After receiving no objections from the city, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s plan to condemn one family’s industrially zoned property in Kalihi can now move forward in order to complete the nearly $10 billion rail line as designed.

On May 23, HART sent a notice to the City Council regarding its intentions to seize by eminent domain the property at 1829 Dillingham Blvd., despite its owners’ objections.

According to the city Department of Corporation Counsel, the rail agency — in the wake of a vote by its board of directors in late April — has the right under the City Charter to proceed with condemnations so long as the Council does not adopt a resolution objecting to the action within 45 days of the notification.

That 45-day window for the Council to object expired July 7, as the nine-member panel took no formal action to block the property’s condemnation, the city says.

Now the matter is expected to return to HART’s board of directors for a vote to acquire the property by eminent domain, the city says. The rail agency’s next board meeting is scheduled for July 20, though no agenda for that meeting has been posted yet.

This week, HART declined to confirm the meeting’s agenda or future actions for this planned eminent domain.

Owned by the Takara family, the 7,855-square-foot parcel, at the southeast corner of Mokauea Street and Dillingham Boulevard, is also home to Service Printers Hawaii Inc., a commercial printer in business since 1964. The full property’s total assessed value is approximately $2.9 million, according to the city’s Real Property Assessment Division.

Walter Takara, one of the owner’s sons, objected to HART’s effort to take his family’s property.

“Reason No. 1, this property has been in our family for three generations with a very rare, fortunate case of having just one tenant for 43 years in Service Printers Inc.,” Takara told HART’s Government Affairs-Legal Matters Committee on April 13. “Throughout these years we have built a great relationship, and Service Printers has proved to be an outstanding business member serving the greater Kalihi community and customers islandwide.”

Takara said Service Printers employs 30 and has “a multitude” of vendors.

Previously, rail staff laid out HART’s planned eminent domain after the agency said it had sought a financial agreement with the Takara family since 2014.

In that year, HART said it presented an acquisition offer to the property’s named owner — Jennine Hatsue Takara — for the parcel’s full acquisition.

That offer, however, was rejected.

Subsequently, a partial acquisition was pursued whereby the rail agency would acquire a portion of the property. A portion of the adjacent property would be sold to the owner to replace lost parking and office space, HART says.

Over the years, the agency said it negotiated terms of the partial acquisition with the owner.

But in 2020, HART asserted the owner asked it to explore the possibility of purchasing the full property. HART reports state the “full fee acquisition was determined to be necessary to meet the needs of the project.”

In 2022, HART said the Federal Transit Administration provided environmental clearance to acquire the full property, and by December a written offer was again provided to the owner.

“To date the owner has not provided a response or counter-offer to HART,” the rail agency’s reports state. “In order to adhere to the project construction schedule, it is necessary to refer the property to condemnation.”

Meantime, HART officials claimed efforts would be made to continue negotiations with the owner even as it recommended approval of a resolution toward the condemnation action — known as Resolution 4.

On April 13, Walter Takara told the agency’s committee that an agreeable solution to all parties had once been on the table.

That agreement, he said, would see HART acquire only a piece of his family’s land — along the frontage of the building facing Dillingham Boulevard, which would then be demolished. HART was to then sell to his family “a similar-­sized, empty, undeveloped dirt lot” adjacent to their property on the Diamond Head side — owned by HART — to replace the lost square footage on Dillingham Boulevard, Takara said.

That plan, he added, would see HART build new office spaces on the empty lot as well as maintain “a perpetual driveway easement” to the new office’s parking lot.

To that, board member Michele Chun Brunngraber said she was led to believe the Takara family agreed to sell the whole property to HART in 2020.

In response, Takara said, “That was not the case. Our position has been steadfast. …That’s why I’m here today, to make sure our voices are heard … and preserve Service Printers going forward.”

But Nate Meddings, the rail project’s director, said any further delay in acquiring this property would increase the rail project’s expenses, as currently designed. He added such delays to the entire project amount to $10 million to $12 million per month in overhead costs.

Although Takara eventually said his family would continue to talk with HART, the committee on April 13 — and later, with the agency’s full board on April 27 — would vote to approve Resolution 4. An amendment to that resolution also states that “HART continue its efforts to negotiate a settlement with the parties.”

Meanwhile, another rail-related eminent domain action awaits a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling.

On June 29, the state’s high court heard 90 minutes of oral arguments over a years-long dispute involving the construction of a planned rail station within real estate developer Howard Hughes Corp.’s 60-acre master-­planned property known as Ward Village in Kakaako.

The case, previously litigated in Circuit Court, concerns the Texas-based developer, doing business here as Victoria Ward Ltd., and HART’s 2018 condemnation of about 2 acres containing roughly 25 parcels owned by the developer — from Cooke to Kamakee streets — for rail’s initial route to Ala Moana Center.

But to cut down the project’s over $12.45 billion cost, Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration in 2022 truncated the rail project to the planned Civic Center station on Halekauwila Street.

A ruling in this state Supreme Court case could take months to decide. And once a decision is rendered, the matter is expected to return to Circuit Court for a future jury trial.