Affordable housing plan good start, but not enough
Affordable housing plan good start, but not enough
Just about every candidate for county and state elected positions has put affordable housing in their list of top priorities. Candidate for mayor of Kauai JoAnn Yukimura has gone a step further and published her plan to help alleviate the shortage of affordable housing (TGI Forum, June 24). She is to be commended for publicly going on record with her plan.
However, simple analysis of what she has published in TGI indicates what I would consider a big disconnect. Her proposed plan would set aside $80 million of Kauai property taxes over 20 years for affordable housing. Her TGI column cites the recently updated Kauai General Plan as projecting the need for 8000 affordable housing units over the next 20 years. Furthermore, she presents the requirement for an average subsidy of about $200,000 per affordable housing unit. Simple arithmetic indicates a total subsidy for the 8000 units would be $1.6 billion.
Even if the $80 million in set aside property taxes was considered as seed money to attract other sources of investment it seems unrealistic to believe investment of over $1 billion would be found for affordable housing on Kauai. In the spirit of full disclosure, I don’t mean to be critical of JoAnn’s intentions nor do I have a workable plan to alleviate the affordable housing shortage. Perhaps if I did, I too would run for Kauai elected office.
Peter Nilsen, Princeville
Anyone of these politicians can rob the pockets of hard working people in order to propose a solution to affordable housing. The true leader will find creative ways to do it and show respect for the money that does not belong to them.
Why not stop counting your money for a couple of hours and take a hike or jump through a wave? Give some of it away even! It’s like some geezers refuse to learn the real meaning of life!
What do they say about road to hell? I see no actual plan Yukimura is proposing, except to take money out of one pocket, and put it in the other. No new revenue is being created, and all this does is tighten the grip spend thrift government has on the property taxes Kauai residents already pay too much of: Kupuna who are already choosing between meds, and paying for essentials…like property taxes, because you CAN lose your home if you do not pay. “Affordable housing”, an oxymoron when you really consider the term, is the rallying cry for this election cycle, and instead of bringing together a private/public partnership to help take some of the burden from our tax paying “base”, we get this “solution” from a career politician, because IF tourism does tank, or there is another 100 year disaster on the island of Kauai, in governments ( at all levels) relentless hunt for revenue, where will be the FIRST place they will want to raise taxes? Property taxes! Well, what happened to that 80M “set aside/earmark”? Well, that turned out to be less than 20M, because we had to use that earmark for other things! You are a dreamer if you really think that much money will be “earmarked” for any specific purpose. It will go into the general fund, and be spent, as the invoices are received….and we will still be trying to shoehorn a “median” income, into an “affordable” home, subsidized by the county taxpayer. We all are aware of the culprits who are largely responsible for this housing “shortage”, and I have yet to see any of them ante up! Sorry, Yukimura: FAIL again!
Why not…. F.O.A.D.P.A
Seriously Steve, take a hike! Get in touch with the inner Stevey who yearns to be a nice guy, instead of a strict father, to people that are different or people he doesn’t know or provide for! Give the ball back when the neighbor kids kick it over; instead of shouting: “Rule of law….It’s mine!” Stop being Kauai’s “Geezer Grouch!” Geezer Grouches aren’t even admired only by other Geezer Grouches! They’ll only try to out grouch you!
Steve Martin, that is a really messed up thing to say.