New Strategic Housing Plan for Oahu is launched by city

Yahoo

06-02-2025

In what the city describes as bold and unprecedented, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi's administration this week publicly announced its plan to expand construction of more housing across Oahu.
Coinciding with the mayor's second four-year term, the city's Office of Housing released its 2025-2028 Strategic Housing Plan, which aims to partner with developers to 'activate underutilized ' city-owned lands on the island and involve using new types of 'financing strategies ' to build more housing on the island.
And the city's plan also calls for the merger of the existing Mayor's Office of Housing with the existing city Department of Land Management—to create the new Department of Housing and Land Management—to supposedly centralize and streamline the city's development, finance and policy efforts.
The same plan would consolidate all homeless and transitional housing functions under the city Department of Community Services, the city says.
The plan, which does not offer an overall number of new housing units the city expects to develop on the island, will supposedly lay the groundwork for such development in the coming years—or at least as long as the Blangiardi administration remains in office.
The mayor's second and final term ends in 2028.
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'This is about us moving from planning to execution, and a lot of our next term is going to be about doing precisely that, ' Blangiardi said during a news conference inside Honolulu Hale Wednesday. 'But I can't think of anything more profound or important for us in the city's involvement in what we're going to do to create housing.'
The mayor's news conference also featured a few 'special guests '—namely, representatives from large developer firms including Kobayashi Group LLC, Stanford Carr Development LLC, and Castle &Cooke Hawaii, among others.
City officials outlined the housing plan's key initiatives :—Expand transit-­oriented development, or TOD, via Skyline to create high-density, mixed-use communities along its nearly 20-mile route. That effort would concentrate growth—housing, offices, retail, education, and government services—in Hono ­lulu's primary urban center. The TOD corridors would reduce commute times, lower transportation costs, and support Hono ­lulu's sustainability goals.—Activate Skyline's Kuwili Station TOD Redevelopment Area. The plan states the city and state's land holdings in the Iwilei area—where the Kuwili Station is planned—will help 'improve connectivity, address environmental concerns, and mitigate flood risks.' The plan envisions thousands of housing units within a mixed-use district, backed by $2.7 million in federal and state grants for infrastructure and master planning.—Accelerate housing development by leveraging underutilized public lands and streamlining procurement processes to expedite partnerships with local developers.—Enhance housing finance strategies. City officials say existing funding sources for affordable housing, including general obligation bonds, private activity bonds, and the Affordable Housing Fund—Ordinance 7-19—are limited. The city is currently exploring new financing strategies—some derived from other cities and counties on the mainland—to expand opportunities for housing development here.—Improve housing policies and processes with support from the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, or UHERO. To that end, city officials say they will conduct a comprehensive review of housing programs and policies. A new set of recommendations is expected by late 2025.
At the news conference, Office of Housing Executive Director Kevin Auger said the housing plan—released to the public Friday—is the first time the city has 'addressed our affordable housing crisis in over 25 years.'
'It provides a road map outlining direct actions that the city will be undertaking to facilitate the production of housing on Oahu, ' he said. 'But more than that, it represents a fundamental shift toward a proactive delivery model that emphasizes execution, public-private collaboration and strategic investment.'
In part, Auger said Skyline will offer TOD housing through urban Honolulu, where the rail will roll into downtown by 2031.
'TOD development concentrates growth and density in the primary urban areas without encroaching on rural areas, ' he said.
He added the 'immediate focus ' of TOD projects would be in the Iwilei area, and at the Kuwili Skyline Station, near the old Iwilei Center.
In January 2024, the city announced it closed a $51.5 million deal to purchase the Iwilei Center.
The transaction will convert the existing center—long home to warehouses, loading docks, offices for lease as well as more than two dozen commercial tenants—to a new, city-owned affordable housing development, the city said.
Acquired by the city's Department of Land Management from Iwilei Center LLC, an affiliate of Blacksand Capital, the purchase of the 3.8-acre property includes addresses at 850 and 866 Iwilei Road and 505 Kaaahi St., respectively.
'We believe that conservatively that that area can support 1, 500 to 2, 000 housing units, that's directly located adjacent to Chinatown, it's within walking distance of downtown, ' he said, adding TOD development will reduce residents' 'dependency on automobiles, reducing the cost to support them.'
Deemed the first phase of the mayor's new housing plan, Auger said the city has 'an aggressive ' schedule to break ground on the Iwilei development by 2028.
He noted the city also owns 10 properties around Oahu—from Waianae to Waikiki—that are ripe for redevelopment.
'The combined total (is ) about 35 acres, ' Auger said. 'We believe conservatively those lands can accommodate close to 2, 600 housing units, including the Iwilei Center development.'
He added 'to move these properties into development, we're committed to issuing requests for qualifications to secure development partners for all of these properties for calendar year 2025.'
'The first request for qualifications includes the portfolio of four properties, and that was issued just last Friday, ' he said.
But Auger admitted developing housing projects on Oahu could take time—in the case of Iwilei Center, it will be three years before the project breaks ground.
'It takes a long time to get a development off the ground in Hawaii, ' Auger told news reporters. 'Environmental review, planning and permitting, development … and most importantly, getting a line of low-income housing tax credits, if you're building affordable housing.'
'When you look at private activity bonds and low-income housing tax credits, that combination, and you look at the last five years—that program is administered by Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation—that limited resource only delivers less than a thousand units a year on average, ' he added.
At the news conference, individual developers did not speak on or address the city's prospective developments.
But Council Vice Chair Matt Weyer, chair of the panel's Housing, Sustainability, Economy and Health Committee, spoke to the importance of creating more housing for residents.
'We see the need for resources on all parts of the spectrum, from non-congregate (housing ), to low-moderate income households, to market-rate units, ' Weyer said. 'And we see the need to address the out-migration. It's not just affecting our families, it's affecting our workforce.'
After the news conference, Housing Hawaii's Future Policy Director Perry Arrasmith told the Honolulu Star-­Advertiser that his nonprofit, which advocates for more workforce housing for teachers, firefighters, police officers and health care workers, was impressed with the city's new housing plan.
'This has been something that the city has needed for a really long time, ' he said, 'and now it's going to be a matter of actually implementing this plan.'