Overwhelming community opposition to a planned four-story low-income apartment building on the edge of a single-family neighborhood in Kailua appears to have sunk the controversial project.

A Honolulu City Council committee voted 3-2 Friday in favor of the plan, which needs zoning exemptions and would produce 73 apartments with monthly rent as low as $521.

But three of the Council’s nine other members said Friday they will vote against the project at a scheduled meeting Wednesday where a final decision needs to be made to avoid an automatic approval.

If no positions change, there would be at least five votes against the plan that has been the subject of picketing, a petition and fears of community destruction raised by project detractors who have clashed with affordable-housing proponents and other project supporters that include some Kailua residents and the city Department of Planning and Permitting.

The Council’s Zoning, Planning and Housing Committee heard five hours of virtual public testimony Friday that followed four hours of testimony last week.

Ron Menor, the committee’s chairman, attempted to make the project more palatable by recommending conditions that included screening the building with greenery and giving Kailua residents a preference to rent units in the Kawainui Street Apartments project proposed by Kailua-based Ahe Group.

Menor recommended approving the project because of Honolulu’s dire need for affordable housing, and he was supported on those grounds by fellow committee members Joey Manahan and Brandon Elefante.

“We are in a housing crisis,” Manahan said.

Council members Tommy Waters and Ann Kobayashi, the committee’s other members, voted against the project because of negative community impacts.

“I cherish these old neighborhoods,” Kobayashi said.

Waters called Kailua a special place. “This is a beach community, and people want it to remain that way,” he said.

Three other Council members, Ikaika Anderson, Kymberly Pine and Heidi Tsuneyoshi, listened to the meeting and said they will vote against the project Wednesday.

Anderson, who represents Kailua, said he believes the project is good and can work at its proposed location on the edge of the Coconut Grove neighborhood across the street from an auto parts store, a gas station and a 7-Eleven store leading to Kailua’s commercial core.

Yet Anderson said he was elected to represent constituents of his district and therefore could not vote his personal preference.

“I can’t ignore the community’s request to me to stand with them and vote this project down,” he said.

Pine said Wednesday’s vote will be the first for her against an affordable- housing project seeking zoning exemptions under a state law that allows them.

“When we build an apartment in a residential zone next to grandma’s house, there’s something wrong with that,” she said.

Tsuneyoshi said opponents from Kailua raised too many concerns, which included impacts on traffic, street parking, views and neighborhood character.

“The outcry that we’ve heard from the community is so substantially overwhelming that we really should be taking heed to that,” she said.

Before the vote, some opponents emphasized that they support low-income affordable housing in Kailua conforming with zoning rules, though there was also some sentiment expressed that Kailua shouldn’t have any apartment buildings.

“We do not need an apartment building on this street or anywhere else in Kailua,” said Charlotte Akana, who lives four blocks from the project’s site at Kawainui and Oneawa streets.

Raelynn Broad-Kela, 24-year Kailua homeowner, said allowing Ahe Group to build a “monster building” would destroy Kailua.

Ralph Furley, who has lived in Kailua over 30 years, equated Ahe’s plan with squeezing an Empire State Building into a residential area. “This is not right,” he said.

Bill Hicks, chairman of the Kailua Neighborhood Board that voted 17-0 to oppose the project in July after receiving testimony that was 80% against the developer’s plan, said Ahe Group was trying to “fit a square peg into a round hole.”

Pualani Todd, who was born and raised in Coconut Grove, accused the developer of lacking empathy for the community. “We don’t want to live in a concrete jungle,” she told the Council committee. “Please keep the character of our community.”

Project supporters included state Sen. Laura Thielen, who represents Kailua and said little affordable housing exists in the community where a beach lot recently sold for $10.5 million.

“We need this housing,” she said. “This is really not out of line with this town. The height is permitted across the street.”

Another Laura Thielen, executive director of Partners in Care, said only one of 148 affordable-housing projects on Oahu is in Kailua and that the project built in 1992 has 10-year wait list.

“Our community desperately needs some affordable housing available in the Kailua area,” she said.

Marianne Whiting, a 25-year Kailua resident, said the developer addressed concerns and would produce badly needed affordable housing.

“It is not in the middle of a residential area,” she told the committee. “Please have the courage to support this project.”

DPP, in an Aug. 12 report, recommended project approval after receiving over 200 emails opposing the plan and 20 expressing support.

The agency said the developer’s requested exemptions to height and density limits were appropriate considering the site at the edge of Kailua’s downtown area and a building design that breaks up bulk and reduces visual impacts with features that include a three-story section, varying facade materials, articulated windows and landscaping.

“In all, the DPP does not have any concerns with the requested exemptions related to density of the project because they help realize the development of much needed affordable housing in an area where affordable and supportive housing demand is exceedingly high and explicitly desired by the (Koolaupoko Sustainable Communities Plan).”

Ahe Group sought zoning exemptions under a state law allowing them for projects mainly serving low- income households.

Ahe proposed maintaining affordable rents for 61 years, and projected initial monthly rental rates from $521 to $1,412 for 68 affordable units with one or two bedrooms. Four units would be rented at close to market rates and one reserved for a manager.

Of the 68 units, 54 would be reserved for households earning no more than 60% of the median income in Honolulu, which equates to $50,640 for a single person, $57,840 for a couple and $72,300 for a family of four.

Seven units would be for households earning up to 50% of the median income, and seven units would be for households earning up to 30% of the median income.

Ahe owns the nearly 1-acre project site occupied by seven single-family homes, and aimed to obtain state financing to help with the estimated $37 million plan.