LIHUE — Two residents addressed the Kauai County Council during a public hearing on Wednesday, and dozens sent emails in support of a bill aimed at reforming Kauai’s affordable housing policies.
Joyce Miranda, of Poipu, said she doesn’t usually attend the council meetings but felt compelled to come out for this one.
“Please, for all the people on Kauai, let’s address this housing,” she told the council. “It’s very important.”
Anne Walton spoke next, reading from a letter she had prepared.
“There isn’t a moment to spare,” she said. “And as your 2016-2018 term comes to an end, now is the time for you to act on this most pressing issue of your time on the council.”
Bill 2725, introduced by Council Chair Mel Rapozo and Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, proposes an amendment to a county zoning ordinance that allows homes designated for low-income families to be sold at regular market prices after a certain number of years.
The bill’s opponents are concerned that stricter regulations will deter investors, ultimately stifling real estate development. But advocates say that legislative action is necessary to prevent the supply of affordable housing units on the island from dwindling, a result they fear will hurt economically disadvantaged families.
“Whenever any affordable unit is re-sold into the market, our efforts to achieve an expanding inventory of affordable housing units are set back because a qualified family is no longer able to afford that home,” Yukimura wrote in a guest opinion article published in the Sunday issue of The Garden Island.
According to Yukimura, the county will have to produce about 7,200 additional affordable homes over the next 20 years in order to effectively fulfill its housing needs, a task Yukimura described as “herculean,” given the fact that only 2,700 have been developed over the last four decades.
“I think the problem would be, would the developer still develop it if it was required to be permanent,” Councilman Arryl Kaneshiro asked during discussion of the bill at a council meeting last month.
“I think right now looking at our housing situation, we have inclusionary zoning and we have no one building housing. So, to make the affordable housing now permanently affordable is not going to get us anymore housing units than we have now because no one is building,” he said.
Councilman and Mayor-elect Derek Kawakami also expressed concerns that the bill might have have counterintuitive effects.
“When you require someone to build below market value instead of granting them incentives such as density bonuses, we are not getting the affordable housing that we need, and stringent laws are causing developers to walk away,” he said at the last council meeting.
Public support for the bill has been overwhelmingly positive, Yukimura said Wednesday after the council adjourned. Even though only two members of the community were able to make it to the hearing, 40 people submitted written testimony to the council, unanimously in favor of the bill.
“Basic quality of life comes at a higher price here, even if these children and their generations of family have lived here all their lives,” an elementary schoolteacher said in an email to the council. “The children on this island suffer most from the residential families that are struggling to make enough money afford to live.”
An email from a high school seniors said, “I am writing in favor Bill 2725 which would establish of policy of long term affordability for affordable housing that is built with taxpayer monies or required as a condition of zoning. I will graduate this year 2018-2019 from high school. I want to afford to live on my OWN homeland.”
“The homeless situation has become shameful, yet I find myself sliding closer to being homeless myself,” another resident wrote. “We are counting on you to do the right thing for Kauai.”
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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
