Kakaako may have only one chance to yield the housing Honolulu needs, and that decision point is before the Hawaii Community Development Authority right now.

At every turn, Oahu residents are confronted with the news that there are far more homes needed than what’s being built. Even with all the steel and glass towers rising in Kakaako, economist Paul Brewbaker has said, “almost a new Ward Village is needed every year on Oahu, just for new household formation.”

And that’s on top of decades-long deficits in housing production that have led to a chronic shortage and price pressures, both in for-sale units and in rentals. This is a crisis in particular for those households earning below the median income, especially within the urban core, where the demand is red-hot.

It’s a challenge surmountable only if policymakers seize every opportunity to leverage government’s power to drive development in a desired direction. And if the state is not careful, one of those opportunities could easily slip away, without a push from the HCDA.

The agency is contemplating a change in its rules, which if enacted would drive a harder bargain with the developers seeking permits to build in Kakaako. The rules govern how lower-income “reserve” units and “workforce” homes for sale and rent are produced.

In essence, they would then be compelled to price them to be affordable for those earning less than now and, in the case of rentals, be kept at affordable rates for 30 years instead of 15.

Affordable housing needs being what they are, these are rules worth adopting. Keeping up the proportion of units priced within local reach would serve the public interest in urban Honolulu, and is good policy.

The HCDA was established 40 years ago to streamline and oversee the redevelopment of the largely industrial Kakaako district. A single authority would be able to produce a master plan, making land use throughout the entire district more coherent than would be possible through piecemeal permitting by city agencies.

The idea was to create a “live-work-play” environment in Kakaako, though a mix of uses and rules meant to guide overall design, mitigating the crowding effects of dense urban development. In recent years the authority has become more wary of departures from these rules, which has been a positive development.

Additionally, the rules were meant to address the affordable housing shortage, imposing requirements on most residential projects proposed for the area.

The present affordability rules require any project on more than 20,000 square feet of land to reserve 20 percent of the homes for moderate-income buyers. These must be built for sale or rent at below-market prices, to be within their reach. And additional changes would bar profit-making quick resale on more of the units than face such restrictions now.

Generally, the biggest change being considered now would make developers produce affordable homes at lower prices and maintain such prices for longer.

Under this proposal, prices on average for such homes if sold would have to be affordable to someone earning 120 percent of the area median income (AMI) — homes priced at about $430,000 for a single person, $495,000 for a couple and $610,000 for a family of four.

This represents a needed improvement from the current rule, which sets the price based on “affordability” to incomes at 140 percent AMI. This means a sales price of roughly $505,000 for a single, $580,000 for a couple and $720,000 for a family of four.

In fact, within these minimum requirements more units should be encouraged to be built at even more affordable levels. As Mayor Kirk Caldwell and others have noted, about three-quarters of the housing need is for households bringing in 80 percent of AMI.

The HCDA board brought its proposal out for public hearing last week, relying on representatives to report back. That sent an unfortunate signal to the developers and others in attendance: The proposed rule changes represent a crucial policy shift, and the board members themselves should have been there to hear the reaction. Not one was.

Word got back to them quickly: Developers were displeased, arguing that further disincentives for building affordable units and keeping them within the “reserve” price range will depress interest in producing the units.

This does merit some consideration, and the authority should look for ways to curb the up-front risks for developers so that making affordable units might pencil out more easily.

But at the end of the day, it makes perfect sense to orient policy to fit the public need. Clearly, providing more affordability should be the paramount concern for HCDA.