A new county housing policy aims to address a critical shortage of affordable homes by forcing developers to help subsidize units through a variety of options and wide-ranging incentives. The bill sprouted from four years of county Housing Agency work
A new county housing policy aims to address a critical shortage of affordable homes by forcing developers to help subsidize units through a variety of options and wide-ranging incentives.
The bill sprouted from four years of county Housing Agency work and grew through several amendments and months of multi-faceted discussion before County Council members passed the legislation at an all-day meeting yesterday at the Historic County Building.
Last-minute changes shuffled an evolving deck of percent requirements representing an effort to strike a balance between meeting the community’s housing needs and what developers say they can realistically afford.
The policy assesses a 30 percent workforce housing requirement to residential developments of 26 units or more.
Of that 30 percent mandate, 20 percent must be affordable to households earning up to 80 percent of the Kaua‘i median household income; 30 percent for those earning up to 100 percent; 30 percent for up to 120 percent; and 20 percent for up to 140 percent.
Council members said more than 60 percent of residents earn below 80 percent of the median household income, which is $63,300.
Earlier draft legislation had targeted that need more directly. It required half of the 30 percent overall affordable housing requirement to be units for that income group.
The 30 percent slash, which councilwoman Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho introduced as an amendment yesterday morning, concerned some fellow council members but signified a mark developers said they could meet and the Housing Agency supported.
Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who favored some adjustment to the previous 50 percent requirement, questioned the logic behind the decision.
“Government needs to play more of a role than we were anticipating,” Housing Agency Executive Ken Rainforth said.
Yukimura repeated the question two times, asking “So what are the plans for the Housing Agency to address the missing part of the demand?”
After a long pause, Rainforth responded.
“We do as much as we can as often as we can,” he said. “I’ve never purported or suggested that we could solve the problem.”
Yukimura said the policy’s target is to address the housing need on the island by using public and private resources. This amendment, she added, fails to answer the call.
Council Chair Bill “Kaipo” Asing interjected, urging council members to pass the proposed amendment to establish a base to build on, which they did.
Iseri-Carvalho offered the rationale behind her amendment, saying the conditions can not be punitive to the point it results in no affordable housing being built.
There is only so much government can bear, she said, and likewise for developers.
Councilman Mel Rapozo added that commercial lenders have said they could not fund projects with the 50 percent requirement.
However, Councilman Tim Bynum said a similar policy on Maui has proven to be doable.
“These developers are providing it realistically. Why are we different?” he said, noting a handful of locally built projects there requiring 50 percent affordable housing to the below 80 percent income group.
Kaua‘i has a population that has “huge numbers” of people “one paycheck away” from being homeless, Bynum said.
“If we make the bill too weak, then we’ve lost a pretty good opportunity,” he said.
Yukimura intended to introduce an amendment yesterday to establish a community land trust.
Developers, she said, would be required to donate property on project sites that the county would develop to meet the community’s affordable housing needs — particularly the below 80 percent household income group that is “the most vulnerable to fall into homelessness.”
The results of Yukimura’s amendments were unavailable at press time.
The policy maintained previous provisions that provide alternatives for developers to satisfy requirements.
A developer may pay an in lieu fee, for instance, or land appraised at that value. For the below 80 percent income group, the in lieu per unit fee is $176,000. By contrast, the fee for the 120- to 140-percent group is $12,000.
Other incentives that can reduce the affordable housing requirement up to 50 percent include building green, integration and single-family units.
Lihu‘e-based architect Ron Agor called on council to not discount multi-family units, which he said are “about as green architecture planning as you can get.”
He noted the difference in the number of units compared to the amount of acreage in single- versus multi-family projects.
Iseri-Carvalho and Asing told Agor that the option for developers to build multi-family projects still exists under this policy.
The Council heard additional amendments and discussed the bill into the night with Asing’s assurance it would pass before the meeting adjourned.
• Nathan Eagle, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or neagle@kauaipubco.com.
