Honolulu City Council members are pressuring the city to say how it will zone land along any proposed mass transit route before proceeding with the project.

Going forward without a land-use plan could lead to urban sprawl in rural areas and the danger of opportunistic land grabs by special interests, some City Council members said yesterday.

Council Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz, a key transit supporter, said he thinks the land-use decision is so important that he might move to delay the scheduled implementation of a transit tax surcharge in January. The increase will take the excise tax on O'ahu from 4 percent to 4.5 percent.

"I'm open to implementing the tax at a later date," Dela Cruz said yesterday.

However, Daniel Orodenker, special assistant to Mayor Mufi Hannemann, said the city is researching various zoning strategies that have worked in other cities and could have recommendations to the council within a month.

"It's premature if we don't know what we're building and where we're building it," he said. The earliest the city could break ground would be 2009.

Nevertheless, the council's Zoning Committee unanimously approved a resolution urging the city administration to submit proposed legislation for a "transit-oriented development overlay district." The resolution, signed by eight of nine council members, urges the city to submit the legislation by Nov. 1.

Such a district would allow and encourage a pedestrian-friendly development that includes more high-rises, reducing sprawl, council members said.

Dela Cruz, whose district includes the rural communities of the North Shore, said he has supported transit, because he sees a way to direct development in a way that could benefit the entire island — building up more high-rise residential/business complexes near transit stops and preserving farmlands, thereby "keeping country country."

A second resolution approved called for building hotels near transit centers as well.

DEADLINE OBJECTIONS

Council Zoning Chairman Charles Djou said he thinks it's important to put in place regulation over zoning before the route has been finalized or it creates "a huge danger" that special interests could try to steer development.

A transit system on O'ahu has proven elusive for decades. Proposals have been debated for at least 30 years, but each plan has been derailed by concerns about cost, failure to reach agreement over the technology and a lack of political consensus at crucial times.

Hannemann spokesman Bill Brennan said the administration objects to the Nov. 1 deadline.

Brennan said the city administration plans to provide a recommendation on a transit choice — known in federal transit jargon as a locally preferred alternative — to the City Council by a Nov. 1 deadline.

That puts the responsibility on the council to decide among four transit alternatives for Honolulu's future: no-build or do nothing; beef up the bus system; create managed lanes; or choose some form of rail transit.

'A MERE 9 WEEKS AWAY'

Until the administration sends a recommendation and the council chooses the final form, Brennan said, it's too soon to create special land-use districts. "It's putting the cart before the horse," he said. "It's a mere nine weeks away."

Brennan said the administration is working to establish amendments to the land-use ordinance that will create Transit Oriented Development zoning.

"We believe individual land-use plans at specific locations should include the involvement of the community and be tailored specifically to the community's needs," he said.

But Councilwoman Barbara Marshall questioned why the administration would object to beginning land-use changes now because it will take months before they would actually occur.

BIG DECISIONS AHEAD

City Planning and Permitting Deputy Director David Tanoue said a one-size-fits-all land use might allow development — such as hotels or parking restrictions — that wouldn't suit some neighborhoods.

Orodenker said, "We just want to make sure we don't make a mess out of it."

Dela Cruz said the council needs to proceed carefully on a project that will cost "billions of dollars and change the face of Honolulu."

C. Mike Kido, of the Pacific Resource Partnership, praised the council for considering transit-oriented development. The nonprofit, labor-management organization is made up of the 6,000-member Hawai'i Carpenters Union, Local 745, and its 220 member contractors across Hawai'i.

He said such districts create mixed-use communities that encourage people to drive their cars less and ride transit, and allow them "options so that they can choose where to live, work, play and mingle."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.