Most of us will agree that affordable housing is one of the toughest challenges facing Kauai. All of us are affected in some way: parents wonder how their children will be able to find housing and stay on, or come back to, Kauai; friends or relatives are living in crowded conditions; some are paying excessive rents for inadequate living conditions; many children have no quiet, safe place to do their homework; employers can’t find employees because workers can’t find housing. How can we, as an island community, provide enough clean, well-built, energy-efficient homes in well-planned communities at a price that residents can afford? This is the multi-million-dollar question.
The recently updated Kauai General Plan says that we will need at least 9,000 additional housing units in the next 20 years. Of that number, at least 8,000 must be affordable by the county’s definition — where rent or mortgage costs no more than 30 percent of household income for families with incomes below 140 percent of median income. (Median income is about $80,000 for a family of four.) This means that to be affordable, the price of a unit on the average must be about $250,000 to $300,000.
The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee that I convened in 2013, which included Realtors, developers, nonprofit service organizations and government agencies that deal with housing and homelessness, studied the economics of affordable housing. We unanimously concluded that the average cost of building a housing unit is about $450,000; thus an average subsidy of about $200,000 per unit is required.
Over the past 40 years since plantation camps stopped being a primary source of housing, at least 2,000 affordable homes have been built. The capital for this building came from a variety of sources: private developers of affordable housing; affordable housing zoning conditions that required market developers, including large landowners, to provide land, infrastructure, cash or turnkey units; and county, state and federal funding.
After Hurricane Iniki in 1992, the county received $42 million in federal housing monies. Because then-Housing Director Chad Taniguchi and his team used those monies so strategically to leverage the other contributions mentioned above and because that stewardship was continued by Mattie Yoshioka, Ken Rainforth and Gary Mackler in subsequent administrations, this money supported the building of some 1500 units over the past 25 years and only ran out about three years ago as the present housing director took office.
Now that it’s gone, the county needs another infusion of capital if we are to build more affordable housing. For this reason, I have introduced a resolution proposing a charter amendment that would require the county to annually earmark 3 percent of existing real property tax revenues for the development of affordable housing over the next 20 years. If the resolution is approved by the County Council, the charter amendment will be placed on the ballot for the voters to decide in November.
If approved by the voters, there will be $4 million per year or $80 million over the next 20 years for the development of affordable housing. This charter amendment would implement both the newly adopted Kauai General Plan and the Housing Agency’s strategic plan. It will not require raising taxes on residents.
What it will do is to require the mayor and the council to prioritize affordable housing and allocate a minimum of about $4 million per year out of existing monies — out of a $230 million operating budget — for affordable housing. The County of Maui already has a similar provision in the Maui County Charter.
Without this level of capital, Kauai County will not be able to meet the need for affordable housing.
Providing affordable housing is one of the best things we could do to improve the quality of life on Kauai for our families. It will also help employers who cannot find employees because there’s no affordable housing. It will help the construction industry by providing jobs, especially during the down times. It will also help working homeless who want to get off the streets and businesses and others that are being adversely affected by the homeless problem. It will help all of us and make our community better.
If you want to see more affordable housing on Kauai, please send testimony supporting Resolution 2018-23 to CouncilTestimony@kauai.gov. Better yet, show up at the public hearing this Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers to testify. Now is the time to speak up!
See the public hearing notice and text of Resolution 2018-23 at this link: https://bit.ly/2tebQfA
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JoAnn Yukimura is a member of the Kauai County Council.
3% “earmarked” from property taxes? Sounds like another “tax” for RESIDENT property owners to me! While the housing shortage is real, and needs to be addressed, it is better addressed by private business in cooperation with the county. Lets not stretch property tax revenue/spending any more than it already is, because RESIDENT property tax payers know what will happen to meet any shortfall: exactly what has happened in the past. Oh, and did not Ms Yukimura support the most recent tax hike for Kauai residents? The half-percent sales tax? One would think she loves to spend money, as long as it is not her own! The housing shortage is a multi faceted issue..lets not allow anyone to oversimplify this by “earmarking” more county funds to throw at it! Enough, already!
