Lottery for affordable Koa Ridge homes begins

The developer of the emerging Koa Ridge community in Central Oahu is ready to sell its first homes below market value in a lottery to buyers meeting certain income limits.

Castle &Cooke Hawaii announced Friday that an initial phase of 26 affordable multifamily condominiums have been released for sale at prices from $375,000 to $600,000.

Pricing for the homes with one, two and three bedrooms and 487 square feet to 1,079 square feet of living space meets city affordable-housing guidelines. The homes are reserved for Hawaii households that earn no more than 120% of the median income in Honolulu.

Under the guidelines, households that meet the annual income limit include a single person earning up to $101,520 and a family of six earning up to $168,240.

The offering, in which Castle &Cooke will accept applications through June 23 and select buyers in a virtual lottery June 25, comes as the median sale price for previously owned Oahu single-family homes this year through May reached $935,000, compared with $789,000 in the same period last year.

For condos the median resale price on Oahu this year through May was $454,000, up from $429,000 a year earlier.

Rising median prices have been attributed to strong demand and relatively low supply.

Harry Saunders, president of Castle &Cooke Hawaii, said in a statement that the company is excited to offer what it called a quality affordable option for homeownership by Hawaii families in the initial phase of a subdivision called Malina at Koa Ridge.

“With the shortage of new housing options for local residents, especially affordable homes, we anticipate strong demand for Malina,” he said. “This will provide many residents with the opportunity to own their first home in a dynamic, all-inclusive community where they can establish roots and start the next chapter of their lives.”

Castle &Cooke is producing Malina to satisfy a city condition that was tied to rezoning and requires that 30% of all Koa Ridge homes, that is 1,050 of 3,500 planned homes, be affordable to households earning no more than 140% of the median income.

The company expects that it will develop four more phases of Malina for a total of 140 affordable condos.

Initial homes at Malina’s first phase are projected for completion in October, and the rest are expected to be finished next spring.

As a trade-off for below-market pricing, Malina homes come with restrictions on use that include a requirement for buyers to occupy the unit and allow the city to repurchase the home if it is resold within 10 years. Buyers also have to meet other conditions that include not having owned a home recently.

Castle &Cooke began construction at Koa Ridge in 2017, initially installing infrastructure on former pineapple plantation lands between Mili­lani and Waipio. The community’s first residents arrived in November, and to date the developer has built about 80 homes largely at prices ranging from the mid-$700,000s to $1 million.