The Senate Ways and Means Committee has shelved the Office of Hawaiian Affairsʻ proposal to build three residential towers up to 400 feet tall on oceanside land OHA owns at Kakaako makai.

The committee’s chair, Donovan Dela Cruz, said Thursday that he decided to hold the bill this year after the House made it clear that it was unwilling to consider the measure.

Instead, Dela Cruz inserted in another Senate bill $65 million OHA was requesting for repairs to aging and damaged oceanfront revetments on the Kakaako makai land.

“At least this way OHA will be left with something, the funding it requested.” Dela Cruz told Civil Beat in an interview.

Senate Bill 1235 also would grant OHA $6 million to do an environmental impact statement on the proposed Kakaako makai development it calls Hakuone.

Critics of OHAʻs quest to build the residential towers and other commercial ventures were concerned that OHA was unable to fully outline how it would address the effects of climate change on the oceanfront property. Concerns also were raised about the possible impacts of the constructionʻs disturbance of toxins on what was once an industrial waste and garbage dump.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee also put $13 million in the bill to assist OHA with its plans to preserve the land around Kukaniloko Birthstones in Wahiawa, a site that preserves a birthplace of royalty on Oahu.

In 2012, OHA acquired 511 acres surrounding the sacred site in order to provide a buffer zone to protect it from developments encroaching in the future.

Dela Cruz said this bill with the funding that OHA wants might have a better chance of passing in the Legislature than the original bill asking for permission to build the condo high-rises.

In a text, OHA Chair Carmen Hulu Lindsey said, “We greatly appreciate what Senator Dela Cruz is trying to do. And we thank him.”

“We are currently waiting for word from the House,” she wrote. “That ball is in Speaker Scott Saikiʻs court and based on our ongoing discussions with him and the community we still hope for a positive outcome this session.”

Saiki said the Legislature respects OHA and its mission and Hawaiian beneficiaries.

“I have offered OHA in the past and offer OHA again a chance to work together to renegotiate its settlement with the state to potentially include a cash buyout, a land exchange or both — but not residential towers in Kakaako makai,” he said in a telephone interview.

He has long been opposed to residential towers in Kakaako makai.

“It’s an issue of planning,” he previously told Hawaii Public Radio. “I’ve always felt that Kakaako makai is one of the last remaining parcels of land that can be used as open space, as park space, that can provide ocean access for all residents on our island.”

Opponents expressed relief that OHAʻs proposal was stalled, at least for now..

“Residential development in Kakaako makai is very unpopular. There are also the environmental concerns that driving high-rise piles into a former dump site could contaminate the underlying fresh water lens,” said Wayne Takamine, the chairman of the Kakaako Makai Community Planning Advisory Council.

The group has pressed to keep Kakaako makai open for public recreational, commercial, entertainment and educational purposes but not residential development.

Another critical group said it was happy but wary.

“It is not a final solution. OHA can come back next year and ask for the same thing but we would like to work with them to find a better way,“ said Ron Iwami, president of Friends of Kewalos.

OHA’s push this year to get legislative approval for the high-rise towers is an extension of an effort that began after the state gave OHA 30 acres of Kakaako makai land in 2012 to settle a debt of $200 million in ceded land revenues.

OHA agreed to the settlement knowing that the 2006 protective land law would prevent it from building condo towers on the property, yet it hoped to persuade legislators to change the law.

That has not happened. The latest effort is OHA’s fourth try in 11 years to get the restrictions lifted. OHA said its appraisers have found that since it is prohibited from building residential units on the property, the settlement with the state is worth only $91 million, not $200 million.

However, the City and County of Honolulu puts the current tax assessed value of OHA’s Kakaako Makai land at more than $300 million.

OHA is not giving up. On its Hakuone website, the agency urged supporters to sign a petition to ask Saiki to keep the proposal for the Hakuone development with residential towers alive.