Japanese tycoon has a low-cost vision of posh Oahu

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honolulu — It's not cheap to live on Honolulu's Kahala Avenue. At least, it's not supposed to be.

A "tear-down," as one broker cheerfully described it, is on the market for $2.1 million on the palm-lined, oceanfront thoroughfare just east of Diamond Head. A vacant three-lot plot on the beach sold this month for $34 million, a record price for a piece of residentially zoned land here.

So how about living in a five-bedroom beach house for $150 a month?

Japanese billionaire Gensiro Kawamoto raised plenty of eyebrows — and hackles — when he recently announced vague plans to rent several of his 18 posh Kahala properties to low-income "native Hawaiians" only.

"I'd like to honor what native Hawaiians say, that this used to be their land," Kawamoto explained to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, noting that there were very few native Hawaiians among the swells living in Kahala, a neighborhood of high gates and stucco mansions. "We should honor their land."

Kawamoto said he wanted to turn some of the houses into museums for his extensive collection of Asian art, ceramics and European antiques, and envisioned others as havens for big clans of Hawaiians who could hold barbecues on the beach and bring some verve to the quiet area.

Given local zoning and fair-housing and no-fires-on-the-beach laws, just about nobody here expects that Kawamoto's plan will become reality.

So the question is, just what is Kawamoto up to?

The reclusive billionaire said in a statement that his plan was sincere, and that his "focus in Hawaii is not about making money."

His critics say that that's absurd, and that his obvious aim is to drive down prices in Kahala so he can snap up some bargains.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...=la-home-nation