Officials urge
veto override for
Best Buy storeThe Council had OK'd a zoning
change for a Pearl City building site
Two City Council members are calling for an override of Mayor Jeremy Harris' veto of a zoning change for a planned Best Buy store near the waterfront in Pearl City.
"We support Best Buy, but it's in the wrong location," city Managing Director Ben Lee said. "It should perhaps be on the mauka side of Kamehameha Highway, but not along the shoreline."
Minnesota-based Best Buy Co., a nationwide consumer electronics retailer, is planning a 51,000-square-foot store on the makai side of Kamehameha Highway at the 3.3-acre site that formerly housed the Tony Honda auto dealership. The site sits across the street from the Waimalu Shopping Center.
The City Council last month voted 9-0 to approve a request to rezone the parcel owned by Healani Land Co. to industrial-commercial mixed use from intensive industrial use over the objections of the Harris administration.
The project also had the support of the Pearl City Neighborhood Board.
"Best Buy really listened to the community," Councilman Charles Djou said. "They went out there initially with their standard box design, which was not really well-received. Then they went out and talked to the community. They completely redesigned their whole store."
In his veto message to the Council, Harris said that granting the rezoning is premature. "By granting this zone change, we are losing a wonderful opportunity to recapture the Waimalu waterfront area for public enjoyment and use, and instead, continuing to condone strip commercial development, which adds nothing to the unique identity of the host neighborhood."
Djou and Councilman Gary Okino disagree with the mayor's position.
"It's impractical to do what the mayor wants," Okino said.
If the current industrial zoning were to remain, "it'll probably get worse," Okino said. "The key about rezoning is that you can negotiate with the developer or the landowner to make the thing sensitive to fit into the community, and that's what we did."
Okino said the project also maintains access to the planned Pearl Harbor Historic Trail and enhances the trail.
"They're going to build a park in the back of the property with picnic tables, with water fountains so that joggers and the bikers, it's going to be rest stop for them," he said.
Okino has asked that the override be taken up at the Council's March 24 meeting. At least seven votes are needed to override a veto.
