Mayor overruled on Best Buy
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
A new Best Buy store will be built near the Pearl Harbor shoreline in Waimalu despite Mayor Jeremy Harris' objections.
The City Council yesterday unanimously overturned Harris' veto of a zoning change needed for the project, which council members said was a good alternative to industrial uses allowed on the site. It was Harris' first veto this year.
Councilman Gary Okino said that Best Buy had scaled down the 50,000-square-foot project to address community concerns and that the city should welcome responsible economic development.
But Harris said the area, along Kamehameha Highway, is already saturated with strip malls and other buildings that block access to the shoreline and views of Pearl Harbor.
"Throughout Pearl City, 'Aiea and Waipahu, we have limited precious waterfront, where we have back-ended warehouses and big-box stores, and instead of moving to reverse bad planning decisions of the past, the council has perpetuated those poor land-use decisions," Harris said.
Best Buy plans to include 260 parking stalls on the site, where the Tony Honda and Nissan dealership used to be.
Harris' administration underscored its objections by screening a video that contrasted parks and shoreline with unsightly warehouses and concrete, while playing Joni Mitchell's song that laments, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone; They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
But Okino and others said the old zoning could allow another developer to build something far uglier than the Best Buy store, such as a huge warehouse.
Overturning the veto means the property's zoning classification will be changed from intensive industrial to industrial-commercial mixed use.
"Re-zoning this property is the practical way of achieving improvement in this community," said Okino, who represents the area.
Parks and open space are nice, but there's no use pining for something that's not going to happen, he said.
Councilman Charles Djou said Harris should have come up with alternative plan and set aside money to buy the land if he wanted to see a park there.
Planning director Eric Crispin said it's hard for the city to be ahead of every potential shoreline development, but that a comprehensive plan for the whole area is needed.
"There are ways of achieving redevelopment in a way that's sensitive to the shoreline and takes advantage of the Pearl Harbor historic trail," he said.
The administration was considering such a plan but had not started it by the time the Best Buy project was proposed, Crispin said.
Reach Johnny Brannon at 525-8070 or at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com.
