The Hawaii Housing Finance & Development Corp. was created in 2006, when lawmakers decided that a single agency managing both public housing and the development of affordable housing through public-private partnerships was less effective than it could be.
Its executive director, Craig Hirai, gave lawmakers the following synopsis of what had been accomplished since then, and what’s in the pipeline:
» Completed: 61 projects, for a total of 6,346 units statewide. These include 18 for elderly residents (1,256 units) and 43 for families (5,090 units). Broken down another way, 14 projects were for sale (1,527 units) and 47 were rentals (4,819 units). Of the total, 5,057 units were built on Oahu.
» In the pipeline: There are 1,966 units in 29 projects that have begun the construction phase. One elder-resident project includes 60 units; 12 are for families, with 1,277 units. An additional 16 projects, with 607 units, comprise housing for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, for residents of Native Hawaiian ancestry.
» In the planning phase: An additional 3,994 units in 25 projects are projected for completion through fiscal 2018. The unit types — for sale, rental, senior and family — has not been determined.
To compare with how planners saw the need: A 2011 study projected housing development needs for the 2012-2016 period. Statewide, that need was set at just over 19,000 rental units affordable for those earning 30-80 percent of area median income (AMI).
Over that same time frame, projections showed first-time homebuyers in the 80-140 percent AMI range needing 4,800 for-sale units, statewide.
