Careful on state rental lease deal

In theory, it makes great sense. The state can retire debt and privatize the upkeep and management of six state-owned affordable rental projects. A leasing deal can yield cash that can be plowed into future public-private partnerships that can grow Hawaii’s stock of desperately needed housing units.

What counts, however, is how any initiative plays out in practice, and Hawaii’s track record for affordable housing development sets off some alarm bells about this one.

The Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. (HHFDC) on Friday concluded its solicitation for bids to lease the six apartment complexes that comprise a total of 1,221 rental units on three islands.

They include studio apartments as well as one-, two-and three-bedroom units. Five of the buildings — Lailani Apartments in Kailua-Kona; Honokowai Kauhale in Lahaina; and Kauhale Kakaako, Pohulani Elderly and Kekuilani Courts on Oahu — are being offered under new, 75-year leases.

Kamakee Vista in Kakaako is subject to an existing ground lease with just under 40 years remaining.

There is no asking price for the projects, so there’s no way to know for certain whether a deal could be hammered out that adequately serves the public interest.

But among the terms that are known, the one that is most worrisome is the timeline established for rent increases. The properties are being offered with an affordability requirement capping annual rent increases at 2 percent for the first five years, for current tenants. Given the fixed income of retirees, Pohulani Elderly rent hikes will be held to 2 percent for the life of the lease.

For the rest of them, however, after those first five years rents could go up to the maximum allowed under federal affordability guidelines. These are set to be affordable to households earning up to 80 and 100 percent of area median income (AMI).

The problem is that increasing to the fullest permitted extent would raise the bar far beyond the reach of many current tenants who earn below 80 percent of AMI.

A Wednesday article by Honolulu Star-Advertiser writer Nanea Kalani included an analysis that concluded the increase could be as high as 66 percent. In pocketbook terms, that could mean tenants living in a two-bedroom apartment at Kauhale Kakaako would suddenly face a rent $746 more than they were paying the previous month.

Even a family with income at median or above would find that painful. The hypothetical Kakaako household would simply not be able to sustain such a drain on its finances.

Nearly half the tenants receive state-funded rental assistance subsidies of $175 a month; 140 tenants get federal Section 8 housing vouchers as rental assistance. It’s possible that such subsidy allotments could increase, but the state’s low-income beneficiaries can’t count on that happening at a time when there’s so much demand on public revenues.

Gov. David Ige told Kalani that there are 500 affordable rental units planned for various Kakaako rental projects to be priced for households at 60 percent AMI and below.

For starters, though, it’s anything but certain that those will materialize to accommodate possibly displaced tenants in five years or even longer.

For another, those were meant to fulfill the unmet need for low-income housing, not to take in displaced families that are now housed. Hawaii needs to add to its affordable-housing stock, not reallocate it to families earning more.

Units affordable for the lowest end of the income scale are the most difficult for the housing industry to deliver, and Hawaii needs to hang on to the units it has.

Nobody can fault the state for the general intent of this initiative. It would enable the HHFDC to pay off $76 million in bond debt used to develop the properties. Privatizing them also would allow the state to cross about $13 million in needed capital improvements off its budgetary wish list.

But unless the state can shape a deal that allows a more gradual rent increase, rather than one that threatens to thrust more people into homelessness, lawmakers should muster state resources to fund the building upgrades and keep the projects under state management.

This offering, being handled for the state by the real estate firm CBRE, is advertised as “six distinctive, affordable apartment properties” including parking and about 86,000 square feet of commercial space. The online posting reads:

“This one-of-a-kind opportunity will provide the investor with strong trailing revenues, upside growth of cash flows, significant economies of scale in operations and ownership in a marketplace with high barriers to entry in one of the nation’s most underserved residential rental markets.”

From a buyer’s perspective, all that may be true. But the state can’t lose sight of the imperative to provide some 25,000 housing units, most needed for those on the lower income rungs. This initiative represents a revenue opportunity to some, but to the tenants, these apartments are home.