Plans for a five-tower residential and commercial complex on the site of the former Kam Drive-In Theater, across from Pearlridge Center, will get a first airing before the city Planning Commission today.
Destined by its sheer size to place a major footprint on the surrounding Aiea-Pearl City community, the project is being met with resistance from area residents worried about traffic, view planes and property values. Supporters, however, say it will bring badly needed housing and construction jobs to Oahu’s urban core.
Los Angeles-based Robertson Properties Group officials said no major changes have been made to its plan since a presentation in February 2012 for the project dubbed "Live Work Play ‘Aiea."
The informational briefing at 1 p.m. will be held in the Mission Memorial Building, 500 S. King St.
The plan includes a total of 1,500 multifamily units in five towers — two with a maximum height of 150 feet and one each with maximum height of 350, 300 and 250 feet. The 14-acre site has a 60-foot height limit.
The project would also feature a mixed-used building, up to 70 feet high, with a grocery store, smaller stand-alone stalls and "possibly a limited-service hotel or senior-oriented facilities." It would have 3,149 parking stalls but only 377 at the surface level. Full build-out would take 13 years, the developer said.
To help ease traffic, the developer is proposing to widen both Moanalua Road and Kaonohi Street as well develop a "main street" that would bisect the project and provide an alternative route between Moanalua and Kaonohi.
An earlier version of the project featured 1,800 units and three 350-foot towers and two smaller buildings. A development official said the plan was revised to reduce total building coverage by 50 percent and to minimize view impacts.
Much of the opposition has come from residents of several condominiums mauka of the site.
Aiea resident Stanton Oshiro, in written comments to the Department of Planning and Permitting, said he applauds the developer’s attempt to integrate residential, commercial and business uses into a single urban village. However, "the project severely neglects the traffic density problem already in the area," Oshiro wrote. "The current overloaded infrastructure and roadways like Moanalua, Kamehameha and the surrounding cross-street intersections are plagued with stop-and-go traffic flows and are evident almost daily."
But not all area residents are opposed. Bernard Berbano of Pearl City said the project would help traffic by providing places where people can both live and work without needing to drive to either downtown or to Kapolei.
Planning Director George Atta has recommended approval of the project, subject to a series of conditions that include traffic improvements.
The Aiea Neighborhood Board has not made a recommendation supporting or opposing the project.
