At the start of his second four-year term, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi delivered his fifth State of the City address Tuesday evening, focusing on battling the “wicked problems” that trouble Oahu, including dealing with a lack of affordable housing, homelessness and crime.
But he announced big changes, too, including the pending arrival of Skyline’s next segment past the airport.
Inside a crowded Mission Memorial Auditorium that gathered dignitaries including Gov. Josh Green, Lt. Gov.
Sylvia Luke, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz and members of the Honolulu City Council, Blangiardi, 78, said his administration has “created considerable success together over the past four years.”
But “my focus tonight is on the road ahead, and specifically on what you can expect from our team over the next four years as we continue to improve the operations of the city as well as the quality of our lives,” the mayor said.
Housing and the cost of living remained major problems, creating “unprecedented out-migration,” he added.
Blangiardi noted that city legislation related to a new Department of Housing and Land Management “has been formally introduced to the City Council, merging our real estate and housing experts into a single, unified operation.”
Saying the last city Housing Department was disbanded in 1998, the mayor announced that the current executive director of the Office of Housing, Kevin Auger, will serve as director of the new department.
The mayor added that the city’s new housing plan will feature “two key components.”
The first will see “a development division within the new housing department — one that can spearhead our collaborative efforts with development partners to aggressively create new housing units on city lands,” he said.
The city has identified “at least 10 underutilized city-owned properties” for affordable housing, he added.
Solicitations for the development of five of those properties have been issued, he said. And he said the parcels in question have the potential to add nearly 2,000 units to the
island’s housing market.
The second key component includes a new finance division to address the cost of
development.
“After a 23-year hiatus, our private-activity bond program is thriving,” he said. “Since resurrecting the city’s program three years ago, nearly $670 million in bond allocations have been awarded
to developers, including $140 million in awards scheduled to close later this summer to help finance more than 400 new public housing units.”
Other areas of scrutiny include transit-oriented development, or TOD, to be built near the city’s over-$10 billion rail project.
To that end, mayor noted the city’s initial plans to open the city’s second segment of Skyline for public ridership — from the old stadium, past the airport, to Kalihi — will occur by the end of 2025.
However, Blangiardi said he’s not willing to wait that long.
“We’re announcing tonight that the second segment of rail operations, from Aloha Stadium to Middle Street, will open on Oct. 1, 2025,” the mayor cried. “Oct. 1, we go!”
At the event, the announcement that rail’s airport segment would roll sooner than anticipated appeared to surprise Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Executive Director and CEO Lori Kahikina, who has repeatedly claimed the rail line’s next section would open at year’s end.
As far as the rail line, the mayor highlighted the city’s search for an experienced builder who can convert the now city-owned Iwilei Center’s aging warehouse space into a new mixed-use TOD
on the edge of downtown
Honolulu.
“When we acquired Iwilei Center last year, we used the word ‘iconic’ to describe our vision to transform the area into a mixed-use community with at least 2,000 new housing units,” he said. “Right now the city is accepting proposals that will enable us to select a development partner capable of creating the world-class community our residents deserve.”
He added that with
$100 million in funding for mixed-use development in this year’s proposed city budget, “we have set the stage to break ground on this transformative project by 2028.”
Homelessness is also being combated, the mayor claimed.
“Last month, Gov. Green and I unveiled Kumu Ola Hou, a groundbreaking new homeless shelter inside the Iwilei Center complex that focuses on brain and behavioral health,” he said. “For individuals who have spent years — or even their whole lives — on the streets, mental health challenges and traumatic brain injuries can make it impossible to transition back into stable living situations.”
He said Kumu Ola Hou will be “the first of four separate homeless shelters that will open inside Iwilei Center this year, adding a total of 100 more treatment beds to the city’s inventory.”
Reducing crime — particularly involving homeless people — is also of concern to the mayor.
“Our enforcement approach when it comes to crime, especially involving our most vulnerable citizens, is centered on a ‘zero tolerance’ policy,” Blangiardi said. “Recent Supreme Court rulings have allowed cities and counties to be much more aggressive if someone is illegally trespassing or breaking the law, or if they are determined by a licensed health care professional to be a danger to themselves or others.”
He noted the success of “Weed and Seed Chinatown” and “Safe and Sound Waikiki” worked to target habitual criminals with long rap sheets, and the combined efforts of both programs over the past three-plus years have led to nearly 5,000
arrests.
“Our directive is to arrest and prosecute, to the fullest extent, each and every time someone breaks the law,” he added.
Blangiardi also touched on the use of illegal
fireworks on Oahu.
To that, the mayor asked for a moment of silence to remember the victims of the New Year’s Aliamanu fireworks explosion — an incident that, so far, has claimed six lives and injured at least 20 others.
The mayor also honored the sacrifice paid by Honolulu Fire Department firefighter Jeff Fiala, killed on duty Jan. 6 while battling a structure blaze in the McCully area.
“It was an act of bravery that every single member of our Fire Department would have made,” Blangiardi said.
The mayor welcomed Fiala’s parents, his brother and his fiance, as well as Fiala’s wife, Fiona, who all received standing applause at the event.
Other areas of public safety were of concern.
The mayor noted that the new Department of Ocean Safety will see additions to its lifeguarding efforts.
“In addition to Ocean Safety’s new Windward Operations Center, we anticipate spending millions over the next four years on the planning, design and construction of improvements to existing Ocean Safety facilities, as well as on the construction of new facilities — including one very special facility on the North Shore,” he said.
“After countless conversations with community members, public safety officials and (Council) Vice Chair (Matt) Weyer, we are announcing tonight our intent to purchase a highly coveted piece of land across the street from Shark’s Cove for the creation of a world-class first responder hub,” Blangiardi said.
He added, “These plans are subject to a negotiated sale price with the current landowner but will be transformative for our North Shore communities.”
Besides the lifeguards, the mayor wanted to review Emergency Medical Services’ possible integration into HFD. “Equally as
important, we need to study the impact it will have on the morale of our first
responders,” he said.
In early March the city declared it had reached agreements with two major city unions — the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, or SHOPO, and the United Public Workers — that have finalized multimillion-dollar settlements involving dangerous COVID-19-era work. The city is in negotiations with the Hawaii Government Employees
Association over similar “temporary hazard pay”
settlements.
The mayor said unions representing firefighters and transit operators, including bus drivers, may be next. “The more than $130 million we’re spending on hazard pay reflects our commitment to our employees,” he added.
Blangiardi also touched on his administration’s planned but contentious naming in early December of a site for the city’s next solid-waste landfill — this one on active pineapple fields above Central Oahu’s freshwater aquifer in Wahiawa — to replace the 35-year-old Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Kapolei, which is set to close in 2028, though the landfill will not reach full capacity until 2032.
Since the landfill site’s public disclosure, Council members — including Vice Chair Matt Weyer, whose Council District 2 represents Wahiawa — and Board of Water Supply Manager and Chief Engineer Ernie Lau, along with several state legislators, have strongly objected to the city’s next dump being located over a prime fresh groundwater source.
At the state Capitol, state-level measures also look to ban landfill sites above freshwater aquifers anywhere in Hawaii.
“I don’t think we could have applied more due diligence, study and thought into a major challenge than we have with the siting of a replacement for Waimanalo Gulch,” Blangiardi said.
