Posted on: Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Bold plan: Build 15,000 affordable homes
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
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RECOMMENDATIONS Other recommendations by the Joint Legislative Housing and Homeless Task Force include: Identify private and public lands available for affordable housing developments. Encourage the development of self-help ownership housing on small state-owned parcels and appropriate $2 million over five years for construction loans for 50 self-help homes. Appropriate $50,000 for a study to identify available land from private estates for affordable housing. Appropriate $75,000 for a plan to develop affordable ownership and rental housing in the Honolulu urban core. Accelerate the state's Kalaeloa project to develop 2,385 affordable housing units by providing $70 million to finance construction of offsite infrastructure. Require that state agencies give affordable housing projects priority processing and amend state law to improve and streamline the fast-track permitting process. Request that the counties establish expedited permitting for affordable housing projects and appropriate $650,000 for implementation. Appropriate $50,000 to study the feasibility of placing federal public housing projects under private ownership. Provide tax breaks to landlords of apartment complexes who maintain units as affordable rentals and encourage landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers by providing a general excise tax holiday equivalent to one month of rent for each unit. The estimated cost would be $450,000 annually, or $2.25 million over five years. Consider state acquisition of government-subsidized affordable housing projects that are about to convert to market-priced housing over the next five years, including the city's Kukui Gardens. |
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POVERTY, VIOLENCE ALSO ON AGENDA In other news yesterday involving the Legislature: Needy families: Department of Human Services director Lillian Koller called for lawmakers to lift a cap on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, to give the department flexibility to develop and fund programs aimed at helping families out of poverty. The cap has led to $35 million being put into a reserve fund that now can only be used to provide cash welfare assistance. The Legislature set the cap last year to force DHS to include lawmakers in policy decisions on the expenditure of some $170 million in federal and state funds. This year, legislation will be introduced to allow lawmakers — and citizens, through public hearings — to weigh in on how to best tackle the issue of poverty. Law enforcement: Hawai'i police and prosecutors want lawmakers to give three-time violent felons automatic life sentences, allow prosecution for violently killing a fetus and outlaw large-caliber machine guns.These proposals and several others were announced by Attorney General Mark Bennett for presentation to lawmakers. The proposal for mandatory life sentences would require three independent violent felony offenses to trigger the law’s penalty. Bennett said the bill that would enable prosecution of someone who kills or injures a viable fetus is not a veiled attempt to categorize fetuses as people. It is meant to target those such as ex-boyfriends who angrily punch pregnant women, or to prosecute drunk drivers who cause the loss of a fetus in an accident. Mayors’ wish lists: The mayors of Honolulu, Maui, Kaua'i and the Big Island yesterday took a modest wish list to state lawmakers who serve on the money committees in the House and Senate.Most of their requests focus on roads, affordable housing, helping the homeless and help with basic city services. Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann kept his request to a few major points, which included granting the counties authority to collect the excise tax surcharge that will be used to pay for a mass transit system. He also asked for $4 million to help with pothole repairs and harsher penalties for agricultural theft. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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An ambitious plan calls for spending $78 million this year and $286 million more over the next five years to provide affordable homes for Hawai'i residents and services for homeless people.
The Joint Legislative Housing and Homeless Task Force yesterday issued its report, which has a goal of building 10,000 to 15,000 affordable units within five years. Its spending proposal includes $40 million to support homeless shelters and service providers.
The building plan would dwarf recent government-supported affordable housing construction, which has resulted in about 2,000 new units since 1992.
A lack of affordable housing has become one of the most pressing economic issues of the decade, with skyrocketing home prices, soaring rents and a growing homeless population. Funding for public housing dried up in the 1980s and more than 20,000 people are on waiting lists to get in.
"If the Legislature and the governor take the task force findings to heart and work to enact these recommendations, I believe we will make substantial progress in addressing the issues of affordable housing and homelessness," said task force co-chairman Sen. Ron Menor, D-17th (Mililani, Waipi'o).
The task force, formed last session to study Hawai'i's housing problem, proposes tapping the state's $574 million budget surplus to finance its recommendations.
Approximately 32 percent of the state's more than 400,000 households pay in excess of 30 percent of their income for shelter, according to the report. An estimated 44,190 new homes (32,580 on O'ahu) are projected to be needed by 2009 to satisfy pent-up demand. Of those, 21,890 units (15,590 on O'ahu) are needed for low-income households.
The recommendations include increasing the portion of the conveyance tax allocated to the state's Rental Housing Trust Fund — which sets aside money collected from real estate transactions to build rental housing — from its current 30 percent to 50 percent. That would result in enough money to build 2,300 rental units over five years.
The task force wants to increase the low-income household renters' tax credit from $50 to $100 and appropriate $20 million for homeless services this year and another $5 million a year over the next five years. Gov. Linda Lingle has already proposed using $20 million of the state surplus to repair and expand homeless shelters.
About $10 million would be earmarked to repair the 825 vacant units — about 13.3 percent of the 6,233 total units — in federal and state public housing projects that are now unlivable and unoccupied.
"I am especially proud of the recommendations devoted to assisting our homeless residents and others in dire need of shelter and housing services," said co-chairman Rep. Michael Kahikina, D-44th (Nanakuli, Honokai Hale). "A substantial part of our solution set deals with upgrading and expanding low-income rentals and public housing. We need to set aside a substantial portion of the state surplus for affordable housing."
The task force, which includes Menor and Kahikina along with Sens. Rosalyn Baker, Gary Hooser and Paul Whalen, and Reps. Ezra Kanoho, Scott Nishimoto and Chris Halford, conducted site visits, public hearings and meetings, and roundtable discussions to develop its report. The group will introduce a package of bills to pursue their recommendations.
The Rev. Bob Nakata, a former state senator who now works with the homeless, said the report's recommendations are needed to help people in desperate situations.
"It's really something to celebrate," Nakata said. "We are moving in the right direction."
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.
