of the controversy is whether the makai side of Kaka’ako should include a residential component and whether such a component would be favorable to the public interest.
The HCDA’s vision is ‘live, work, learn, play.’ As the state sees it, selling the six acres of public land where A&B plans to put two high-rise condos in exchange for the development and maintenance of public spaces on the waterfront is a good deal for taxpayers. ‘You absolutely need park space, jobs, edu-facilities–and places for people to live. [The people] are the glue that ties it all together,’ says HCDA Director Daniel Dinell, who emphasizes that the plan’s implementation will not result in a loss of open space or a decrease in public access, but on the contrary, will increase both.
The community’s reaction to the plan, on the other hand, indicates a legitimate public concern that the people who will be able to afford to live in Kaka’ako makai are not locals. As a result, the urban village would be an exclusive one, edging community members out of one of the few Honolulu waterfront respites from heavily commercial, tourist-centric areas like Waikiki and Aloha Tower.
Dinell says that HCDA will not take action on the proposal until February. In the meantime, community groups intend to stop that action and force a reconsideration of the waterfront plan, which they believe did not include an adequate amount of public input. These groups want to be heard. And they want HCDA to listen.
Their comments boil down to this: Give us a place to learn and play–we’ll live and work across the street.
From blight to bling
According to Dinell, stand-alone, single-use waterfront developments fail (read: Aloha Tower Marketplace). What works is a mix of uses–residential, commercial and public. He is an advocate of smart growth, the concept that building communities where people live adjacent to where they work and play reduces traffic and other environmental and social costs.
As the city grows, urban planners are striving to redefine a sense of place for Honolulu. Stephen Meder, architecture professor and director of the University of Hawai’i Center for Smart Building and Community Design, wants to shift the habit of developing ’suburban tracts that create isolation of individuals’ to designing communities that are built for people rather than automobiles. ‘We don’t need to buy a gallon of gas to buy a gallon of milk,’ he says.
– Michael Kliks of Hui Malama O Kaka’ako Maka
Meder endorses the growth of economically and socially vibrant neighborhoods where there can be affordable housing and safe travelways for pedestrians. ‘It’s healthier, and people would meet their neighbors,’ he says.
Applying these principles to Kaka’ako is part of HCDA’s mission. On paper, HCDA’s accomplishments are many: In 1980 there were 1.65 acres of park in the 670-acre district. Today there are 47. In 1980, Kaka’ako had 1,100 residential units, none of them affordable. Today, there are 3,241 market units, with 1,388 affordable units. The infrastructure to make these improvements has cost a total of $203 million, $48 million of which has come from private landowners and utilities. The $150 million-plus tax dollars spent has helped generate more than $2 billion in private sector investments and $500 million in public sector investments.
Kaka’ako is growing. In 1980, the area had 2,798 residents. Today, that number has more than doubled to 6,221. By 2030, the projected population is 30,000. But one question remains: Where will all these people live? HCDA has an answer, and that answer is up.
Dinell claims that growth management can happen in two ways: sprawling or densifying. Hawai’i planners have favored densification–infilling existing urban areas–partly for geographic reasons (difficulty and expense of sprawling across mountains) and partly to preserve the islands’ precious open spaces. In Honolulu, the trend suggests there’s nowhere to build but up.
Currently under construction are several mixed-use projects that will add 3,000 condo units in town, the most glittering being Posec Hawai’i’s 225-unit high-rise at 909 Kapi’olani Blvd., Victoria Ward’s 165-unit tower above the Ward Village Shops and three luxury high-rises by A&B–Hokua, the sold-out, 247-unit, glass-sheathed tower at 1288 Ala Moana Blvd.; Lanikea, a sold-out, 100-unit Waikiki high-rise; and Keloa Lai, the recently approved 352-unit high-rise at South and Queen Streets.
Buying a new condo is out of reach for some O’ahu families. In the third quarter of 2005, the median price of an urban Honolulu condo was $270,000. Under the revised A&B proposal, 126 units (20 percent of the 630 proposed) in the Kaka’ako waterfront will be affordable–which, according to the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai’i and federal Housing and Urban Development numbers, is $330,400 for a family of four in Honolulu with a median income of $67,750. Community members say even those ‘affordable’ units are not affordable.
