Leadership shift could change Kaka‘ako landscape

HONOLULU — Kaka‘ako will have a new state House representative in January and new potential for residential high-rise development on poorly utilized land makai of Ala Moana Boulevard owned by the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA).

House Speaker Scott Saiki (D, Ala Moana-Kaka‘ako-Downtown) was defeated in the Aug. 10 primary election, and his loss also means an impending departure of the mightiest legislative impediment to OHA realizing a more-than-decade-old goal to partly undo a ban on residential development in the area known as Kaka‘ako makai.

Saiki has held powerful leadership positions in the House for as long as OHA has tried to get legislation passed to up-zone at least some of the 31 acres in Kaka‘ako it received from the Legislature in 2012 to settle a long-disputed debt with the state.

Now, Saiki, who at least once single-handedly killed a Kaka‘ako makai rezoning bill, won’t be able to control a similar bill to one that passed the Senate in three of the last four years and is already teed up for introduction in January.

Colin Moore, a political analyst who teaches public policy at the University of Hawai‘i, said prospects without a doubt have improved to enact a bill that permits OHA to develop housing on its land in Kaka‘ako because of Saiki’s loss to Kim Coco Iwamoto, a small-business owner who previously served on the state Board of Education.

“I don’t think you could see it any other way,” Moore said.

The reason, according to Moore, is that despite a lot of opposition to developing housing in Kaka‘ako makai from residents in House District 25 that includes Kaka‘ako, the district won’t have a representative with huge influence at the top of House leadership.

“No matter what Kim Coco Iwamoto’s position is (on Kaka‘ako makai), she’s not going to be speaker of the House,” Moore said.

Rep. Daniel Holt, co-chair of the legislative Native Hawaiian Caucus, believes the chances for passing a bill to support OHA’s development goals in Kaka‘ako are now better than ever before.

“I do think that there will be some legislation coming forward, and I’m looking forward to helping out OHA however I can,” said Holt (D, Sand Island-Iwilei-­Chinatown).

Zoning changes

Housing had been allowed in parts of Kaka‘ako makai for many years under a state agency that regulates development on the man-made peninsula, which originally was largely a city dump later covered by a mix of commercial uses including warehouses, baseyards, ship-­repair facilities, a waterfront park, office buildings, a children’s museum and the University of Hawai‘i medical school.

A zoning change was dictated by the Legislature in 2006 via a law passed to block a private development project solicited by the Hawai‘i Community Development Authority, the state agency that regulates development in Kaka‘ako and at the time owned 36.5 acres on the 200-acre peninsula.

That project, by Honolulu-based Alexander &Baldwin Inc., included three condominium towers clustered on one inland lot, a hula amphitheater, restaurants, stores, a farmers market, a public waterfront promenade and a pedestrian bridge spanning the Kewalo Basin harbor channel.

Community activists, including residents in Kaka‘ako condo towers, surfers and park users participating in grassroots organizations Save Our Kaka‘ako and Friends of Kewalo, lobbied lawmakers for a residential development ban.

A&B withdrew its plan after a near-unanimous final legislative vote, and HCDA urged then-Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, to veto the bill so as not to restrict future redevelopment potential. Lingle did not issue a veto, and the ban became law without her signature.

After OHA accepted 31 acres of Kaka‘ako makai land in 2012, many lawmakers have supported allowing residential development on at least some of the nine parcels conveyed to OHA in lieu of $200 million to partially settle claims over unpaid revenue generated from former Hawaiian crown lands, referred to as ceded land.

The agency exists to help Native Hawaiians through efforts that include grants, loans, education and cultural initiatives. OHA’s vision for its Kaka‘ako land, dubbed Hakuone, includes a cultural center, gathering places and housing from affordable to market-priced units.

Killing bills

While the settlement was pending at the Legislature in 2012, the Senate passed a bill to allow residential development on two parcels intended for OHA, but the measure died in the House.

In 2014, different drafts of a similar bill cleared the Senate and House, setting it up for passage if a House-Senate conference committee could settle on a final version.

Saiki, who was then House majority leader and not on the conference committee, told Save Our Kaka‘ako members during a rally outside the state Capitol that he expected irreconcilable differences between committee members would prevent passage of the bill. A few days later, that prediction came true.

