Report: Empty home tax could generate millions in revenue, but won't necessarily create more homes for kamaʻaina

Yahoo

29-04-2025

HONOLULU (KHON2) — A recent report says that an 'empty home tax' in Honolulu could affect hundreds of homes and create tens of million dollars in revenue a year. But it won't necessarily create more homes for kama ʻaina to rent or own.
Supporters of the proposed empty home tax say the need is clear.
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'If our city leaders can send a message and say 'look, we're in a crisis, Oahu is just not for sale anymore' I think that would be a big help,' said Ross Isokane, of Housing Now! Coalition.
Ernst and Young recently completed a report, at the city's request, to look at how feasible the tax would be on Oahu. These findings will be presented to the city council's budget committee on April 29.
'We wanna strike a balance but at the end of the day, we need to do something about our housing crisis,' said Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, Honolulu city council budget committee chair.
The report used water usage to determine if a home was vacant. It estimated that between 2-to-4 percent of the nearly 300,000 homes on Oahu are empty.
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'When I walk around Kakaako and see, at night, and see all the lights that are off in the condos, I think to myself 'well gosh, getting those units into the hands of residents, whether it's for sale or for rent, really can help,'' Isokane said.
However, between 81 and 87 percent of those homes would be exempt. Examples like a homeowner who passed and relatives are figuring out what to do, or kupuna homeowners who've moved to assisted living.
'For those folks who own three or four or five properties, and again, the lights have never turned on once, you know those are the ones that really should be paying for the privilege,' Dos Santos-Tam said.The proposal isn't set in stone yet so the report had to look at four difference scenarios based on exemptions and tax policy. Over a ten year period, the report estimates that the tax could bring in on average a minimum $29 million a year. At maximum, close to $55 million a year.
Dos Santos-Tam says money isn't the goal.
'If all of these units convert over and the city doesn't make a single dollar in new tax revenue from it, I think that's a good outcome,' Dos Santos-Tam said.
The report stated an empty homes tax is neither intended nor proven to address affordable housing issues by itself because that's dependent on other factors like housing supply and costs.
'It's my hope that whatever policy we adopt, whether it's an empty homes tax, a new tax class, whether it's some other thing, we can convert these units into something new,' Dos Santos-Tam said.
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