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Japanese tycoon has a low-cost vision of posh Oahu
He wants to rent to the poor. Critics say he aims to drive down prices.
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."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hawaii29oct29,0,6897748.story?coll=la-home-nation