As House speaker, Saiki had a direct role in killing a similar bill in 2021. After the Senate passed the measure and delivered it to Saiki’s desk for introduction in the House, Saiki publicly announced to a crowd of bill opponents outside the Capitol that no House committee would hold a hearing on the bill.

“As you know, the prohibition on residential development in Kaka‘ako makai has been in place since 2006,” Saiki told Save Our Kakaako members. “There is not a compelling reason for the Legislature to reverse this prohibition.”

Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, co-chair of the Legislature’s Native Hawaiian Caucus, at the time argued otherwise. In a floor speech before passage of the 2021 bill in the Senate, Keohokalole said the 2006 ban was the right thing to do but that the real estate given to OHA to benefit Native Hawaiians is no longer public land.

Keohokalole also said allowing residential development in Kaka‘ako makai would help address O‘ahu’s critical need for local workforce housing.

“This place can and should be a place for housing,” he said on the Senate chamber floor. “The luxury housing across the street (mauka of Ala Moana Boulevard), I think, is shameful.”

Reflecting on Saiki’s recent election loss and actions against bills to lift the housing ban on Kakaako land owned by OHA, Keohokalole said in an interview, “Scott Saiki is my good friend, and I’m sad to see him go. We did not see eye to eye on this one.”

The last time a bill to partly undo the 2006 ban was introduced at the Legislature was in 2023, around the time Saiki floated the possibility of OHA receiving $165 million plus an increase in annual ceded-land revenue distributions in exchange for an easement forever prohibiting residential development on the land owned by OHA.

Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, a supporter of OHA’s goal to develop housing on its Kaka‘ako property, shelved the 2023 bill after one Senate committee hearing to avoid a perceived further waste of time because he said it was clear that House leadership had no intention of passing the bill.

In response, OHA board trustees publicly criticized House leadership for being arbitrary, disrespectful and undemocratic.

“We at OHA believe democracy is being seriously undermined and that all voters should sit up and take notice,” board Chair Carmen Hulu Lindsey said at the time.

Moore said Saiki’s recent loss to Iwamoto by 256 votes — 2,412 versus 2,668 — probably wasn’t materially influenced by his actions with respect to Kaka‘ako makai, given strong support among district residents to maintain the 2006 ban.

New consideration

Keohokalole said he’s ready to introduce another bill in January to permit residential development on OHA land in Kaka‘ako.

Lindsey said OHA welcomes such legislation.

“We would embrace Senator Keohokalole’s bill and fully support it,” she said in a statement. “Our goal is still the same — to realize higher financial benefits and help for beneficiaries with our Kaka‘ako makai landholdings.”

Rep.-elect Iwamoto has not publicly taken a position on easing the ban on residential development in Kaka‘ako makai to benefit OHA.

In an interview, Iwamoto was coy about the subject when asked her view. But she did express sympathy over the value of the land deal OHA accepted in 2012, and said the agency should be “made whole,” perhaps with other land or another way.

“I think that OHA got sold a bill of goods,” she said.

Iwamoto also said she believes there is latent racism at play over how luxury condo towers are being developed on the mauka side of Ala Moana Boulevard at Ward Village, including some towers that are closer to the waterfront than parcels OHA wants to develop as housing.

“There’s like a double standard,” she said.

At the same time, Iwamoto also advocates for a moratorium on luxury housing development until affordable-housing needs for the community are met, and is a proponent of conservation and preservation of land over development.

Iwamoto said she will wait to see details of Keohokalole’s bill before taking a position on what it seeks to achieve.

Lawmakers often give some measure of deference to colleagues from a district when a bill focuses on an issue particular to that district. But Moore noted that this isn’t so much the case for zoning on OHA land in Kaka‘ako because OHA is a state agency with beneficiaries throughout Hawai‘i.

In fact, the Senate has repeatedly passed bills to allow residential development on OHA land in Kaka‘ako despite opposition from Sen. Sharon Moriwaki (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kaka‘ako).

Saiki, Moore noted, was both the district’s representative and the top leader in the House. “You won’t have that same alignment of someone with that amount of influence in the House also representing that district,” he said.

The Legislature is scheduled to begin its 2025 session Jan. 15.