After a series of starts and stops, plans for a senior affordable rental tower in Chinatown can proceed.
The Honolulu City Council on Wednesday approved Resolution 16-70 with a unanimous vote, authorizing a development agreement between the city and Michaels Development Co. for the 151-unit Halewaiolu Senior Residences.
The project will be built on about a half-acre of city land along River Street between Kukui Street and Vineyard Boulevard. An existing two-story commercial structure on the site will be torn down and businesses will be displaced.
BUILDING APPROVED WEDNESDAY
>> 151 1- and 2-bedroom units
>> Tenants must be 62 or older with incomes of 80 percent or less of median income
>> A ground-level, 10,400-square-foot public community center
>> About 1,922 square feet of retail for 2-4 small shops
Supporters say Halewaiolu will bring an infusion of badly needed vitality to one of the more sketchy sections of Chinatown.
Project proponent Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock, president of the Chinatown Business and Community Association, said after the meeting there is a dire need for affordable senior housing in the area.
There are only a few 100 percent affordable rental buildings in Chinatown, and only one set aside exclusively for seniors, Shubert-Kwock said.
“People come up to me and tell me they’ve been on waiting lists (for public housing in Chinatown) for years and years,” she said.
Exacerbating the situation is that people are living longer. “I guess you have to die for there to be an opening,” Shubert-Kwock said.
To qualify to live at the Halewaiolu tower, prospective renters must be at least 62 years old with annual income not exceeding 80 percent of Oahu’s area median income — what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines as the “low income” category. In 2016, 80 percent median income for a single person is $56,350. For two people, it’s $64,400.
Many of the units would be aimed at people with incomes less than that, Michaels representatives said.
The developer is relying on various federal and state subsidies and loans to make the project pencil out.
The Chinatown community is also looking forward to a planned 10,400-square-foot community center on the first floor of the project, a facility that will be open to the general public, Shubert-Kwock said.
There is currently no public facility where people can gather in Chinatown, she said.
Several Chinatown groups have raised concerns about the project, including the proximity of the tower to the existing Lum Sai Ho Tong building on its makai side.
Michaels officials said that the neighbor’s proposed 60-foot setback between their tower and the Lum Sai Ho Tong building would render the project infeasible.
Concerns were also raised about how another neighbor, Borthwick Mortuary, which has a crematorium smokestack, would affect tower residents. Michaels agreed to shift units away from the area closest to the smokestack.
The company hired three consultants to examine how the building would mesh with the neighborhood’s feng shui, the Chinese concept that people — and things — should find ways to achieve harmony with the environment around them.
On Wednesday, Lum Sai Ho Tong Vice President Howard Lum threw his support behind the resolution that went before the City Council, stating his club is satisfied that Michaels will do what it can to meet its concerns.
Lum said that his group and the Chinatown community have spent the past four decades on a “journey to revitalize the Chinatown corridor in a way that honors our culture, history and centuries-old practices.”
The resolution states that all tenants must sign a document acknowledging that they are living next to a mortuary and that “the mortuary requests residents respect the privacy of its operations.”
The Caldwell administration reached an agreement with Michaels in November. When Council Chairman Ernie Martin had not formally introduced the resolution through early February, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell accused the Council of purposely foot-dragging on the issue despite the need for affordable housing.
Michaels executives warned that continued delay could set back and raise the cost of the project, if not kill it altogether, because it hampered their ability to meet deadlines to apply for federal grants, subsidies and low interest loans.
Martin, in response, said he was still hearing about objections raised by neighbors and wanted the administration to hold more community meetings.
Last month, even when it seemed likely that the Council would approve the resolution, the administration and developer asked the Council to delay a final vote because the Department of Housing and Urban Development had asked that specific language be incorporated into the development agreement.
Sandra Pfund, who heads the Office of Strategic Development that had been leading the Halewaiolu project for the city, said after the meeting that Michaels will need to return to the Council to get formal approval of a lease. Before then, it will need to complete an environmental assessment, complete a design and secure funding, she said.
Pfund estimated the process would take about a year.
