A planned affordable senior housing complex in Mililani Mauka that has been heralded as badly needed for Hawaii kupuna but opposed by many area residents broke ground Tuesday after about five years of struggle.
"We’ve been looking forward to this day for quite some time," said Rick Stack, president of a development affiliate of Catholic Charities Hawai‘i heading the project with local affordable-housing developer Gary Furuta.
The project, called Meheula Vista, will provide 300 one-bedroom rental apartments for seniors with low incomes, and an initial 75-unit phase is projected to open next year.
Meheula Vista faced financing challenges and intense opposition by hundreds of Mililani Mauka residents, but the development team persevered.
At Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony, many more prayers were said than normal for Hawaii real estate development project launches, though that was due to the involvement of church officials and wasn’t necessarily in response to the project’s difficult upbringing.
"If the Lord does not build a house, in vain do its builders labor," said Bishop Larry Silva, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu. "Whenever we look to the interests of our neighbors — especially the seniors, the kupuna, of our community — we are in a sense God’s co-workers. Let us pray for his help through this celebration, my brothers and sisters, that God will bring the construction of this complex to successful completion."
Meheula Vista was initially proposed by Furuta in 2010 as 226 low-income rentals for the general public. Furuta revised his plan to address traffic and school impact concerns raised by the Mililani Mauka/Launani Valley Neighborhood Board, which voted to oppose the original plan.
In 2011 the neighborhood board voted 6-3 to endorse the revised project after largely accepting Furuta’s reasoning that Meheula Vista tenants, mainly expected to be in their 70s, would not drive as much or have school-age children compared with younger folks.
"This project supports our kupuna who have worked hard for many years to make our communities better places to live," the board’s majority wrote in a letter to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser following the vote and criticism from project opponents. "We believe that being opposed to helping our seniors is not pono (right)."
The board’s vote ran counter to wishes of many in the community. About 800 residents signed a petition opposing Meheula Vista, and some formed Citizens Against Residential Expansion-Mililani, or CARE-Mililani, to stop the project.
Some of the opposition stemmed from long-held intentions to develop a performing arts center and businesses on the 7.5-acre site then owned by Mililani’s master developer Castle & Cooke, which has become the contractor for Meheula Vista.
Castle & Cooke had committed to donate part of the site to the nonprofit Oahu Arts Center, but the organization had trouble raising money for construction. The landowner opted to sell the property to Furuta after declaring that the nonprofit missed a deadline to demonstrate it had financial means to carry out its project.
Castle & Cooke, which built a self-storage facility on an adjacent site, also said commercial tenant interest in the vacant parcel vanished after Walmart opened in Mililani in 1994 and Costco opened in Waipio in 1998.
Though the site is zoned for commercial use, state regulations promoting affordable housing permit Meheula Vista without a zoning change.
Furuta bought the land in 2011 for $6.75 million using proceeds from a $9.7 million loan obtained from the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp., a state agency that facilitates affordable-housing development.
However, challenges persisted with efforts to obtain state and federal low-income housing tax credits, which are a typical source of construction financing for such projects.
Furuta failed three times — in 2011, 2012 and 2013 — to obtain the credits allocated by HHFDC on a competitive basis. Last year he was successful in part by agreeing to give ownership of the land to HHFDC, which will lease it back to Catholic Charities for nominal rent.
Craig Hirai, HHFDC director, delivered a message at Tuesday’s ceremony from Gov. David Ige praising everyone involved in bringing Meheula Vista out of the ground.
"We all know that the challenge of affordable housing can only be addressed when we all work together," Hirai said on behalf of Ige.
Meheula Vista is the first major development project for Catholic Charities Housing Development Corp., which is led by Stack, an executive of local development firm Alexander & Baldwin Inc. who serves as a volunteer.
Jerry Rauckhorst, Catholic Charities president, said seniors have already inquired about moving in. "We’re only at the dirt-turning but we’ve already got calls," he said.
Monthly rent at Meheula Vista is expected to be between $700 and $1,000 for seniors earning no more than 60 percent of Honolulu’s median income, which equates to $40,260 for a single person or $46,020 for a couple.
Applications should start to be accepted in summer 2016 through real estate firm Locations LLC.
