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In numerous op-eds throughout local journalism and social media, people have been weighing in on Kakaako Makai. The spark that lit the debate is Hakuone, OHA’s desire to build three high-rises on three parcels it owns in Kakaako Makai.

The opponents of Hakuone have fallen back on tried and true NIMBY dog whistles: view-planes, “open shorelines,” “protecting” the land, access to surf spots, the fact that we did something before and we should therefore never, ever, ever change.

There are some new dog whistles, too: “fresh air” for people on shore — yes, seriously, someone actually claimed buildings in Kakaako Makai will eliminate “fresh air” for people in Kakaako Mauka.

Hakuone supporters have argued that we need more “affordable housing” and that OHA “deserves” this land as reparations for the overthrow. Indeed, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is so obsessed with its ineffective woe-is-me victim argument over “settlement” valuations that it seems OHA is more interested in making noise about Native Hawaiian victimhood than in actually building homes in Kakaako Makai. 

Everyone is missing the point. The point is that Kakaako Makai should be fully developed with high-rises because developing Kakaako Makai with high-rises is a good idea, period.

The reason it is a good idea does not have anything to do with the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It has everything to do with the fact that population growth is a good thing and Kakaako Makai is in the middle of the urban core, making it a perfect spot for development.

For starters, if you are trying to solve a housing crisis, you need to build houses. Even has been proven to reduce prices because rich people move into expensive homes, and free up space for lower-income people to move into their former homes (google “migration chains”).

Outside investors are always getting attacked as the bogeyman, but in reality it is just the lack of homes that is causing homes to be expensive. Kakaako Makai is a perfect anecdote for our entire absurd housing debate: we literally made housing “illegal” and now everyone is shocked, shocked that housing is expensive.

It should also be noted that luxury condos bring in vast amounts of property tax revenue while putting very little strain on our public infrastructure, which reduces the need to increase taxes and gives us the ability to expand roads, develop new water sources, and expand sewer capacity while reducing the per-person cost of doing so.

If you have any doubts, I point you to the property taxes paid by owners of Park Lane units, the fanciest development in Hawaii (google “qpublic honolulu” and navigate to the “GIS Map” tab).

Last year, Park Lane paid $52,000:

paid $27,000 last year. paid $13,000.  There are 219 units in Park Lane. The median property tax payment amount . In other words the “poorest” unit in Park Lane pays five times the amount of property tax most of us pay.

Despite OHA’s ineffective campaigning, there is a reason to let OHA complete the development. If OHA is helped to build a successful development, OHA can profit which means taxpayers will not have to allocate as much money to OHA from the general fund.

It is unfortunate that OHA is fighting this battle alone when they should have teamed up with Kamehamhea Schools, the city, the state, and the University of Hawaii (the other landowners in Kakaako Makai) to jointly redevelop the entire area.

It is also worth mentioning that all of the NIMBY dog whistle’s mentioned above are based on fear-mongering. It is easy to create a development plan that provides public parking, public space, and surfing access. OHA has already done that, and it could be done even better if all Kakaako Makai landowners could work together.

Moreover, as patriots, population growth should matter to us. We find ourselves today at a bit of an historical inflection point where the idea of democracy is poised for a head-to-head competition with autocracy to determine which type of government produces better outcomes for humanity.

Our biggest disadvantage with respect to our biggest adversary, China under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, is that our population is so much smaller: 330 million versus 1 billion.

As Matthew Yglesias explains in his 2020 Book “One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger,” even just a moderate rise in income per capita in China would result in China overtaking us as the world economic superpower because China multiplies by 1 billion.

All elected politicians seem to want the United States to remain the most powerful country on earth, but the reality is that if our population does not start growing faster we will be crushed by the CCP, even if China only grows a moderate amount.

Building more homes, especially in dense, highly productive urban cores like Honolulu, is a key policy change that needs to happen across the nation to succeed in this competition.

Cheeeeehooo!

— Sam King (@Kingsam2)

It is time to let go of our reflexive NIMBYism and embrace housing growth.  We did it once, when the Democratic party took over Hawaii and wanted housing for all its union members in the 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, once those members got their houses, the Democrats slammed the housing door shut.

We need to bring back that can-do YIMBYism, follow Sen. Brian Schatz’s lead with his , and build more houses. Kakaako Makai is a great place to start.