The state agency regulating development in Kakaako would be directed by fewer representatives of the governor under the lone surviving bill aimed at reforming the Hawaii Community Development Authority this year.
Members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee passed an amended version of House Bill 1866 last week 13-0. If House leaders agree, the bill could be voted upon by the full House and Senate, and if approved would put Gov. Neil Abercrombie in an interesting position.
Abercrombie, before he became governor, had been an opponent of HCDA for more than 30 years and criticized the agency as an organ of the governor. However, as the state’s chief executive, he has endorsed the agency and its mission fostering dense high-rise development in an area Abercrombie views as becoming Oahu’s "third city."
Besides board composition, HB 1866 would make several changes to the agency in the area of public hearing notices and procedures, and freeze Kakaako’s height limit at its existing roughly 400-foot level.
Abercrombie and HCDA have proposed building towers as high as 650 feet.
State Rep. Scott Saiki (D, Downtown-Kakaako-McCully) said the latest version of the bill reflects compromises that have made HB 1866 in his view acceptable to many agency critics as well as developers regulated by HCDA.
"There was give-and-take on all sides," Saiki said. "I think it’s a good bill. I think there’s broad support for it."
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REFORMING AN AGENCY
House Bill 1866 would make several changes to the agency governing development in Kakaako, including:
» Reconstituting the agency’s board.
» Prohibiting towers over 418 feet.
» Holding a separate hearing on development rule deviations.
» Expanding public-hearing notice distribution.
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Saiki, who is House majority leader, said he hopes House members will accept the Senate’s version and avoid sending the bill to a conference committee to hash out any differences. That decision is expected at the end of the week.
HB 1866 is the last opportunity this year for lawmakers to respond to community complaints that HCDA has recently approved too many high-rise projects without enough regard to resident concerns over impacts on traffic, sewers, schools and views.
Some HCDA opponents — many of whom live in condominium towers adjacent to sites recently approved for new towers — have expressed disappointment that other bills proposing more drastic measures did not survive. Some of those measures included abolishing the agency, imposing a moratorium on tower development permits and creating wider separation between new and existing towers.
Manoa resident Jeremy Lam told lawmakers in written testimony that HCDA’s power needed to be curtailed.
"I was very disappointed that so many bills to reign (sic) in their power died along the way this year," he said.
"The Legislature needed to make a strong statement regarding the arrogance of power and their ignoring of the public will. They easily grant variances and rubberstamp every developer and we have little recourse."
However, Lam and other advocates of reforming HCDA have praised the move to overhaul the agency’s board, which is often criticized as being too heavily weighted with gubernatorial representatives.
Currently, the governor has sole discretion picking six of the agency’s nine members overseeing land development in Kakaako. Four of those members are state department directors or their designees. The other two are an at-large representative and a cultural specialist representative. Three others on the board are selected by the governor from a list or lists of candidates recommended by the City Council.
Under HB 1866 the governor’s sole discretion naming HCDA board members would be reduced to a minority — two Cabinet members, the at-large pick and the cultural representative.
The president of the Senate and the speaker of the House would submit their own lists of candidates for two seats to be selected by the governor under the bill.
The bill would also make the director of the City Department of Planning and Permitting a nonvoting 10th board member.
This proposed new slate of HCDA directors would be installed by March 1, with the governor required to make appointments by Jan. 29.
Dexter Okada, a former HCDA board member selected from a City Council list of nominees, testified in favor of adding the city Planning Department representative and reducing the governor’s influence.
"HCDA resembles more of a governor’s cabinet department then a semi-autonomous state agency," he said in written testimony. "HCDA cannot help but follow the direction of the governor’s office."
Another grievance of HCDA critics had been that the agency was approving too many developer requests to deviate from rules.
HB 1866 would require that a separate public hearing on such requests be held.
In an aim to better inform Kakaako residents of HCDA hearings on development projects valued over $250,000, the bill requires that public notices of such hearings be sent to all property owners and lessees within 300 feet of a site proposed for development. Currently, HCDA aims to notify all Kakaako residents but sends hearing notices to building owner associations instead of all individual condo owners.
Another part of the bill specifies the procedure for how the public can challenge development permits through a contested-case process that previously was difficult to discern from HCDA rules and statutes.
Under HB 1866 anyone wishing to challenge a permit as an intervener with rights that include calling expert witnesses and cross-examining developer representatives must file a petition to do so within 20 days of the public notice on a development permit.
HCDA converted its public-hearing procedure to a contested-case format in February and since then has included information on intervening in its public-hearing notices, though the petition deadline was 14 days.
Saiki said the clear contested-case procedure will give the public a bigger role in the outcome of development permits that some felt were decided with little regard to public testimony limited to three minutes per person without being able to ask questions.
Grace Ishihara, who bought a condo in Royal Capitol Plaza early last year, testified against a developer’s plan to build a condo tower called 801 South St. Tower B parallel to her building.
But she said it appeared that HCDA ignored concerns that she raised along with other neighbors.
"They ran us over with a power shovel, scooped up the community and threw us aside," Ishihara said in written testimony on HB 1866.
Mollie Foti submitted written testimony calling the bill essential for allowing citizen input and putting some restraints on developers.
"The Hawaii Community Development Authority under current rules is an agency run amok," she said.
