A bill allowing certain group living facilities to be exempted from needing to be 1,000 feet from each other was approved tentatively by the City Council Zoning, Planning and Housing Committee on Thursday.
The plan would clear the way for Kamehameha School’s $450 million Moiliili Gateway Project, which would include student and workforce housing, as well as a limited service hotel and new commercial space to the area just makai of the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus. The area to be redeveloped includes the current Pucks Alley commercial complex and the former Varsity Theater site across University Avenue.
The presence of the Hale Mahana Student Housing Tower, built in 2018 across the street from Pucks Alley at the former site of University Square, prevents Kamehameha from constructing a group living facility under the current law.
But several Council members and a city planning official said they worry Bill 51 will allow unwanted development elsewhere across Oahu.
The measure, introduced by Council members Ikaika Anderson and Ann Kobayashi, is scheduled for a final vote of the full Council on Wednesday.
Under Honolulu’s Land Use Ordinance, group living facilities are defined as “facilities which are used to provide living accommodations and, in some cases, care services.” Among the types of facilities that fall under that category: “group homes, halfway houses, homes for children, the elderly, battered children and adults, recovery homes, independent group living facilities, hospices and other related similar facilities.”
Also identified as group living facilities are any facility with more than five residents (not including resident managers or supervisors) that are not related, as well as “convalescent homes, nursing homes, sanitariums, intermediate-care or extended-care facilities, and other similar facilities.”
The bill would allow group living facilities to be exempt from the 1,000-foot separation requirement if what’s planned is a multifamily dwelling that provides housing for the students and staff of a university, college or other “post-secondary institution” campus with 2,000 or more students, and is located in a neighborhood zoned for apartment, business or mixed use that’s within a half-mile of an educational institution.
The original bill called for the exemption to be allowed for projects providing housing for institutions with 10,000 or more students. But a late draft submitted by Kobayashi lowers that threshold to 2,000 students, providing the potential for the exemption to be used near smaller college or university campuses as well.
Kobayashi’s draft also would allow adult residential care homes, special treatment facilities or related facilities with more than eight people to be exempted from the 1,000-foot separation requirement if they are located within a half-mile of a hospital. The Kobayashi draft also would allow group living facilities located within transit-oriented development districts (areas surrounding a rail station).
The idea of eliminating the separation requirement has been opposed by the city Department of Planning and Permitting.
“The existing separation requirements for (group living facilities) have worked well, to date,” DPP Director Kathy Sokugawa said in a letter to the Honolulu Planning Commission on March 9. “Removing the separation requirement specifically for student and staff housing may have unanticipated adverse impacts.”
On Thursday, however, DPP Deputy Director Timothy Hiu said he had “no objections” to the bill advancing out of committee. Noting that DPP learned of the changes in Kobayashi’s draft at “the last minute,” Hiu said “right at this moment, I don’t want to hold the bill back.”
Asked to clarify DPP’s position, DPP Land Use Permits Division Chief Katia Balassiano reiterated the agency’s initial opposition to changing the law for group living facilities.
“We were very much concerned that it would adversely impact existing neighborhoods,” Balassiano said. “The 1,000-foot separation is really just three or four blocks.”
DPP has been “regularly dealing with lots of complaints from neighborhoods associated with group living facilities and residential care homes that are having adverse impacts on neighbors,” she said. “So this proposal would (allow) for them to be located side by side.”
Additionally, while those who live in group living facilities would benefit from living near hospitals or other medical facilities, “we’re concerned that the proximity of these facilities would negatively impact residential neighborhoods and we do have a number of hospitals that are in residential zones.”
Council members Brandon Elefante and Tommy Waters voted to advance the bill, but said they were doing so with reservations.
Elefante said one concern is that the 1,000-foot separation requirement could be waived for drug treatment or halfway homes.
Elefante said he’s also not sure the rental prices that Kamehameha Schools is proposing for its Moiliili project would be affordable to students.
Waters said he supports what Kamehameha has planned, noting that the area below the UH campus is “prime for development.”
However, he said, “I’m afraid that it’s going to change development in other parts of the island and I’ve been having problems with group living facilities in Aina Haina and other areas that this may affect now.”
Council Zoning Chairman Ron Menor said his understanding was that the bill was changed because of concerns raised that the legislation had been designed to help only one developer.
“It began as a simple proposal … it was just going to focus on this project adjacent to the University of Hawaii, but now it’s been expanded,” Menor said.
Written testimony on Aug. 19 from Kau‘i Burgess, Kamehameha Schools director of community and government relations, said the Moiliili project would include 315 affordable and workforce rental apartments, a 725-bedroom student housing project, a 180-room limited service hotel and up to 80,000 square feet of commercial space.
Also submitting testimony supporting the bill were UH Chief Financial Officer Kalbert Young and David Tanoue, vice president of planning firm R.M. Towill Corp. and a former DPP director. Towill is a planning consultant for the Pucks Alley project.