Another complaint about the A&B plan is that the development of Kaka’ako makai is intended for local users, not off-islanders or visitors. A&B and HCDA insist that is not the case. In A&B’s defense, of the four final Kaka’ako Waterfront proposals, theirs was the least invasive in terms of elite development.
‘We want this to be a thriving, vibrant urban community with people living, working and shopping here during the day and into the night. We want owner-occupants,’ A&B President and CEO Stanley Kuriyama says. ‘In addition to the 20 percent affordable housing that will be offered to Hawai’i residents, A&B Properties intends to offer the remainder of the project on a priority basis also to Hawai’i residents. To the extent allowed by law, A&B Properties will offer the condo units first to owner-occupants only, then open them up to residents of Hawai’i, before finally making them available to other buyers.’
In the end, the bottom line of A&B practically guarantees that the primary revenue generator–the residential high-rise–will stay. Conventional wisdoms says that no matter how much the public objects, that fact won’t change. Hui Malama O Kaka’ako Makai believes it can.
Back to the future
Since its inception in 1976, HCDA has entertained all manner of proposals for the development of Kaka’ako makai, all of which were pitched by developers, agency members, government leaders or property stakeholders. What’s been missing is a community plan from the community.
Recently, the Hui Malama O Kaka’ako Makai, an umbrella group of concerned Kaka’ako citizens, rolled up their sleeves and held a series of meetings to formulate a community vision–what they call the ‘People’s Preferred Plan for the Honolulu Historic Waterfront District.’
Michael Kliks, one of the hui’s key organizers, is intimately familiar with Kaka’ako makai. It’s where he has worked (as a medical microbiologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service) and played for 35 years. The avid bodysurfer–who was married at Point Panic–has closely monitored plans for Kaka’ako and interacted with HCDA for three decades. ‘Our consensus is no residential and no luxury commercial development at all between Ala Moana [Beach Park] and the Aloha Tower Marketplace,’ he says. ‘We know it’s ugly. We’re not against development. But we want it to be developed as parks, so we don’t have another Waikiki spreading like a cancer along the shoreline.’
–Daniel Dinell, Hawai’i Community Development Authority
The philosophy behind the people’s plan reflects a Hawaiian sense of place–a belief that the ‘aina, inextricably tied to the sea, is alive and gives life; that it defines identity and history; and that it contains a powerful mana that is extinguishable and ignitable.
It’s painfully clear to the community of people who currently spend time at the waterfront that throwing up luxury residences is a misuse of the shoreline space, which lends itself to recreational activities that have gone on there for 200 years, from fishing to surfing to limu gathering. ‘The past lives today, and it can live right here on our streets,’ Kliks says.
In the draft of the community’s plan, native trees landscape the site. A Native Hawaiian fishing village features a saltwater fishpond, a keiki fishing pond, and a stream that feeds kalo lo’i and flows through a native forest and past an outdoor pavilion where people engage in poi-pounding, lei-making and basket-weaving. A canoe halau provides a home for Hokule’a and a place to build more voyaging canoes. A farmers’ market sells local produce. A cluster of retail stores outfit fishermen, snorkelers, divers, surfers, bikers and beachgoers. Soccer, baseball and football fields host land sports, while launch sites for modern and traditional paddlers dot the shoreline along with fishing access points. A 19th century-style bandstand complements the existing open-air amphitheatre. Concession stands and lunch wagons provide light meals, while a restaurant in the fishing village offers casual and fine dining featuring Hawaiian seafood and other bounty of the sustainable village. Lockers, a mass transit terminal and additional parking facilitate increased park use.
The people’s vision also features several multi-use complexes: a biotech research complex that includes the existing John A. Burns School Of Medicine, the Kamehameha Schools life sciences center, the proposed University of Hawai’i cancer research center and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs cultural center; a Hawaiian Village cultural complex with a hula halau and state-of-the-art performing arts stages, a traditional games site, a native plants nursery, a canoe and surfboard repair and storage facility, and a place to practice culinary arts; a museum complex that includes the maritime museum, historic sailing and whaling vessels, a surfing museum and a historic Honolulu museum; and a Hawaiian Arts and Language Integration complex for Hawaiian language immersion and hula, mele and chant instruction.
