Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Hawai'i Free Press

Current Articles | Archives

Friday, May 18, 2018
Good Intentions Pave Road to Hawaii Housing Crisis
By Keli'i Akina PhD @ 1:28 PM :: 7907 Views :: Maui County, Homelessness, Land Use

Good intentions pave road to homelessness

From Grassroot Institute, May 18, 2018

We are all aware of Hawaii’s "pay to play" culture and "friends and family" cronyism, but the high cost of housing does not appear to be the result of widespread corruption. It is more a case of good intentions gone awry.

That was the message of David Callies, law professor at the Williams S. Richardson School of Law, who spoke this past Tuesday at an event on Maui hosted by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.

Well-intentioned laws have created “the most over-planned and over-regulated state, from a property standpoint, in the country,” said Callies, who also is author of the book “Regulating Paradise: Land Use Controls in Hawaii,” published in 2010 by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Callies said, “None of the regulations … are in themselves meant to be pernicious or driving up the cost of housing. There was no animus involved. All of them had good purposes and good reasons, but collectively … (they have had) the effect of driving up the cost of housing.”

“We don’t ever repeal anything, we just add to it,” Callies said.

Callies noted that 95 percent of the land in Hawaii is zoned as conservation or agriculture, which leaves less than 5 percent of the land zoned as urban — the only land available for development of “affordable” and middle-income housing. This has created an artificial scarcity of land available for housing.

As a thought experiment, I asked Callies “What if we moved from 5 percent urbanization to 6 percent? Would we damage the aquifer? Would we hurt the environment greatly? But by doing so, I figure we would increase land supply available for development by 20 percent.”

He responded: “My land economist friends tell me that you can go to 10 percent without noticeable difficulty, depending on which island you reclassified. The only isle that has anything remotely resembling a shortage — and even that has plenty of land to use — is Oahu.”

Yet the state agency in charge of approving reclassifications of land, the Land Use Commission, rarely does so, according to Callies:

“Instead of just focusing on it’s main broad brush strokes of so much for conservation, so much for agriculture), so much for urban, so much for rural, the Land Use Commission gets involved in a detailed fashion exactly what the land owner’s going to do with the property. Sometimes the landowner doesn’t know yet.”

In Callies’ opinion, what the landowners want to do with their property should be “none of the Land Use Commission’s business. That’s the county’s business.”

Meanwhile, the mountain of land-use restrictions, although well-intentioned, has been a major cause of Hawaii’s skyrocketing home prices and ever-increasing cost of living.

If Hawaii leaders wanted to, they could make more room for housing, while not touching conservation lands preserved for our environment.

Sensible relaxation of Hawaii’s highest-in-the-nation housing regulations would be a good start.

E hana kakou (Let’s work together!), 

Keli'i Akina, Ph.D.

President/CEO

Links

TEXT "follow HawaiiFreePress" to 40404

Register to Vote

2aHawaii

Aloha Pregnancy Care Center

AntiPlanner

Antonio Gramsci Reading List

A Place for Women in Waipio

Ballotpedia Hawaii

Broken Trust

Build More Hawaiian Homes Working Group

Christian Homeschoolers of Hawaii

Cliff Slater's Second Opinion

DVids Hawaii

FIRE

Fix Oahu!

Frontline: The Fixers

Genetic Literacy Project

Grassroot Institute

Habele.org

Hawaii Aquarium Fish Report

Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society

Hawaii Catholic TV

Hawaii Christian Coalition

Hawaii Cigar Association

Hawaii ConCon Info

Hawaii Debt Clock

Hawaii Defense Foundation

Hawaii Family Forum

Hawaii Farmers and Ranchers United

Hawaii Farmer's Daughter

Hawaii Federation of Republican Women

Hawaii History Blog

Hawaii Jihadi Trial

Hawaii Legal News

Hawaii Legal Short-Term Rental Alliance

Hawaii Matters

Hawaii Military History

Hawaii's Partnership for Appropriate & Compassionate Care

Hawaii Public Charter School Network

Hawaii Rifle Association

Hawaii Shippers Council

Hawaii Together

HiFiCo

Hiram Fong Papers

Homeschool Legal Defense Hawaii

Honolulu Navy League

Honolulu Traffic

House Minority Blog

Imua TMT

Inouye-Kwock, NYT 1992

Inside the Nature Conservancy

Inverse Condemnation

July 4 in Hawaii

Land and Power in Hawaii

Lessons in Firearm Education

Lingle Years

Managed Care Matters -- Hawaii

MentalIllnessPolicy.org

Missile Defense Advocacy

MIS Veterans Hawaii

NAMI Hawaii

Natatorium.org

National Parents Org Hawaii

NFIB Hawaii News

NRA-ILA Hawaii

Obookiah

OHA Lies

Opt Out Today

Patients Rights Council Hawaii

Practical Policy Institute of Hawaii

Pritchett Cartoons

Pro-GMO Hawaii

RailRipoff.com

Rental by Owner Awareness Assn

Research Institute for Hawaii USA

Rick Hamada Show

RJ Rummel

School Choice in Hawaii

SenatorFong.com

Talking Tax

Tax Foundation of Hawaii

The Real Hanabusa

Time Out Honolulu

Trustee Akina KWO Columns

Waagey.org

West Maui Taxpayers Association

What Natalie Thinks

Whole Life Hawaii