An affordable-housing development set for Puhi will create 56 much-needed homes available for purchase within two years. Ho‘okeana at Puhi, which will be built and sold through D.R. Horton-Schuler Homes LLC, is not expected to begin construction till next year,
An affordable-housing development set for Puhi will create 56 much-needed homes available for purchase within two years.
Ho‘okeana at Puhi, which will be built and sold through D.R. Horton-Schuler Homes LLC, is not expected to begin construction till next year, according to Schuler Homes Hawaii Marketing Coordinator Ashley Tsuji.
The units are a condominium format, and are expected to sell for between $200,000 and $300,000.
Schuler Homes Hawaiian Division President Mike Jones said the project had just entered its permitting process. He said he did not have an exact cost of the project, but said the budget for the development is about $12 million.
Construction bids have not gone out yet.
“Kaua‘i needs affordable housing, and ‘ho‘okeana’ means ‘quenching,’ like we’re quenching a need for housing,” Tsuji said.
Tsuji said the units would not likely begin selling till 2007.
Building-type one offers three model styles, with 12 homes per building, ranging from 752 square feet to 955 square feet.
The second building type will offer two model styles, with four homes per building, ranging from 1,345 square feet to 1,385 square feet of living area.
Nadine Nakamura, principal of NKN Project Planning, a housing and strategic-planning consultancy and an advocate for affordable housing, said the planning for this area predated Hurricane ‘Iniki. According to data from NKN, Hawai‘i trails the national rate of home ownership by about 10 percent.
As of July 2004, an affordable home costs about $272,000.
“It’s welcome. This is the final increment of affordable housing that Grove Farm is obligated for in the Puhi-Lihu‘e planned community,” said Kenneth Rainforth, executive on housing for the Kaua‘i County Housing Agency in the Offices of Community Assistance.
“Most of the infrastructure should be in place,” Nakamura said. “I think the main holdup was the water situation,” she said.
That situation has been addressed through a partnership between leaders with the county Department of Water and Grove Farm, said Ed Tschupp, manager and chief engineer of the county Department of Water.
Tschupp said Grove Farm leaders will provide water for their master-planned property holdings in the Puhi area through a surface-water-treatment plant in Hanama‘ulu that will utilize freshwater from streams and irrigation ditches and then treat that water with a state-of-the-art filtration system.
Leaders in the county Department of Water will pay for the operation of the plant, but the water will feed into the county system, and users will be billed by the county.
After completing Ho‘okeana at Puhi, Schuler Homes Hawaii leaders also plan to develop Kohea Loa, a master-planned community located in Hanama‘ulu, on a triangular piece of property near the intersection of Kuhio and Kapule highways.
Four distinct neighborhoods are planned, and will offer a total of 440 homes, with 176 of these planned homes priced to meet Kaua‘i’s affordable requirements for local residents.
Rainforth said earlier 400 affordable homes on Kaua‘i would be available in the next five years, including the Schuler Homes project.
- Andy Gross, business editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or agross@pulitzer.net.
