WAIPOULI — Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami met with the residents of the Courtyards at Waipouli Apartments on March 28, along with Managing Director Mike Dahilig, Housing Director Kanani Fu and Councilman Mason Chock.
The meeting was advertised by the resident manager’s office as “open to the tenants of Courtyards at Waipouli only and non-tenants will be asked to leave.” It was not open to the public or the media. TGI was provided with a recording of the meeting.
“We are here at the request of the resident manager to just speak to our tenants regarding the transition of the homes that are going up for sale,” Fu said.
Kawakami said he and others with the county were there “first and foremost because we care.”
He said they were there to answer any questions because he was pretty sure there was a lot of confusion.
“We are here to give you the facts of the situation, what we’ve done on our part to get to this point and what other options exist moving forward,” the mayor said. “So with that being said, we are here to listen.”
Fu said the meeting was “just intended for our residents because we wanted to come and talk directly and have a venue where you guys could talk and share with your mana‘o with us and at a later time if there needs to be more meetings and follow up we can come back, so again it was specifically for our residents here.”
Dahilig explained that an offer was on the table for $37 million for the county to purchase the Courtyards in November.
“The county’s reserve, in terms of our overall budget reserve, is approximately $34 million,” Dahilig said.
He said the county’s ability to purchase the property, “isn’t quite there.”
“When you look at the amount of bond issuance that the county issues on average about every five years, we only issue about $25 million dollars every five years,” Dahilig said.
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Ryan Collins, county reporter, can be reached at 245-0424 or rcollins@thegardenisland.com.
Scheme, Set, and Match was produced with an undereducated and filthy Dept of Housing, council, and Mayor a little over a decade ago.
Who signs a housing agreement that lasts only ten (10) years? And now they want a bailout.
The property owners had their agenda set to make their money and run. The county fell for their trap and now the county with the tax payers are once again given an ultimatum.
This by far speaks how poorly undereducated Kauai’s representatives are.
The property owners did a bait and switch when it was deemed as affordable housing at it’s opening then quickly hit market value and raised its rents making huge profits.
Now they want 37 million on top of the profits they made in 10 years. Wow you have to be in the Wild Wild West of Kauai to come up with some of this Shibai that goes on around the garden island.
Shoot, Load, then Aim is Kauai’s model for FAILURE.
No to the bailout! What happened to the housing project on the west side of Kauai? And what happened to all their families building multiple rooms so they can raise their rents and property values while cashing in with the so called affordable housing in the Lihue area? All of these backfire deals to enrich the so called powers while the rest suffer from their greed.
The county plans of tiny homes was a staggering 100K plus for each container home compared to the state’s proposal of affordable container home village of about a one hundred for an amount of 3.5 million. It would cost the cost 10 million (3 times the amount) for the same idea.
Scheme, set, match when you lay with dogs; you get fleas.
We would have preferred the writer of this article would have told us how many units are at Courtyards at Waipouli.
What are the upcoming selling prices for the units.
Why is the County using tax dollars to get into real estate when the county is having problems running the county.
Is this affordable housing, how many units and what would be the rental costs if the county bought the property. These unit’s are already being rented and it sounds like the tenants will be forced to buy or move.
Not enough questions not enough answers by the writer of the article, especially when it sounds like our tax dollars at issue.
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In the meantime building contractors are complaining that the county cannot get building Permits to the contractors and home owners, taking over a year, while land and building loans are being paid every month on high interest mortgage loans and nothing to show for it but the loss of interest payments for over a year to the waiting home owner.
As well if permits were issued on a timely basis, the would be home owners would be paying property tax to the county on completed homes or apartment buildings instead of money down the drain to the banks.
HONOLULU Mayor Kirk Caldwell passed a decree of some sort that after 60 days waiting for a building permit, that if your plans had a engineer or architect stamp on it, that that stamp was your permit and you are good to go and start construction; after all each new building must undergo county building code inspections anyway by the different agencies, as well as plumbing, electric, and building departments. So if the too long permitting process missed anything before the permit was issuedthe inspections would pick up the oversight anyway.
After all isn’t that what the inspections are for anyway…?
Charles
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Why on earth should tax dollars get spent so these people can live on the beach forever? And most people can’t afford across from the beach anyway. Any money to subsidize housing would be better spent on providing more places for more people versus the chosen few who have gotten to live there. BTW Even if it had been 20 or 30 years, someone would still have to be leaving and cry a sob story.
If the developer of the property thinks it is worth $37 million and if it really is, the county assessor needs to retink the $23,300,200 the properyt assesed at for property tax purposes.
Good news is they won’t have to move far, Coco Palms is right down the street!