A veteran Hawaii architect is seeking to build a 300-foot residential tower in Kakaako and expects it will be subject to the current affordable-housing rules, although those rules could soon change.

Kenneth Kai Chang is proposing a “workforce housing” project with 257 units on a site that includes the former home of the Feeding Hawaii Together food pantry on Keawe Street and is adjacent to the state-owned Pohulani rental apartment tower for seniors.

Chang provided an overview of his project dubbed Ililani in written testimony submitted Monday to the Hawaii Community Development Authority, a state agency regulating development in Kakaako.

HCDA is getting close to finishing a more than two-year effort to overhaul its rules on affordable housing, and its board could make a decision at a meeting scheduled for May 3.

Chang said in his testimony that some changes recommended in a staff report threaten his project, which he said has been in the works since mid-2015 and incurred extensive obligations and expenses while relying on existing rules for affordable housing that HCDA refers to as “reserved” housing.

“The currently proposed amendments to the Kakaako reserved housing rules, if applied to the Ililani project, would seriously jeopardize the project and the work we have done for the past two-plus years in reliance on the existing rules,” Chang said.

Chang indicated that he does not have a complete application for a development permit submitted to HCDA, but he believes filing an application even if HCDA hasn’t deemed it complete and accepted it would make his project subject to rules in force at the time of such a submission.

HCDA spokesman Garett Kamemoto said the agency’s board will apply the rules in effect at the time it considers an application.

“Our intent is to provide much-needed housing for the working middle class of Honolulu,” said Chang, whose project team is doing business as Ililani LLC and Hui O Ka La LLC.

If developed, Ililani would be only the second workforce housing project in Kakaako since HCDA created a workforce housing program in a 2011 rule amendment. The first was the two-tower project 801 South St with 1,045 condominium units.

HCDA’s workforce housing program allows developers to make projects twice as dense and obtain other exemptions if they are built with no government financing and make at least 75 percent of homes available and affordable to residents who earn no more than 140 percent of the annual median income in Honolulu, which equates to $98,560 for a single person or $140,700 for a family of four.

Under this calculation, maximum condo prices could be around $500,000 for a single person or $710,000 for a family of four.

The recommended rule change would allow a buyer to still earn up to 140 percent of the median income, but prices on average would have to be affordable to someone earning only 120 percent of the median income. This would make the average condo price around $430,000 for a single person or $610,000 for a family of four.

In addition, restrictions on reselling a workforce housing unit would be created, including giving HCDA the first option to buy the unit if the owner sells it so the agency can resell it to another qualified buyer. HCDA also would take a cut of appreciation in a resale if it doesn’t buy the unit, and use this money to help produce more affordable housing.

One other proposed restriction is to regulate resale prices by applying annual percentage increases for the median price of all Oahu condo sales.

Several developers and landowners oppose these changes, which they say would curtail or stop production of workforce housing in Kakaako.

Chang testified that the proposed rule changes would “destroy” a program he considers a valuable community resource to produce housing at prices for “regular working people.”

“This market sector is underserved nationally and every effort should be made to continue this program without change,” he said last week.

Chang is a veteran designer of public and private development projects locally.

According to a 1988 Los Angeles times article, Chang’s father was an architect who worked for an American engineering firm in China, where Chang was born. After moving to Hawaii, Chang’s father started Sam Chang Architect &Associates that designed hotels, Kahului Airport and a major part of Honolulu Airport, the article said.

Chang’s LinkedIn webpage said he was principal architect and president of the firm from 1990 to 2004. During that time, he was part of a team that unsuccessfully bid to develop a city-owned downtown parcel known as Block J with a twin-tower condo with 770 units, his LinkedIn page said. Later, another development firm built the Capitol Place condo tower on the site.

Chang also said on the webpage that he consulted on the design of the twin-tower Moana Pacific condo developed in Kakaako by Evershine Group, and most recently was architectural design manager for military housing contractor Lend Lease in Honolulu from 2003 until last year.