Obviously, JoAnn is not so good with math or strategic thinking. If you take that $4 million out of the general fund, you will have to replace it with an increase in taxes or fees, or some other revenue source…or (perish the thought) cut County spending by that much. And we all know how the county is so good at cutting spending. No JoAnn, it WILL require an INCREASE IN TAXES, unless you’ve got a magic wand or money starts growing on trees.
Joann so the question is: is the county a competent contractor? The answer is no. The county along with the state has erected substantial barriers to the construction of housing…especially that considered affordable. All of the land use restrictions, rules and regulations that you love are the cause of the housing problems on Kauai.
On the one hand, people like you force mandates like the IAL that permanently remove land from being used for housing and on the other you whine and complain about the lack of housing? See this: https://www.mercatus.org/expert_commentary/four-regulations-increase-housing-costs
This is excerpted from a 2016 Forbes article:
“This past Monday, September 26, could prove to be a landmark day in the political discussion about urban America’s housing woes. On that day, the connection between land-use regulations and higher housing costs, long made by urbanist bloggers and think-tankers, was finally acknowledged by a sitting president, when the Obama administration published the report “Housing Development Toolkit.” Rather than echoing past presidential administrations, and thinking up all the ways that the federal government could subsidize homeownership, the report listed why homes are so expensive in the first place: restrictive zoning, bureaucratic delay and other regulations. The report laid out a 10-point plan for how expensive major metro areas can reduce their housing prices, mainly by liberalizing their markets to increase supply.”
The problem is people like you and your cronies on the council, planning commission and county bureaucracies…period. Get out of the way and liberalize land use restrictions. That will solve the problem. Problem is you will no longer be able to hand out our money as subsidies and feel good about yourself.
RG DeSoto
Mr DeSoto: Most, not all, regulations protect the environment and our Island from being over-developed. Your assert that …”The problem is people like you and your cronies on the council, planning commission and county bureaucracies…period. Get out of the way and liberalize land use restrictions.” I couldn’t disagree more. Without these regulations and council-members who want to preserve our rural lifestyle, developers would turn Kauai into another Oahu. If your suggestion is to lift regulations to only permit the building of “affordable” housing, what do you think that “affordable” housing would look like? High rise condos and apartments, because that would be the only way a developer could make a profit without subsidies. Is that what you want for us?
Great…just don’t whine and blame the wrong things for the housing shortage. Enjoy a system that creates a situation where only the relatively wealthy can afford to own a home…you can always “blame the rich” in your lamenting.
RG DeSoto
Why would they build individual houses instead of multi-unit buildings? I could be wrong but it sounds like this is what you’re suggesting.
Are there any plans to build actually affordable rental units for people who are actually low income in the form of apartment buildings?
A multi-unit building holds a lot more people per acre and combines well with the bus, especially if you don’t use 4 times as much land as the housing to park vehicles, and charge a premium for what parking exists.
After people buy these ‘affordable housing units’ that you want to sell them for 300k, what’s to prevent them from turning around and selling them for a profit to someone who is not ‘low income’?
The ‘median’ income on Kauai is a bad metric, since 8% of Hawaii residents are millionaires and we even have some billionaires with residences here. The ‘median’ is just the middle of the income range. This number doesn’t reflect how many people are living on the income from jobs that are $15 an hour or less. What’s the mean income? Whats the mode income?
If you’re a champion of the regular working people, please explain why your solutions and statistics don’t seem to reflect or consider them.
PS Condos are multi-unit buildings that people can buy. I bet you can do better than 400k per condo unit.
I so very much agree with RG Soto I had to thank him. It is NOT governments responsibility to build housing, nor redistribute the wealth. Its the goverments job to create an environment in which building homes is feasible and makes sense to builders. Joanne is asking current homeowners to finance new homes..
Did anyone catch 42 million for 1500 , 28k per home.
THERE IS NO HOUSING PROLEM,
JUST A [LONG-AGE] of PEOPLE.