Even before the developers of the ProsPac Tower improved the design to create greater inclusivity in the building with shared entrances, the project represented a significant and important advancement in affordable housing and transit-oriented development.
Nineteen percent of the units at the Keeaumoku-area ProsPac Tower will be affordable to moderate-income tenants at 80 percent or below of the area median income, and they will be privately financed, without the use of scarce government subsidies. That is exceptional and should be lauded.
Honolulu has a history of separating residents by income level from building to building and from one neighborhood to another. Honolulu is home to the state’s wealthiest neighborhoods, but it also has the highest number of census tracts where over 30 percent of people live in poverty. The ProsPac project challenges these existing norms by bringing moderate- and high-income earners not just into the same neighborhood, but under the same roof.
The impact of this income-mixing is likely to be life-changing for the residents of the affordable units. Studies have demonstrated that the increased access to services and resources that results from mixed-income development often results in significant benefits for residents of the affordable units — improved housing quality, increased safety, improved property management and improved mental health due to stress reduction.
It is an odd trick of psychology that ProsPac Tower was subject to such great public outcry regarding the separate entrances in the building. While the shared entrances of the revised design are an important and necessary improvement, the project has always been well ahead of the curve in terms of income integration. It is important to recognize this.
While ProsPac has engineered an elegant solution to increasing inclusion in a way that addresses the issue well for this particular development, the problem of income segregation is pervasive, and the public response to this better-than- usual situation should be used to highlight the importance of greater income-mixing throughout Hawaii.
As our state makes its decisions regarding transit-oriented development and works to address our affordable housing problem, we need to do it in a way that provides low- and moderate-income households access to higher-quality resources and services. We need to build mixed-income developments that create “communities of opportunity” as a force for positive change.
ProsPac Tower is an important step in the right direction for establishing affordable housing in which our low and moderate-income neighbors can thrive. It proves that it is possible to build affordable rentals, and it provides a foundation that our state can hopefully continue to build on.
Victor Geminiani and Gavin Thornton are co-executive directors of the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice.
