Mike Liu, HUD assistant secretary, also presented the Waimanalo Hawaiian Homestead Association with a check for $61,200 to operate and expand its new community center that opened in July.

"This is HUD's first approval of an activity that will offer supportive services to Home Land residents," Liu said. "What we are doing here today is historic and opens the door for more opportunities of this nature."

Micah Kane, DHHL chairman, said both grants represent an essential part of the department's shift in philosophy from being a "pocket" developer with many small projects, into creating master-planned communities and putting many more low-income Hawaiians into homes quickly.

"These two checks presented together are very important," Kane said. "Not only from home ownership opportunities, but truly being an environment to receive the necessary services like education, healthcare and community centers. This is the beginning of what is our dream at the department to provide opportunities and communities for our people."

Kane said three years ago the department was looking at more than 90 different small housing projects. That has now been reduced to between 12 and 15 communities.

"We took projects out of the development schedule that didn't make sense under the new philosophy," he said. "In government, the amount of time it takes you to procure a one-home development is the same amount of time it takes to do a 500-home development."

The Waimanalo Homestead has 663 homes with between 6,000 and 7,000 residents, according to Paul Richards, president of the Waimanalo Homestead Association. Richards said the grant will be used for community center improvements including security, parking lot lights and planning for the third phase of construction.

Joe-Ann Sang, who has lived in Waimanalo on Home Lands since 1959, said the community center will give young people opportunities they never had before. Sang said 12 people will be employed in the technology center, which will educate students and provide job training.

"We want them to learn technology," she said.

A total of 1,800 acres of land on O'ahu, Maui and the Big Island were moved from the control of the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Housing Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i to DHHL this week for three planned communities expected to provide homes for 3,500 families within several years.

Kane said more land transfers are expected soon, which, if completed, would lead to a total of 6,000 Native Hawaiians with residential leases in the next five years, nearly equaling the 7,200 leases the agency has awarded since it was created 83 years ago.

As many as 20,000 Native Hawaiians have been languishing on a waiting list for homes — some of them for decades.

Kane said the larger grant announced yesterday will be used for infrastructure work at Villages of La'i'opua in Kealakehe (2,700 homes) and Kapolei Village 8 (326 homes). He said the projects have been fast tracked and the first homes will break ground in Kapolei in October 2005 and on the Big Island by the end of 2005.

Two other properties were involved in the land transfer: the Villages of Lei'ali'i near Lahaina (304 homes) and Waiahole Valley on O'ahu, which will not be developed into housing.

In exchange for the land, DHHL will pay the the state $33 million over 15 years to reimburse some of its infrastructure costs.