Futuristic dreaming used to involves a lot of airy, skyborne images. Picture jet packs and all those iconic depictions from a half-century ago.

When the redevelopment of Kakaako first became a state project in 1976, with the creation of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, there was a bit of that fanciful thinking happening, Anthony Ching recalled.

"We started out in ’76 with superblocks, condos connected by elevated walkways," said Ching, HCDA executive director. "Then we shifted to a more contemporary version, still superblocks, with concepts like ‘park on parking garage.’"

Well, forget about all that. The vision for Kakaako is now multidimensional, but in some important ways, it’s come down to Earth.

"We’re trying to shift it to less of the city in the sky and we’re trying to add more community-like features," he said. "We want to make compact neighborhoods, and we’re emphasizing the public realm — that interface-with-the-public realm, the sidewalks and the streets — with the built environment."

But even with a more grounded vision in place, as well as implementing rules, there’s a great distance between the artist’s renderings and the reality, especially in a district where large landowners and developers hold a lot of the investment capital and a good percentage of the influence.

The area that falls within the agency’s regulatory control is a large piece of the Honolulu waterfront and extends up to King Street to include Thomas Square and part of the old Sheridan tract of homes. It’s planned in two large segments, governed by separate rules: Kakaako Makai, in the area of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, meant to offer more public facilties for education, recreation and culture; and Kakaako Mauka, to be dominated by residential zones of varying densities as well as commercial activity.

This general concept itself is a bit of a moving target. A proposal to settle the back debt owed by the state to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs — a share of revenues from former Hawaiian kingdom and government property known as "ceded lands" — was just approved by the Legislature on Friday. Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who helped broker the settlement, is on track to sign it.

That accord includes some land in Kakaako Makai, where OHA hopes to build its permanent headquarters. However, the Hawaiian agency, which directs ceded lands revenue to a trust fund for the benefit of Native Hawaiians, hopes to leverage its property wealth with some residential development, currently barred in Kakaako Makai.

A bill to achieve that residential exemption, Senate Bill 682, had been moving through the Legislature but stalled late last week. Some community groups active in the Kakaako planning process are watching the bill with concern. One such group is Friends of Kewalos (Kewalo, mauka and makai quadrants, is the actual name of the entire district overseen by HCDA). Its president is Ron Iwami, and he fears the precedent that an exemption for OHA might set.

"Another Waikiki in the making?" Iwami mused in a commentary published last Sunday in the Star-Advertiser. "It is too late for Waikiki, but not too late for Kakaako Makai."

Stuart Coleman, an environmental consultant living in McCully, was involved in a previous battle to stop luxury condos from being built on oceanfront Kakaako land.

"The Legislature did the right thing in passing a law to ban residential development in this area, and it seems senseless to go against your own rules and make exemptions now," Coleman told lawmakers in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

Among the other wrinkles in the Kakaako vision: OliverMcMillan, developer of a proposed tower project dubbed Symphony, has asked HCDA for a variance from one of its development rules for the mauka zone. Those rules sought to avoid creating Manhattan-style skyscraper "canyons" on either side of streets by directing developers to design buildings oriented on an angle, rather than positioning its long side parallel to streets, as OliverMcMillan wants to do. The reasons cited by the firm for the request include the desire to control energy costs by avoiding the brunt of the sunlight in the west, and avoiding placement of the building over the wet underground springs known as an "alluvial channel."

Ching said the proposal avoids creating the "canyon" effect because it is set back a good distance from Kapiolani Boulevard, avoiding giving the feeling of being hemmed in. The HCDA board is still reviewing the proposal, he said.

"We’re obliged to be objective," he said. "We’re not going to put together our rules and then suffer from guys thumbing their nose at the rules.

"We have certain objectives we have to keep," Ching added. "If you want a variance, you have to give me why it’s a unique problem, unique to that site, why you have to do it that way."

Finally, there’s HCDA’s own proposal, the mixed-income highrise complex the agency calls 690 Pohukaina. It includes affordable units for purchase and rent, as well as market-priced condos.

But what startled the community when HCDA unveiled the plan Oct. 26 was that the principal tower on the block was proposed at a height of 650 feet, well above the existing 400-foot limit.

The project has the imprimatur of Abercrombie, who told Star-Advertiser writer Derrick DePledge that greater urban density in select areas could help diminish the risk of urban sprawl.

About a week ago, Abercrombie underscored his support for Pohukaina and for the urban-village concept for Kakaako in an address to various landowners, planners and venture capitalists at the Plaza Club.

Ching’s hope is that the governor’s support is an important step toward changing the way the general population views a more urban approach to city development.

Part of that, he said, is to disabuse people of the notion that a redeveloped Kakaako will be uniformly highrise, or that the existing neighborhood characteristics will be wholly paved over. That is precisely counter to what Kakaako Mauka rules aim to achieve.

The area has been sectioned into neighborhoods: Sheridan, Thomas Square, Kapiolani, Central Kakaako, Auahi (primarily the Ward Centers area), Pauahi (the Kamehameha Schools holdings) and Civic Center.

The focus of the high-rise density will be primarily the Auahi Kapiolani and Pauahi neighbor- hoods, whereas an area like Sheridan will be largely low-rise, old-style residential. A lot of the quirky character of light-industrial Central Kakaako — business frontages with parking, for example — should be a feature of that neighborhood’s facelift, he said.

"Even if it’s illegal — they’re parking cars in the public right-of way — we’re recognizing that that’s an existing frontage," Ching said. "What we’re doing is trying to emphasize, reinforce, existing character of neighborhoods."

Getting across the vision for Kakaako is a challenge, he said, one that is not always neatly fulfilled through conventional public hearings, Ching said. HCDA has begun a series of brown-bag discussions on the how to Kakaako vision should be realized. The next one of these — invited are representatives of Kakaako landowners, planning and architectural professions and community groups such as Sierra Club and the Outdoor Circle — is set for this Thursday.

Ching wants to use social media to bring more varied public voices into the discussion, people who don’t often attend face-to-face hearings and may have opinions to add to the mix.

That, he said, is the only way to make sure Kakaako doesn’t develop as a "haven for empty nesters who sold their house in Kailua and could come over here and buy a Hokua lot," a reference to the upscale Hokua condominium at Ala Moana and Auahi Street.

There needs to be rentals for families who can’t manage a down payment on even a supposedly "affordable" apartment so that Kakaako can be a diverse community.

The 690 Pohukaina project is the state’s own contribution to the "transit-oriented development" that’s anticipated along the proposed Honolulu rail route, he said, but it still makes sense even if that project never comes to pass.

"The whole thrust of our rules is that it recognizes that the urban core is not just highrise community, that there are existing neighborhoods."

"Where the state has opportunity, then we should look to promoting its vision. And the vision is egalitarian. It’s rich and diverse housing opportunities, for rent, for sale, affordable," he said. "It’s a mix."