A risk assessment of potential Hawaii affordable housing losses presented Tuesday at the Legislature is overblown, according to a state agency that helps finance such housing.

The Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. said Tuesday in a news release that the study from Washington, D.C.-based Smart Growth America commissioned by AARP Hawai‘i didn’t account for numerous affordable-housing projects that have affordability terms beyond a federal requirement.

The Smart Growth America report said 11,624 homes in Hawaii developed using local and/or federal tax credit subsidies and reserved for lower-income households are scheduled to have their affordability requirements expire by 2045. Most of these properties are rental apartments.

But HHFDC, an agency that helps finance such housing, said the study relied on a national database and failed to consider that most of this inventory in Hawaii has affordability terms of 61 years instead of the federal 30-year term. The agency also said the database did not include updated terms in some instances.

For example, the 176-unit Kulana Hale senior rental complex in Makiki was listed in Smart Growth America material as having an affordability term expiring in 2017 while HHFDC said that project was bought in 2022 and has 61 years of affordability remaining.

Another project identified by Smart Growth America as having an affordability term expiring before 2030 was Hale Makana o Waiale in Wailuku. HHFDC said the term for this 200-unit project runs until 2052.

HHFDC said only 2,082 low-income rental apartments developed using tax credits awarded by the agency or a predecessor are scheduled to have their mandatory affordability terms end in the next 20 years.

Some of the housing in the Smart Growth America study, which also said that 3,293 affordable homes have expiration terms from 2046 to 2065, did not receive assistance from HHFDC or a predecessor, but was developed using other public and private sources of funding.

Michael Rodriguez, director of housing research at Smart Growth America, presented study findings Tuesday to a few members or acting members of the House and Senate housing committees.

David Oi, HHFDC finance manager, explained at the briefing that projects in Hawaii financed with low-­income housing tax credits have to have a minimum 45-year affordability term and that most developers provide 61-year terms because it makes it easier to obtain the financing, which gets awarded on a competitive basis.

When affordability terms do expire, there is risk that rent for such housing shifts to market prices.

Such affordable-housing losses have happened previously in Hawaii, and are what AARP intended to raise awareness about with the report in order to prevent such conversions over the coming years and decades.

Sometimes low-income rental housing lives on after affordability terms expire because of property condition issues or a willingness by landlords. And in other instances, developers have acquired new government financing to extend affordability terms under acquisition and renovation deals.

Oi said during Tuesday’s briefing that 6,497 affordable rental units should be produced or preserved in the next five years under agency financing programs.