It’s Kalihi’s turn.
The effort to reimagine one of Honolulu’s oldest neighborhoods comes with no money attached. Until there is some real investment, changes are never going to move off the pages of pretty artist renderings onto the pavement.
That said, there is some promising foundational work, conditions coming into alignment, prospects including the anticipated relocation of the Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC).
Repurposing that 16-acre property would indeed support the creation of a new urban environment, one that blends commercial and industrial properties with a growing capacity for residential units.
So it makes sense for Gov. David Ige to seize on the opportunity with this week’s unveiling of a “vision plan” for Kalihi. The community needs to mobilize to build momentum. It will take a lot of public pressure to keep the difficult process of redevelopment on course, especially with affordable housing — never easy to deliver — as a chief goal.
What’s dubbed the 21st Century Kalihi Transformation Initiative envisions the community with mixed-use housing as well as business to produce a “live-work-play” environment for residents, so more of them could have jobs close to home.
Kalihi has some of that mix now, of course, but with a sharpened focus on economic development, another top priority, Ige is establish-
ing that he wants the district to become a stronger employment hub.
Ige, who first paired the redevelopment plan with the proposed OCCC relocation, also acknowledges the transit-oriented development potential of the rail project, with a route planned to bisect the community. Four stops are planned — Middle Street, Kalihi, Kapalama and Iwilei — and the development fanning out from the stations would encompass a wide swath.
The improvements at the Kapalama stop, for example, will involve converting the unkempt property around the Kapalama Canal to a mixed-use magnet with apartments and retail, bounded on the Diamond Head side by Honolulu Community College. TOD could provide the push needed to make that specific vision a reality.
But what’s most needed by the community — Kalihi in particular, as well as Oahu generally — is affordable housing. Unlike Kakaako, where already some opportunities for mid-range developments have been lost, Kalihi would not attract the luxe developments that can be leveraged into providing some less costly units.
However, Kalihi is a district where lower-cost rentals and condominiums within reach of the middle class must be the focus. These are many of the people on whom Hawaii’s visitor industry depends for its workforce. Government agencies must coordinate efforts to fill the yawning housing gap that grows wider each year.
There will be an even greater need for government subsidy to realize these projects, although there is also some potential for private partners to tap the public land and add commercial components that make these projects pencil out more easily. But those government agencies also have to do more to make the process of securing those public financing assists less cumbersome.
Above all, state officials should avoid any needless delay on implementing OCCC’s relocation. Its redevelopment “is seen as a catalyst for future planning of state-controlled lands,” according to the blueprint. More than $1 million has been spent already on a site selection study for a new jail, and the environmental review process is underway.
Community discussions are in the works to help ensure that any planned redevelopment accommodates the existing residents. Gentrification has a bad name because it so often ends in displacement of those who call a neighborhood home.
That must not be permitted to happen in Kalihi. Pretty renderings are a good first step, as long as the outlines are filled in with care.
