Caldwell proposes new agency to run real estate dealings

Mayor Kirk Caldwell is seeking funding for 79 new jobs for various agencies in next fiscal year’s $2.3 billion operating budget, including positions that were rejected by the Honolulu City Council a year ago.

The budget Caldwell is submitting to the Council today represents a 2.5 percent increase, or about $57 million more, than the current fiscal 2016 operating budget, administration officials told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a preview of the package late Tuesday.

Property values on Oahu increased by 6 percent in the latest assessment cards mailed to property owners in December, giving the city a boost in property tax revenues and negating the need for a discussion on whether to raise property rates or cut existing services severely.

Budget Director Nelson Koyanagi said the focus of the budget is on taking care of the city’s core services. “What we tried to do in the budget is to provide the departments with the resources they need to do their jobs,” he said.

Sure to raise eyebrows among some Council members is a proposal that would create a new, eight-person Asset Development and Management Division to focus on acquiring and developing properties, primarily for affordable housing, and managing existing city-owned lands.

The division would consist of two existing positions and six new ones and would fall under the existing Department of Community Services. It will be headed by Sandy Pfund, who’s been in charge of the oft-criticized Office of Strategic Development.

Caldwell officials acknowledged the new division, which would cost about $470,000 in salaries, is designed to operate the same way, and replace, the existing OSD office. In what played out as the biggest budget skirmish last year, Council members rejected Caldwell’s plans for seven positions for that office. The administration wound up funding three contract hires, including Pfund. One of the three people has since quit.

Pfund and the one other person in the OSD are “focused now mostly on acquiring properties and developing them for increasing affordable housing stock, primarily the homeless,” Pfund said. “There have been a number of projects … that have long been pending with the city that needs to be done,” she said.

Of $64 million allocated by the Council for affordable and homeless housing over the past two years, the city has been able to spend about $22 million for various projects, she said. Among them are the development of the Hale Mauliola transitional housing facility at Sand Island and the $5.5 million purchase of a property on Hassinger Street in Makiki to be used for Housing First and low-income units.

“We have a plan for $62 million,” Pfund said, but the focus now is on using up the remaining $10 million from the first year’s appropriation, which will expire June 30.

Pfund said the additional staff would accelerate development of new housing projects, including several on city-owned land in Ewa Villages and Kapolei, and a recently acquired parcel that incorporates the Pearlridge Center transit station. More staff would also help the city better manage existing affordable-housing properties, she said.

Also included in the 2016-17 budget are 15 new positions for groundskeepers and rangers at Ala Moana Regional Park, and 12 new positions in the Department of Emergency Services to establish a new district at an undisclosed location, Budget Director Nelson Koya­nagi said.

The rangers, also described as security attendants, would be tasked with ensuring closure hours and other park rules are being followed. Caldwell has made sprucing up Ala Moana Park one of his top priorities.

In response to a recent call for more lifeguard service, the Ocean Services Division would get four new supervisor positions and increased hours for lifeguards, he said.

A recent court ruling, meanwhile, requires eight groundskeeper positions to replace private workers who were contracted to maintain median strips around Oahu. Five other positions in the Department of Facility Maintenance would help stormwater quality compliance, Koyanagi said.

Several new positions would be added at the Honolulu Zoo, currently undergoing accreditation, to improve customer service and animal care, he said.

Additionally, 34 deactivated positions — jobs that existed but were kept frozen — have been reactivated, he said. Thirteen of those are firefighter jobs, allowing the Honolulu Fire Department to staff a new truck at the East Kapolei Fire Station.