Setting the Record Straight on OHA and Kakaako Makai Development
There is so much misinformation regarding the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ proposal in the Legislature to build residential units on three of our 10 parcels at Kakaako Makai that I want to set the record straight.
OHA鈥檚 vision is to create a vibrant area that will increase public access to the shoreline, surf breaks and park.
We want to have a commercial-retail mix of local eateries, clothing stores, entertainment venues, farmers markets, and other community friendly vendors, supported by affordable leases.
And we want to provide housing for local people, including our Hawaiian beneficiaries and kupuna (seniors).
We intend to open up the Kewalo Basin shoreline and create a promenade from Ala Moana Boulevard to the Point, which would then link to the promenade of Waterfront Park.
We want to see the area thriving with residents, local visitors, and others who enjoy a uniquely Hawaiian experience.
In short, OHA intends not just to be a responsible developer, but to be a Native Hawaiian developer, with all of the values that implies.
OHA is not a greed-driven stockholder organization. We are accountable to over 200,000 Hawaiian beneficiaries who live in Hawaii. OHA would be the first to protest any attempt to turn Kakaako Makai into a place for the rich.
We have struggled for 30 years, 30 legislative sessions, and with four governors for the state to settle its $200 million debt for back rent due on its ceded land properties.
Finally in 2012, although we preferred cash, OHA accepted 30 acres of Kakaako Makai lands.
But a 2006 law prohibits residential use on the OHA parcels and without residential, the land falls far short of the $200 million valuation.
To support OHA鈥檚 vision of a vibrant local community, OHA needs an offsetting revenue strategy.
The key to establishing affordable leases for local businesses is to convert three of the parcels, none of which are on the shoreline, to residential use, because residential yields higher revenue than commercial-retail.
The residential entitlements are important to the realization of a community-based approach to the development of Kakaako Makai.
The irony is that OHA agrees with a lot of what the opposition sees as responsible development because Hawaiians, more than anyone, know the pain of bad and inappropriate development.
It is profoundly sad that while some rage on for open space and public access, Kakaako Makai is one of the most underutilized urban coastal settings in the nation. It is so abandoned of current public use that it has become a haven for the unfortunate colony of homeless families that have located there, drawn to the area because there is so little public use or presence.
There will never be better environmental stewards of Kakaako Makai than OHA.
We have always defended public access from mountain to sea and have been outspoken advocates of sustainable growth.
Now that we are landowners, we intend to practice what we preach.
About the author: Peter Apo is one of nine trustees at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
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