Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration has unveiled a self-proclaimedly “bold” and “unprecedented” Strategic Housing Plan to accelerate housing development across Oahu. While many specifics — contracts, timelines, costs — have yet to be finalized, this plan to source alternative funding, ink deals and produce results by 2028 (the end of Blangiardi’s term) is indeed bold, and promising.
“This is about us moving from planning to execution,” Blangiardi said.
Indeed, as city Office of Housing Executive Director Kevin Auger stated, the plan embodies “a fundamental shift” in city housing strategy, with proactive planning and an emphasis on “execution” — getting the job done.
The plan hinges on use of city-owned properties and partnering with private developers to build more housing, more quickly — with transit-oriented development (TOD) along Skyline’s route taking priority. The goal: creating thousands of much-needed housing units, most all of them in TOD neighborhoods, so that residents have easy access to Skyline and bus service and, if they choose, can skip the expense of owning (and fueling) a car.
Honolulu’s TOD developments are envisioned as “high-density, mixed-use” neighborhoods, with condominiums and rental complexes, offices, grocery stores, restaurants and other retailers all in the same zone. This makes for a walkable community — and cuts residents’ costs for transportation and commuting. The design is intrinsically cost-efficient.
Honolulu also plans to tap its own properties and staff to keep price tags down — and this is where the rubber meets the road. Executing the city’s housing plan will require a significant investment in public resources, from property to planning to development itself. Expectations are high that Mayor Blangiardi, with his private-sector, executive-management background, will steward this housing plan to produce maximum return on investment, i.e. bang for the buck.
The plan’s commitment to streamline procurement processes and identify new financing strategies is a good start. Taxpayers will also expect assiduous bean-counting in the city’s “strategic” approach to public-private collaboration with developers — several representatives of which were invited to appear at the Mayor’s press conference announcing Honolulu’s housing plan.
With the need great and stakes high, Honolulu must take the utmost care to undertake all transactions transparently and to contract with competent, cost-efficient partners who guarantee to deliver what’s expected.
Using public land, where possible, removes property costs from cash needed for project budgets, and that’s essential to the plan’s success. Adding to its property bank, in 2024 the city bought Iwilei Center for $51.5 million from a limited liability corporation associated with Honolulu-based private investment group Blacksand Capital.
The city’s immediate focus for TOD projects will be in Iwilei, including properties at and surrounding Iwilei Center and the Skyline’s Kuwili Station. “Conservatively, that area can support 1,500 to 2,000 housing units,” Auger said.
The city has an “aggressive” schedule to break ground on Iwilei development by 2028. It issued its first request for qualifications (RFQ), inviting interested developers to sign up, on Feb. 14 and has committed to issuing all RFQs for the Iwilei plan by the end of this year.
Honolulu is also offering $5 million in grant funding for nonprofits or public agencies that develop housing affordable to “extremely low-income households” — not nearly enough, in comparison to the overwhelming need, but welcome nonetheless. In Honolulu a person earning $29,250 a year or less (just above an individual’s annual earnings on minimum wage) or a family of four receiving $41,750 or less is considered “extremely low income” by federal standards.
The Department of Land Management is soliciting proposals for the grant funding via the city’s Affordable Housing Fund, with the requirement that housing funded is kept affordable for at least 60 years. With those parameters, non-profit developers are likely partners.
The city’s new direction is indeed a phase shift. It signals confidence in city government’s competence to act — a turnaround from the city’s dissolution of its Housing Department in 1998, prompted by outrage over a city employee’s theft of $5.8 million in housing funds. It’s also in line with a growing, non-partisan Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) movement seeking to speed the process of housing development and hold the line on housing prices by bowling over bureaucratic hurdles.
The Blangiardi administration is on the right track with this effort, which also leverages cooperation with state government. Success in carrying out the housing plan while carefully stewarding city spending would go far to relieve Honolulu’s housing crisis — and to build voters’ faith in Honolulu Hale.
