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Four candidates are vying to represent the Honolulu City Council’s Windward district, which stretches from Waimanalo to Heeia and includes Kailua and Kaneohe.

They rank the need for more housing as a high priority. But district residents are also worried about increases in residential density, necessitating a balanced approach for their council representative.

Another key issue in District 3 is poor water quality, which frequently afflicts the area’s beaches, sometimes from the nearby wastewater treatment plant and sometimes because heavy rain washes sediment down the mountains and into the ocean.

David Kauahikaua, Kelsey Nakanelua, Christopher Curren and incumbent council member Esther Kiaaina are on the ballot.

Civil Beat will host a candidates forum in this race Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Kailua High School library.

Curren was not available for an interview, but here’s a look at the other three.

David Kauahikaua

Kauahikaua, a music producer, had been thinking for a while that government was failing to provide for its residents. Bad roads regularly muck up his travel plans, and homelessness doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

“I complain about everything,” he said.

Council members’ controversial 64% pay raise last year left a bad taste in his mouth, and he decided to jump from concerned citizen to candidate after seeing that Kiaaina, the incumbent, was then running unopposed. 

Kauahikaua identified water quality as a key issue. Stormwater collects sediment while flowing toward the ocean, causing brown water advisories in Kailua Bay. And sewage from the wastewater treatment plant has caused bacteria levels to spike beyond what is considered acceptable for human health. 

“It’s gross,” Kauahikaua said.

The city is already working to fix these problems by installing a new filtering system and an ultraviolet device to kill bacteria at the wastewater treatment plant. But progress is slower than Kauahikaua would like, and resources aren’t being allocated in the places that actually need filtering, some residents have said.

“What I’d like to do is talk to people who actually know what they’re doing,” Kauahikaua said. He envisions convening a panel of experts on the topic. He also wants to use this approach to reduce potholes and get more homeless people off the streets and into mental health treatment.

“I don’t claim to know it all — I know people who do,” he said. 

On housing, he agrees with state lawmakers that more affordable units need to be constructed. He thinks these units should remain affordable rather than returning to market price after a few years. 

But like his opponents, he’s wary about allowing this construction throughout the Windward Coast. 

He worries that more units per lot would make street parking more difficult and would change the character of neighborhoods.

And he doesn’t like the trend toward taller buildings in Hawaii.

“Tourists aren’t going to come because it’s so developed and ugly,” he said.

A better way to get more housing units on the market is to crack down on illegal short-term vacation rentals, he said.

Read David Kauahikaua’s Civil Beat Q&A survey here. 

Esther Kiaaina

When Kiaaina was growing up, her father was a civilian in the Navy. This taught her a few things: devotion to service, the importance of national security and the power that emanates from Washington, D.C.

“I just felt that all the answers were eastward — because they were making all the decisions that impacted lives,” she said.

She moved back and forth between Hawaii and Washington, where she served on the staffs of lawmakers including Sen. Daniel Akaka and Rep. Ed Case before being appointed by President Barack Obama as assistant secretary for insular affairs in the Department of the Interior. In Hawaii, she was land asset manager for Kamehameha Schools and served in high positions in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

She imagined having a quiet life after moving from her grandmother’s Westside homestead to Kailua a few years ago.

“I was picturing having a small little hale with miniature goats and ducks and ducklings,” she said.

But she said that people urged her to run for City Council, and so she launched a campaign focusing on her experience.

“If you’re looking for how long someone has lived in Kailua, then I am not your candidate,” she said, adding that voters should consider her long resume of government service and commitment to communities. 

Kiaaina is a self-proclaimed policy wonk. She introduces a large number of measures on the council, including bills that tinker with property tax thresholds to try to bring relief to homeowners whose property values keep climbing. She is hoping to look into a vacant homes tax to discourage people from buying homes as investments.

She also has urged state lawmakers to help the city, including a resolution asking the state to give counties the power to phase out short-term rentals. Another resolution asked the Legislature to not pass a bill that forces counties to allow more housing units on residential lots. 

The Legislature ended up passing both bills. Kiaaina said that she doesn’t currently plan to push for phasing out short-term rentals, but is glad the council has the power to do so. 

And she hopes to satisfy the terms of the housing bill through the council’s revamping of Oahu’s land use ordinance, which regulates everything from density in business districts to how many beehives are allowed on agricultural land. Kiaaina has led council discussions on revamping the land use ordinance for the past few months. 

Among other initiatives, she helped get support , passed a bill — besides filming — at many Windward beaches, and allocated $50 million for affordable housing in this year’s budget. 

During council meetings, she often pushes members of Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration to apply for more federal funds, and she pushed for creation of a position that focuses on that. 

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are two key federal programs that have tons and tons of money in it. And we deserve those funds,” she said.

Kelsey Nakanelua

Nakanelua wanted to continue serving the public after retiring from the Navy earlier this year. Elected office seemed like a good challenge because doing the job well requires a broad knowledge base and high moral standards.

“To me, that’s very appealing,” he said.

Housing and the cost of living are his top priorities, followed by environmental concerns related to stormwater and wastewater polluting the ocean. 

Nakanelua thinks foreign investors are drawn to Honolulu’s real estate because of low property tax rates. 

“People get mad at the foreign investors,” he said. “No. Get mad at your government officials. Put me in the county, I will raise the heck out of that thing.”

He places a strong emphasis on policy that gives perks to residents. In his vision, residents wouldn’t be subject to high property taxes and could own two houses with no penalty, one to reside in and the other to rent out for extra income. Nakanelua also wants to lower the minimum length of stay for short-term rentals. 

Currently, the minimum is 30 days, and he thinks seven days would be better so that people in the military who transfer to Oahu can more easily find a place to stay as they look for long-term housing. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the minimum length of stay is 60 days and that Nakanelua wants to lower it to 30.

To encourage the building of affordable housing, council members can approve giving perks to developers in the form of slashed fees and zoning exemptions. 

Kiaaina and council member Calvin Say have used this power to negotiate with developers for things like shorter buildings and a higher percentage of the units being affordable. 

Nakanelua said that it’s difficult to say how he would handle these developments because they vary case-by-case, but that he would be much more willing to negotiate with local small-time developers than with big names from out of state. 

On homelessness, Nakanelua finds it encouraging that the number of homeless people on Oahu is lower now at than it was in 2016, when it was . He supports building more shelter space on the outskirts of the district near Bellows Air Force Station, and more tiny home villages like the kauhale that Gov. Josh Green has placed around the state. 

And while the city waits for its UV disinfection system to be installed at the Kailua Wastewater Treatment Plant, Nakanelua said that he would push the Department of Health to approve a different sanitation technique.

A Look At The Money 

Incumbents are often difficult to beat, and Kiaaina reported having more than $90,000 in her campaign account as of the end of June. Kauahikaua, by comparison, reported having just over $817 in his campaign account. 

Nakanelua and Curren had not uploaded their reports by Thursday afternoon.

Nakanelua said he welcomes the challenge of facing a well-financed incumbent.

“I’m competitive,” he said, referencing his career as a former Olympic track runner. “So you put me in a race against three or four people, I want to win.”