Posted on: Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Big Island plans affordable homes

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — Developer UniDev LLC is teaming up with Big Island county officials to build 800 to 1,200 affordable homes in Waikoloa over the next 10 years, Big Island Mayor Harry Kim announced yesterday.

The county will provide 268 acres of land in Waikoloa for the project. The county acquired the property north of the end of Paniolo Avenue as a condition of a rezoning for another project years ago, said Ed Taira, county housing administrator.

Kim said the need for affordable housing on the Big Island "has reached a crisis."

"Too many families are priced out of the market and are having difficulty finding places to live that are closer to our island's employment centers," he said in a written statement. That shortage of housing is affecting employers, who are having difficulty recruiting and retaining workers, he said.

Taira said it is too soon to tell what price ranges the homes will be in because the developer still needs to hold community meetings and study the market to determine exactly what sort of units should be built.

The project, dubbed Kamakoa Vistas, will include single-family homes, town homes and rental units. More than half of the land will be used for housing, with the rest devoted to open space and parks, the county said.

The houses will be marketed to households with incomes that are 50 percent to 140 percent of the county median income. For a family of four on the Big Island, that works out to a household income from $28,500 to $73,500.

The county issued a request for proposals for the project last September, and signed a "pre-development agreement with UniDev earlier this month. Construction is tentatively scheduled to begin March 2007.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.