“If you’re looking to provide 25 rental units and then you’re going to take 130-some odd-units and market them in China, sir, then I’m not interested in that, quite frankly,” Councilman Ikaika Anderson said during the May 4 meeting.

Committee chair Kymberly Pine also weighed in, asserting that Fang had previously told the committee that he had sold 60 percent of the condo units to buyers from China.

The notion of committing new homes to outside buyers understandably raises concerns at a time when the city is suffering from a severe shortage of affordable housing, said Gavin Thornton, an attorney who serves as co-director of the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice.

“If the City Council has the impression that the entire building is going to be filled with non-residents, I think—and I’m not a constitutional scholar—that this is a legitimate concern,” Thornton said.

The problem is that denying a permit to a developer simply because he is going to sell units to people from elsewhere might violate the U.S. Constitution.

Is there nothing a state or local government can do to keep its housing stock from being snapped up by rich nonresident investors?

The City Council actually is considering a bill that would require developers using the kind of permit Fang is seeking to set aside 30 percent of units as affordable housing.

Also, Thornton, the co-director of the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center, said the city could regulate the use of the property.

For instance, he said there could be a tax if the property was being used for anything but long-term residential occupancy, or an incentive to encourage renting to lower income people.

“The trick is, how do you monitor it?” Thornton said.