 This ThinkTech commentary is dedicated to the residents of Honolulu, and especially the young people of Hawaii. Thanks for your consideration of the views expressed in this commentary, which is entitled, Keeping Kakaako Makai. Lord knows we have a myriad of serious issues to handle in our city, but as the city becomes a mass of high-rise condominium towers, the preservation of open spaces for the people who live, work, learn and play here is one of the most important of all. Kakaako Makai is breathtakingly beautiful open shoreline space, which makes it a favorite target for those who would like to earn huge profits by taking those spaces away from us permanently and developing luxury high-rise condominium projects. We rely on government to protect these spaces and protect us from losing them. Kakaako is the gem of the city, and Kakaako Makai is the only open space left to the people in what has become an increasingly dense and crowded city. The sense of place of this land requires that it stay that way, so we can see and touch and feel the ocean, the sky and the mountains. Its value is incalculable. We must care for this land and make sure that it stays that way, for the people, for the children and for the generations to come. Of course, we all know that the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. But the land is under attack. Oha wants to build a 40-story high-rise luxury condo on it, despoiling and changing the land forever, and depriving the people of its use for a hundred years or more. Oha is lobbying the legislature for permission to do just that. Oha should know better than anyone how important it is to care for the land and to preserve and steward the land. And not to seek a quick profit from it, at the expense of the people of Hawaii. This is not Pono. The land is fragile and subject to a myriad of environmental risks and dangers, including flooding by king tides, sea-level rise, and extreme weather and storms resulting from climate change. These things will make it difficult or impossible to design and build, maintain, own and live in a project like that, and will present serious problems with feasibility and make the units far more expensive than most local people could ever afford. They may also release dangerous toxins from the landfill there, and contaminate the aquifer and the city water system in the ground below. There are a number of planning, engineering and environmental issues that will have to be investigated before the project can be properly considered by the legislature. This examination will take some years, and will be very expensive. For now, we simply don't have the answers, and neither does Oha or the legislature. In any event, a full environmental impact statement must be done first. This land is state land, and Oha is a state agency. That being the case, a full EIS must be done as a matter of law on all these planning and environmental issues, and also on cultural issues, before the project can be properly considered by the legislature. Of course, the legislature should not be subjected to, or influenced by political or commercial interests for a project like this, including the real estate development aspirations of Oha itself. The land is far too important to the larger community and to the people of Hawaii. And the extraordinary risks inherent in a project of this kind are also far too troublesome for that. The stakes are simply too high. We must therefore insist on a careful and completely transparent examination of all the effects and implications of this project. Indeed, if the legislature takes up this bill before the requisite EIS is done, public confidence in government will be further undermined, and the bill will be at risk not only for constitutional litigation as quote special legislation, but also for public criticism for its failure to consider these issues and risks, and the views of the communities affected. That criticism will grow exponentially if things then go wrong. Thanks for your consideration of the views expressed in this ThinkTech commentary. Aloha.