Time seems to have stood still for Varona Village, a neighborhood of wood-paneled plantation homes — some of them now shuttered. The area has been slated for redevelopment for decades, and the former Ewa Plantation Co. sugar workers and their families who live there deserve to see that take place during their lifetimes.

It’s up to the city to move forward on a project that rebuilds an aging community, allows current tenants the opportunity to purchase their homes and adds much-needed affordable housing stock.

The Varona project has languished, barely progressing in fits and starts for various reasons, including the 1998 elimination of the city housing agency involved in the area’s master-planning, due to a theft scandal under the Harris administration.

Now, three mayors later, the redevelopment of Varona has resurfaced — and we strongly urge Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s administration to create a befitting blueprint to see it to completion.

The city acquired Varona, Tenney and Renton villages — built between 1900 and the 1950s — when Oahu Sugar, Ewa Plantation’s successor, shut down in 1995. While Tenney and Renton villages were largely renovated and sold to residents and other buyers, Varona has stood still.

Roadblocks to redevelopment at the west end of Renton Road included failed attempts to trade the property for state land. In 2000, former city housing official Michael Kahapea was sent to prison for his part in the scam that stole $5.6 million from the city’s Ewa Villages redevelopment fund; that theft had led to the city housing agency’s demise. Varona also is listed on the state Register of Historic Places as part of the Ewa Plantation Villages Historic District, so any projects for the area will require state approval.

More recently, a request for information by the city sought proposals to rehabilitate the agriculturally zoned 26 acres. One response was received and officials will use the information to craft a request for proposals and select a developer, city Managing Director Roy Amemiya says.

Under the RFI, the city would consider establishing permanent housing for the former plantation workers and their spouses, and affordable housing for seniors and families, which would fulfill the city’s most urgent needs. Any redevelopment in Varona should be in keeping with the character of the community — rather than a high-density suburb, plantation-style housing wouldn’t be too far a departure from what currently exists.

The city’s redevelopment process, however, is expected to fall under the purview of the city’s new three-person Office of Strategic Development, and Amemiya readily admits the Varona project is “not something they’re actively working on.” The city’s dire need of truly affordable housing for Oahu’s homeless and low-income populations, though, underscores the necessity and importance for Varona’s redevelopment.

To its credit, the city has been fulfilling its long-held obligation to provide former plantation workers and their families an affordable place to stay. Rent runs $32 to $150 a month each for 20 tenants and 18 other renters pay between $350 and $400 per month. As for renovations, though, the Varona residents have been patiently holding their spot in line for decades for that last step — the opportunity to purchase a renovated home at a fair price. This has eluded them.

Although progress has been slow-going, tenants such as Crescencia Malate, 75, remain hopeful: “I have a feeling that they’re going to fix this community.”

Malate’s optimism is encouraging, and the city needs to get the project back on track and make good on promises to redevelop Varona Village — not just for current tenants, but for many other families who are in desperate need of affordable housing.