Lingle to use state land for affordable housing
By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
Citing the need to address Hawai'i's homeless problem, Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday said her administration is planning to use hundreds of acres of state land for affordable housing projects.
Speaking before about 1,000 people at the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai'i annual luncheon, Lingle said the state has "an exploding need for affordable housing," and that nearly half of the more than 6,000 homeless in Hawai'i are on the Neighbor Islands.
Lingle
Lingle said the state needs at least 17,000 more rental units over the next five years that will be affordable to people earning 80 percent of Hawai'i's yearly median income or less. That translates to up to $36,800 for an individual or $52,550 for a family of four on O'ahu.
"We as a state have let this problem go on for too long," she said. "If we don't address it head on and seriously and collectively, it will have a profound negative impact on all of us."
Lingle said her administration has identified two parcels of land on the west side of the Big Island — each about 100 acres — as well as five parcels on Kaua'i. Lingle did not identify those locations, and her office could not provide that information yesterday.
"A big issue has been land, and the state, I don't think, has freed up enough land because if we could do that, we could bring the costs down compared to if we had to go to a private developer and purchase land," Lingle said.
Stephanie Aveiro, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai'i, said she has not yet seen those parcels, which the agency would assess.
"We're very, very excited that the governor is even willing to consider these state lands as possible places to partner with developers and get some affordables going," Aveiro said.
Lingle also said she will meet next week with the state's major developers, landowners, those in the construction industry and nonprofit organizations who work with the homeless to seek their ideas and involvement in her efforts.
"Government, quite frankly, is inept at getting large numbers of affordable units on the market and we need the help of the private building sector to achieve our goals," she said.
Lingle said she also wants to tackle the homeless issue by developing a six-year action plan by the end of the year.
She said counties will have to "step up to the plate on this, too, and take a hard, hard look at their permitting process."
"Every time a project comes in to a county council on the Neighbor Islands and they talk about (how) it's going to create traffic, they're going to have to examine that," she said. "But the alternative to more cars on the road is people on the street and people on the beaches and to me it's not even a close call. So we'll be asking the mayors and the councils to rethink how they've been approaching these projects when it comes before them."
Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.
