A bid by the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs to permit residential development on land it owns in Kakaako Makai has been blocked at the Legislature.

Backers of a bill to relax a 2006 ban on residential use in the area are declaring the legislation dead after a pair of Senate committees elected not to make a decision on the measure Friday, making it all but certain that Senate Bill 736 will not cross over to the House of Representatives by a Thursday deadline.

Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee and a supporter of allowing OHA to develop housing on its Kakaako Makai real estate, said decision-making on the bill by his committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee was canceled because it was clear that leadership in the House had no intention of passing the bill.

Dela Cruz (D, Mililani-­Wahiawa-Whitmore Village) did keep alive a $65 million appropriation proposed in SB 736 for OHA to fix a Kakaako Makai wharf area by adding it to another bill, SB 1235, along with $6 million for the agency to produce an environmental impact study needed to proceed with nonresidential development in the area where building heights top out at 200 feet.

The failing of SB 736, which passed two initial Senate committees in February and also proposed to roughly double maximum building height and density on three of OHA’s nine lots, represents the fourth time in just over a decade that OHA has unsuccessfully tried to convince lawmakers to allow residential development on some or all of 31 acres the agency owns makai of Ala Moana Boulevard in Kakaako, which includes three parcels fronting the thoroughfare and almost the entire Ewa waterfront edge of Kewalo Harbor.

This year OHA made its biggest push ever to get the residential development ban relaxed, as the agency ran TV commercials and conducted opinion polling as part of an effort that also included presenting a conceptual master plan for much of the area and working with a team of private consultants.

OHA also commissioned a new real estate appraisal that the agency said puts the value of its Kakaako Makai land at way below $100 million. The new appraisal, according to OHA, represents a more thorough assessment that includes deferred maintenance and hazardous materials conditions.

The agency agreed to receive ownership of the lands in 2012 from the state in lieu of $200 million the state owed OHA for unpaid ceded-­land revenue. At that time, appraisals by the state and OHA agreed that the lands were worth about $200 million, though OHA later claimed that its original appraisal wasn’t an optimal assessment given time pressures to accept the state’s settlement offer.

Allowing residential use of OHA’s Kakaako Makai property would boost income that the organization can earn from the land, which it then can use to benefit Hawaiians through programs, while also providing a mix of affordable and market-­priced housing for the general public, including Hawaiians.

Residential development has been banned in Kakaako Makai since 2006 in response to community members objecting to a development plan selected in 2005 by the Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency that previously owned much of the man-made Kakaako peninsula and aimed to turn 36.5 acres of gritty property including warehouses, base yards and ship repair facilities into more of a public gathering place with housing, retail, recreation and other uses.

A proposal from local development firm Alexander &Baldwin Inc. was selected in a competitive bid process and 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 harbor channel.

Opponents of A&B’s plan, in which the company offered to pay the state $50 million for the 7.5-acre inland lot slated for residential use plus a cut of condo sale proceeds, objected in large part to private use of public land.

Many longtime opponents of residential development in Kakaako Makai mounted a strong campaign this year to oppose OHA’s plan, hosting rallies, starting a petition and encouraging input at the Legislature partly based on the notion that residential development would impede the public’s use of the waterfront where several surf breaks front the city’s 30-acre Kakaako Waterfront Park.

“The residential towers, if allowed to be built, will alter public access to the ocean,” Ron Iwami, president of the community group Friends of Kewalos, said in written testimony on the bill.

Fredrick Patacchia Jr. told lawmakers in written testimony that permitting housing in the area would “destroy our local surf and beach culture.”

Sheena Crail, a regular surfer in the area, said in a Friends of Kewalos video, “It will definitely impede on our access to the beautiful beaches. … It will definitely change the environment.”

OHA and some of its supporters who testified in favor of SB 736 bristled at such claims, saying that the organization established to improve conditions for Native Hawaiians would not degrade public access or use of the waterfront.

Karl Baker, a Native Hawaiian, told lawmakers that claims about OHA blocking public waterfront access are detestable and insincere.

“When I hear it, I know these people are not serious and there are alternative motives,” he said in written testimony.

OHA CEO Casey Brown said last week on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program that the organization’s conceptual plan, dubbed Hakuone, has a waterfront pedestrian promenade and 11 public access points along Kewalo Harbor included in 10 acres of planned open space.

“We’re not going to touch the oceanfront for housing,” he said.

OHA has previously said it only intends to develop housing on three inland parcels.

Carmen Hulu Lindsey, chair of OHA’s board of trustees, said on the March 3 “Spotlight” episode that she believes some opponents of SB 736 want to preserve their relatively uncrowded use of the area.

Brown suggested that OHA will try to move forward with some of the commercial and cultural elements in its conceptual plan, including a Hawaiian cultural center, while preserving future redevelopment options for the three parcels targeted for residential use.