The City Council yesterday passed three resolutions the city needs if it's going to begin construction on a planned $5.5 billion rail transit project in December.

The most divisive decision was a 5-4 vote to allow the city to sign an agreement with several federal agencies creating a plan to address the rail project's impact on historical resources.

The council also passed two resolutions authorizing Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration to spend $300,000 to fight off potential legal challenges to the planned 20-mile rail from Kapolei to Ala Moana.

The votes show that the council continues to narrowly support the project despite a potential lawsuit and concerns that the current route could encounter Native Hawaiian burials .

Consistently pro-rail council members Todd Apo, Rod Tam, Nestor Garcia and Gary Okino were joined by relative newcomer Ikaika Anderson in voting for a resolution authorizing the city to enter into a "programmatic agreement" with the Federal Transit Administration, Hawaii State Historic Preservation Division, National Park Service and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

Several groups — including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Oahu Island Burial Council, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Historic Hawaii Foundation and the American Institute of Architects — are pushing for changes to the current language of the agreement.

The key issue is whether the city should have conducted an archaeological inventory survey before selecting a route through Kakaako. The concern is that the current route will almost certainly encounter buried human remains.

The city maintains that its research shows that the likelihood of encountering burials along the planned route is no greater than alternative routes nearby. Additionally, groups arguing for an alternative route should have expressed their concerns earlier, Garcia said.

If all goes as planned, the city expects to begin construction in December. The first phase of service between Kapolei and Waipahu would begin in December 2012, and the full service to Ala Moana Center in March 2019.

Council members Ann Kobayashi , Romy Cachola and Donovan Dela Cruz asked the city to delay the agreement for a month in an effort to allay concerns expressed by OHA and others. They were joined by councilman Charles Djou in voting against the resolution relating to the agreement.

Kobayashi said the city's rush to break ground in December could jeopardize the project's long-term future, especially if there's a legal challenge.

"We all want the project to get finished as soon as possible, but look what happened to Superferry and the Whole Foods project," she said. "They got all these delays, in fact Superferry is no longer here because of the rushing to avoid the proper procedures."

The Superferry — a 350-foot, high-speed interisland catamaran with capacity to carry 836 passengers and 230 cars — initially sidestepped the required environmental impact study and was halted by the courts. The discovery of burials delayed construction on the Whole Foods Kakaako store. That issue has been resolved, but construction of the store was halted for other reasons.

In other train-related business, the council voted 6-3 in favor of two resolutions authorizing the city to hire two outside law firms to fight potential rail-related lawsuits. Council members Djou, Kobayashi and Cachola voted against the resolutions. Apo, Anderson, Dela Cruz, Garcia, Okino and Tam voted for the resolutions.

Any lawsuit against the train project would be "frivolous" because the city has followed all proper procedures, said city Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka .

"The biggest difference between this and some of the others is that the others have tried to avoid doing the studies and this is not true of this project," he said.

"This project has done all the studies that are required by all the steps along the way."