The Kailua community has recently found itself in heated controversy. Ahe Group wants to construct a 50-foot-tall, 73-unit apartment building on a lot where seven small houses currently sit. A building that size would normally be constructed on parcels zoned apartment, mixed-used or commercial. However, the developer thinks Coconut Grove, one of Kailua’s oldest residential neighborhoods, needs a 50-foot-tall rental apartment building.
This has the Kailua community calling foul. If individuals must follow the zoning laws on their property, the developer must adhere to the same laws.
Constructing an apartment building on a residentially zoned lot usually requires extensive public hearings to rezone the property for apartments. However, if the project is “an affordable housing project” under HRS 201H-38, the developer does not have to adhere to any zoning laws, nor conduct an environmental impact statement. This is concerning, as the intended site sits 1,500 feet away from the Hamakua-Kawainui Marsh complex that is:
>> A state-protected wildlife sanctuary.
>> Listed as a RAMSAR Wetland of International Importance, the only such site in Hawaii.
>> A site that contains numerous Hawaiian cultural resources and historical artifacts. Areas around the marsh contain some of the oldest-recorded sites of human habitation in Hawaii and are therefore significant areas of Hawaiian history.
>> Home to at least five endangered and/or endemic water birds: the Hawaiian stilt (ae’o), Hawaiian coot (‘alae ke‘oke‘o), Hawaiian moorhen (‘alae‘ula), Hawaiian duck (koloa maoli) and the black-crowned night heron (auku‘u).
Kailua also experiences wedge-tailed shearwater fallout during fledgling season. The young seabirds become disoriented by nighttime lights and fly inland instead of out to sea.
Constructing a large building near the marsh and the nighttime light pollution from the building may pose a hazard to Kailua’s protected wildlife. Combined with its location at a busy corner on a major thoroughfare, the community and the Kailua Neighborhood Board insist this not the right location for the project.
Moreover, the community is concerned that the project sets a dangerous precedent for the intrusion of more apartment buildings into residential areas.
If Ahe Group stayed within the zoning laws for the parcel, kept the buildings under the residential 25 feet, maintained the appropriate setbacks and greenspace and provided adequate on-site resident and guest parking, the community might support its efforts. When Ahe said it was going up 50 feet and seeking seven building exemptions to fit 73 units in an area that should have no more than eight homes, that is when the community said enough is enough.
Over the years, the small community of Kailua has experienced mounting pressure to become an elite tourist destination. Thousands of tourists bused in by tour companies flood its streets, beaches, hiking trails and stores. The town’s main source of affordable rentals was demolished, and luxury condominiums were built in their place. Investors snap up older homes in prime areas, build huge mansions and turn them into illegal vacation rentals. These pressures leave local families feeling squeezed out of homes they have owned for decades.
To address many of these issues, Kailua, along with the other Windward communities in the Koolau Poko area (from Waimanalo to Waiahole and Waikane) codified a vision for their communities until the year 2035. Titled the Koolaupoko Sustainable Communities Plan (KSCUP) it is a bottom-up, community-driven planning document on file with the city that provides guidance to avoid these kinds of conflicts.
The project proposed by Ahe Group does not adhere to the guidelines set forth in the KSCUP. This is not NIMBYism. It is grassroots, community-driven self-determination.
Lea Hollingsworth-Ramsey, a Kailua resident for 45 years, has a degree in marine biology and is a former National Science Foundation gradu-ate research fellow.
