NASED, the New Aloha Stadium Entertainment District, has been in the news a lot recently. To understand what that project was, scrutinize the language inside the request for proposals (RFP) and the choice of words. It had two components: first, a stadium project; second, a real estate project. Not a homes project. Not a community project.

A real estate project — for building real estate.

A stadium, and real estate. I won’t debate that the University of Hawaii needs a stadium. But that other stuff? If the goal was to build homes for you and me, or build a neighborhood for local people, they would have called it that: an Affordable Homes Project or a Neighborhood Project. But it’s not. It’s a Real Estate Project, about real estate, for investors.

That’s the problem. Hawaii’s state government was given a blank scoreboard, but isn’t trying to build any home-field advantage. Little to solve our housing crisis here. Just checks for some mainland retirement accounts who bought real estate investment trusts.

The city government estimates Oahu’s housing shortfall at about 50,000 homes. What’s the NASED environmental impact statement’s (EIS’) number? 1,813 units. We don’t need a real estate project at NASED. We need a Home Team Housing Project.

People need to understand just how little we are getting with NASED. And I don’t mean for the dollars spent. There are dutiful civil servants making sure everything is as slimmed down as possible to fit the budget and look great for a public-private partnership investor. And that’s the problem. We are getting so very little for 98 acres of state-owned land that occupies the entire pedestrian catchment area of a rail stop that cost $539 million to build. (With nine functional rail stops so far and $4.853 billion spent to date; that’s $539 million per stop.)

Can nearly 20,000 new homes at the Halawa rail stop math out? Yes. They’ll give rail the ridership needed to stay financially solvent. We can use full-height murals and Hawaiian imagery in our architecture to build sense of place. It doesn’t have to look ugly.

There can be this Home Team Housing Project in Halawa Valley — with a 32,000-seat stadium.

Is this the word of God? No. It’s the word of a 3D computer model I drew to prove 19,550 homes could fit onto the parcel with a 32,000-seat stadium, underground parking and a shopping mall.

After the latest NASED news in September, I updated my 3D model and made a bill of construction materials and labor for the floor plans therein. I included project financing costs at today’s higher 6% interest rate. I included infrastructure like sewer, power storage and other pesky things. I can affirmatively say we can fit 19,550 units — with 12,951 affordable to families making 100% area median income ($113,000) and below, with 3,387 available to 44%-61% AMI ($34,896 to $48,379), sold fee simple. Local ohana buy them, own them and build equity.

In fact, if you build your mall and vertically stack the stadium on top of it, the marginal costs of stadium construction shrink. There’s a reason why a lot of college stadiums have classrooms and admin offices built into the sides of them. Don’t reinvent the wheel here.

Gov. David Ige recently fired the Department of Accounting and General Services from the job and indicated the University of Hawaii as his preferred replacement. That way, UH wouldn’t have to beg the Stadium Authority for a cut of the hot dog money if it owns the darn place. Building 19,000 housing units in Halawa could fund UH’s endowment. A more functional flagship university means a better educated public. Ige offered us a massive gift on his way out the door.

A home-field advantage requires active fans. To get a Home Team Housing Project from our leadership, we need to bluntly ask them for it. If we don’t demand it, the coaches are going to get paid — but all of us actually playing their game for them won’t see a cent.

November is firing season — in football and in politics. We can’t afford to leave our state’s future in the hands of those who make their money by placing bets that Hawaii will never cover the spread.

Kailua resident Erik Horn, who has an engineering background, has done project analysis/estimates for a forestry/conservation venture.