There’s the airplane noise, the sprawl of tightly packed suburban neighborhoods and, perhaps worst of all, the long haul to work.

Most commuters in Ewa hit heavy rush-hour traffic on the main artery, Fort Weaver Road, even before they face the dreaded congestion of the H-1 freeway, the state’s busiest highway.

No wonder 85% of the people in the Ewa area who plan to move over the next few years say they want to relocate to a different part of the island.

That’s the word from the latest statewide survey on housing conducted for the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. and the state’s four counties for use in planning for future housing needs.

The survey of 2,140 random Oahu households was produced in the first half of 2019 by SMS Research &Marketing Services Inc. of Honolulu, the same company that has conducted the study every three to five years since 1992.

One question in the survey asks, “How likely are you to move in the next three to five years?”

Roughly one-third of the respondents in six districts across the island said they indeed plan to move in the next few years.

And of those, a majority of all potential movers — except for those living in the Urban Honolulu and Windward Oahu districts — said they want to move to a different part of the island.

The Ewa district, which includes Ewa Beach, Iroquois Point, Kapolei and Ko Olina, led the way with more people saying they want to move to a different part of the island than those surveyed in any other district. Only 15% wanted to relocate within the Ewa district.

The last time the survey was taken, five years ago, only half the potential movers in Ewa said they wanted to move elsewhere, while the other half planned to stay in the area.

“A lot can happen in five years,” SMS Chairman Hersh Singer said.

Real estate consultant Ricky Cassiday said the Ewa plain has experienced a lot of home construction and is almost fully built out. The added congestion, he said, can lead to dissatisfaction.

“That area has soaked up a lot of people,” Cassiday said.

The survey also asked potential movers where they are likely to end up. In Ewa nearly half (49%) identified East Honolulu as their next community.

Ironically, East Honolulu was runner-up in the percentage of potential movers who said they intend to move out of their area (75%).

“Be careful of what you ask for,” Cassiday said. “People there are tired of the traffic accidents (on H-1). There is no bypass road.”

Most professionals who live in the area commute to urban Honolulu for work, he said, and they take their kids to such schools as Punahou.

“There’s a big herd that goes into Honolulu in the morning and a big herd that comes out in the afternoon,” he said.

Where do potential movers in East Honolulu want to relocate? The largest percentage (50%) said Urban Honolulu.

It was Urban Honolulu that led all districts with the largest percentage of potential movers who want to stay in their area (76%), followed by Windward Oahu (68%). All the other areas fell well below 50%.

The districts with the highest percent of potential movers wanting to live on another island or out of state, according to the survey, were Windward Oahu and Rural Oahu, an area defined as encompassing the Waianae Coast, the North Shore and the northernmost section of Windward Oahu, including Kahuku.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, according to SMS.