The Committee on Zoning and Planning met on Thursday, April 30, 2026, at 9:02 a.m. to consider three action items and receive an informational briefing on post-storm recovery efforts. The meeting was chaired by Councilmember Kia Aina, with members Cordero, Okimoto, Tupola, and Dos Santos Tam present; Vice Chair Waters arrived later. All action items were approved unanimously.
Aloha and good morning, everyone. It is Thursday, April 30th, 2026, and the time is now 902 a.m. with a committee on zoning and planning meeting. Please come to order. I'd like to welcome the following committee members. Councilmember Cordero, Councilmember Okimoto, Councilmember Topola, and welcome Councilmember Dos Santos TAM. I understand Vice Chair Waters should be coming shortly. Although remote verbal testimony is being permitted, this is a regular in-person meeting and not a remote meeting by interactive conference technology under HRS section 92-3.7. Therefore, the meeting will continue notwithstanding the loss of audiovisual communication with remote testifiers or loss of the public broadcast of the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide verbal testimony on all items on the agenda when each item is taken up in two ways in person in the council and remotely via video conference or phone. Before testifying, each person shall state their name for the record. Each speaker may not have anyone else read their statement and will be limited to a one-minute presentation per item. All persons who register to testify in person would be called upon first. Persons who did not register will be given an opportunity to offer testimony after the registered testifiers. Once in-person testimony has concluded, I will proceed to the remote testifiers. When I call your name or the last three digits of your phone number, please follow the prompts to unmute. As both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii, pursuant to Article 15, Section 4 of the Hawaii State Constitution and Section 113 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes. Members of the public may testify in either language. As a courtesy, please turn off or silence all cell phones for the duration of this meeting. Moving to agenda item number one for action, resolution 25-39. This resolution directs the director of planning and permitting and the planning commission to process a council initiated land use ordinance amendment to increase maximum density in the BMX 4 district. For your information, a summary of the amendments is listed on the agenda. Provided that for buildings that exceed 350 feet in height, certain requirements must be met relating to public views, open spaces, pedestrian orientation, preservation of historic resources, and not obstructing the flow of light and air. Applications for projects that exceed 350 feet in height are processed as major special district permits. Height and density work together to determine building mass. The original proposal was to increase this FAR to 12. The CD1 decreases it to a maximum FAR of 10. The current maximum base FAR is 4, and the CD1 retains the proposed increase to an FAR of seven. The BMX 4 district is within the downtown neighborhood TOD plan area, which has not yet been added to the TOD special district. So the CD1 replaces Section 3 of the bill, which would have amended the TOD special district regulations that apply to projects in TOD plan areas that have already been added to the TOD special district with a new section three of the bill that amends the interim plan development transit provisions that apply to projects in TOD plan areas that have not yet been added to the TOD special district. For these interim transit projects, the CD1 allows for a maximum FAR of up to two times the FAR allowed by the underlying zoning district or an FAR of 12 instead of the current FAR of 7.5, which is lower. Since TOD projects may be located in various underlying zoning districts, this density cap will allow TOD projects in the BMX 4 district to achieve a maximum FAR of 12. Allowing TOD projects in the BMX 4 district a maximum FAR of 12 is consistent with the concept that bonus density in TOD areas should be higher than the density allowed for the underlying BMX 4 district. While an FAR of 10 or 12 may seem high, the BMX 4 district is designated as having the highest land use intensity, and the design requirements and development standards in the BMX 4 district will protect against having very high and very dense buildings constructed next to each other on small zoning lots. Before I call up the administration, I would like to take public testimony. Proceeding first with in-person testimony in the council chamber. Clerks, do we have any in-person testifiers for this item? So we have a few standing by. When I call your name, please come forward to the testifier podium and begin by stating your name for the record. Please conclude your remarks promptly when you hear the buzz of the timer. The first testifier is Rob Robbie Kelly. Thank you. Good morning, Council members. Thank you for hearing this common sense bill. I like to express my strong support of this bill. As Esther alluded to, the downtown land use ordinance currently states that the downtown, the BMX 4 zoning district is supposed to have the highest intensity land use for residential commercial and office uses. However, that is simply not true today, as other districts around town, such as the Ala Moana and Kaka Kakaako Corridor have been increased to allow base FAR of 10.05.5 and up to 10.0. So we see that this is just right sizing to keep the downtown BMX 4 district in line with other districts around town. And you know, from a public policy, we think that this is a good place that we should be building more housing into the downtown area where it's intended to go. Thank you very much.