Honolulu City Council OKs senior housing tower in Chinatown

The Honolulu City Council is endorsing a long-planned affordable rental housing tower for seniors on city land in Chinatown.

Council members voted 8-1 Wednesday to provide a crucial regulatory approval for the 156-unit Halewai‘olu Senior Residences project for kupuna with low incomes.

Project developer The Michaels Organization anticipates starting construction by June and delivering the project with monthly rent as low as $578 in 2023.

The approval followed much public testimony — mostly in support but also some concerted opposition — presented Wednesday and at a Council committee meeting earlier this month.

Supporters included Gov. David Ige, affordable-housing advocates, a representative of new mayor Rick Blangiardi, seniors and some Chinatown residents who said the project, to be built on River Street between Kukui Street and Vineyard Boulevard, is badly needed.

“Honolulu has a critical need for affordable rentals for seniors who make up a vital but vulnerable segment of our population,” Warren Hamamoto, an 80-year-old local resident, told the Council on Wednesday.

Ige said in a Jan. 12 letter that Halewai‘olu will help address an affordable-housing crisis that has existed in Hawaii for decades, and will help meet a state goal of adding 22,500 affordable homes by 2028.

Project opponents were mainly backers of one local Chinese cultural organization who fear the 17-story tower will redirect what they characterize as harmful emissions from a neighboring mortuary’s crematorium to the headquarters of Lum Sai Ho Tong Hawaii, a cultural society that has maintained the three-story Tin Hau Temple next to the Halewai‘olu site for 132 years.

“We urge the developer and the city to please address the (air quality) concerns and help Lum Sai Ho Tong to find an acceptable remedy before building begins,” said Howard Lum, the organization’s vice president.

Lum said his organization supported Halewai‘olu when the tower’s minimum distance from the temple property line was envisioned to be 40 feet, and that Michaels should be held to this distance imposed by the Council in 2016 as part of a development agreement with the city.

New Jersey-based Michaels said detailed engineering and architectural work since 2016 resulted in a need to reduce the tower separation to 23 feet, which is 23 feet more than city zoning rules require for the property and 73 feet from the temple building.

Wesley Fong, an attorney and president of the Chinatown Community Center Association, supports the project as planned but shared Lum’s concerns and had a warning for Michaels.

“We are very disappointed that Michaels will not abide by that agreement,” Fong said. “I’d be a little worried if I were Michaels, because right now they’re on notice that there may be a potential hazard in regards to the emissions.”

Michaels has produced a few air quality studies that say no negative impacts will result, including one from contractor Trinity Consultants that said the tower’s position would reduce potential odors from the neighboring crematorium on four nearby sites, including Lum Sai Ho Tong.

Jay Morford, president of Hawaiian Memorial Life Plan Ltd., which operates the crematorium at Borthwick Mortuary in Chinatown where about 400 cremations are done annually, told the Council on Wednesday that the state Department of Health has issued permits for the crematorium since 1983.

“If there was any health risk regarding the air quality and emissions, we wouldn’t have been able to get our permitting over the last 40 years,” he said.

David Tanoue, a former city Department of Planning and Permitting director who works for a Halewai‘olu project contractor, said negative health impact issues from Borthwick emissions on neighbors are not real.

“It’s essentially kind of chasing a ghost, because it doesn’t exist,” he said.

Chu Shubert-Kwock, a 25-year Chinatown volunteer and longtime resident, said Halewai‘olu opponents have raised unsupported concerns.

“They want to scuttle this because of some selfish interest,” she said. “Let’s do the right thing, council members — approve this project and let the seniors have a nice home.”

Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga, whose district includes Chinatown, was the lone vote against the project based on health safety concerns. She noted that the Health Department recommends against crematoriums and homes being near one another.

Council members Calvin Say, who is a Chinatown Community Association member, and Heidi Tsuneyoshi voted for the project with reservations.

Councilwoman Andria Tupola said the air-quality studies helped support her view to approve the project.

Councilman Brandon Elefante said he respects concerns raised but noted that no legal requirement exists for the tower’s position to be more mauka from the temple property.

“This is a much-needed project for the area,” he said. “I think this is a worthwhile project that many seniors can really be happy about.”

Wednesday’s decision granted the developer a package of regulatory exemptions needed to proceed, including increased density and $5.5 million worth of waivers on city permit, park dedication and utility fees.

The development agreement between Michaels and the city would still have to be amended and approved by the Council to reflect the tower repositioning.

The $93.6 million project is largely being financed by roughly $90 million in tax-exempt bonds, a loan and tax credits arranged through a state agency. Michaels would own and operate Halewai‘olu for 65 years with the potential for a 10-year extension, after which the city would assume ownership.

The effort to redevelop the site dates back more than a decade to when the city attempted to produce a 100-unit rental housing project aimed at the area’s chronically homeless population in 2009. Strong community opposition upended that plan.

Under prior Mayor Kirk Caldwell, the city offered a 65-year land lease to a developer to produce housing for low-income seniors, and Michaels was selected over one other bidder in 2015.