The plan’s elements will be linked by a continuous promenade and network of bike paths and walking trails along the two-mile shoreline stretch between Ala Moana Park and Aloha Tower Marketplace. ‘There will be no residential structures, no high-rise structures, and no structures designed and intended principally for the visitor industry or for luxury commercial use,’ the plan states.
‘It’s a way of life issue for me,’ says Ron Iwami, head of the Friends of Kewalo Basin, an integral part of the Kaka’ako hui. He remembers surfing at Kewalos 35 years ago when the area had only haole koa trees and a footpath. In early May, the soft-spoken Honolulu Fire Department captain formed Friends of Kewalo Basin, composed of surfers, fishermen and park users, to represent the views of those concerned about changes to their beloved park. ‘The ball is rolling, and it’s rolling fast. We cannot just sit on our ‘okole and let this happen,’ Iwami says.
Through old-fashioned grassroots mobilization, the group grew to more than 1,000 strong within a couple of months, and they diligently sent letters to legislators. The community’s rumblings haven’t fallen on deaf ears. On Dec. 7, A&B presented a revised plan that removed one of the fee-simple residential towers (leaving 630 units in two towers) as well as a controversial pedestrian bridge from their original plan. To appease the group, A&B also eliminated all proposed development at Kewalo Basin Park and all commercial development including a restaurant at Point Panic.
The legislators were also paying attention. On Nov. 9, the Senate held a hearing to discuss the selection of A&B as the developer of the Kaka’ako Waterfront project. And when the 2006 legislative session opens, Sen. Russell Kokubun (D-Big Island), Chair of the Water, Land and Agriculture Committee, plans to introduce a bill that will outline a legislative approval process of all sales of public land–addressing one of the most highly criticized elements of the HCDA’s proceedings–and giving legislators the authority to deny a sale of state land.
‘The idea behind the bill is that the state’s resources are finite. To understand the true value of our resources, particularly our public land, we need to look at them from a different perspective,’ Kokubun says, adding that because the Kaka’ako parcel in question is waterfront, it’s an even more valuable resource. The senator also explains that the legislature has the authority over the budget approval process, and it could direct monies toward maintaining or subsidizing public resources (read: parks) in Kaka’ako makai.
‘We need to rethink this whole thing,’ says the senator, who plans to hold a meeting with abutting Kaka’ako stakeholders like Kamehameha Schools, UH and OHA to talk about ‘a bigger picture and other alternatives that could be explored.’
To be clear, this will not be the first time HCDA has sold public land on which fee simple condos have been erected. Dinell points to the success of Honuakaha at 545 Queen St., where there are 150 rentals for seniors and 93 affordable condos. But the value of the Kaka’ako’s waterfront is far greater than the asking price.
‘You don’t know how much you would take away from the quality of life of some of the elderly people who use it for their daily existence,’ says Kewalos surfer Brian Shimokawa, who was under the impression that residential development would stay on the mauka side of Ala Moana. ‘I thought that’s what it was supposed to be before they came in and changed the rules in September.’
In the end, what outweighs any monetary value of the waterfront parcel is the immeasurable and irreparable cost of losing it. ‘Once you sell it,’ Ron Iwami says, ‘it’s gone.’
Get involved: A public demonstration at the State Capitol organized by Save Our Kaka’ako is scheduled for Monday, Jan. 23 at 10:30am. Everyone should meet at 8am in the parking lot of the Kaka’ako Waterfront park. Free T-shirts will be distributed. The march will down Ala Moana Blvd. (’ewa), turn right on Punchbowl Street and proceed mauka to the Capitol, where there will be a rally in the rotunda. For more information, visit [www.kewalo.org] or email [email: info]. The people’s plan for Kaka’ako Makai will be presented at the Kaka’ako Neighborhood Board Meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 7pm at Makiki Christian Church (across from McKinley High School on Pensacola and Rycroft Streets).
