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November 24, 2024 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 9:13 PM :: 1067 Views

VIDEO: NYC Flying Unwanted Migrants to Hawaii

Put "empty homes" tax proposal on pause

Legislative History

Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted November 22, 2024

Permit delays blamed for pervasive ‘pain and regulatory heartache’

Lahaina: Zero Permits for Commercial Rebuilding—Front Street to be Eliminated?

MN: … “There have been discussions about a Lahaina Business Park, but no determinations have been made about the location, funding and other details,” the county said in a statement. ”The initial concept for the business park was to provide a place for businesses destroyed in the wildfire to re-establish, but other businesses from West Maui and other areas also could be included. Again, it’s important to note that this is a conceptual proposal and part of a draft plan that has not been finalized.”

For the businesses, the timeline isn’t soon enough. Corpuel said the longer businesses wait to reopen, the longer they risk losing employees.

“That’s the difference between business and government,” Corpuel said. “Government moves like the Titanic, and they (businesses) don’t have the cash flow to wait around … so they have to make other decisions, and I’ve lost a lot of good people that have moved off the island because they either can’t afford to live here, there’s no work at the moment, or there’s no place to live.”

Barberi likes the idea of the business park but is also uncertain about the future.

“If the time is right and everything’s good and the numbers are right, then we’re happy to jump on board,” he said. “But three to five years is a long time. Things change, you know?”

But Barberi also wondered why the money would be spent on a business park instead of rebuilding Front Street. When it comes to generating revenue for Lahaina and the county, he said, “Front Street is what people want.”

Kaleo Schneider is one of the property owners waiting to rebuild on Front Street. Her family owns the stretch of buildings next to the Lahaina Public Library that essentially formed “the corner of the main street,” with businesses like Lappert’s Ice Cream, Wyland Gallery and Lahaina Sunglass Co.

Schneider said the family is “in a limbo state” as they wait for the cleanup to finish and decide how to proceed with a complicated rebuild that includes historic buildings and structures that once jutted out over the water, overlapping county and state territory.

“There’s a lot of moving parts we’re not sure what we’re gonna be allowed to do or not do, but we’re going to make some concessions probably depending on what the state needs us to do,” Schneider said.

She added that there’s a perception that all of the Front Street owners are Mainland residents or corporations, but some are local families like hers who have passed the properties down for generations from her great-grandfather Antonio D. Furtado, a butcher and postmaster general for Lahaina, and her great-grandmother Lucy Napela Furtado, a teacher at King Kamehameha III Elementary.

“These buildings have been in local families’ hands for a long time,” she said. “So I’d like to see that Hawaiians support other Hawaiians keeping their Hawaiian lands.”

Leil Koch, who owns the building at 744 Front Street that used to house Fleetwood’s on Front Street and retail shops like Billabong and European Vintage Posters, said he’s ready to go as soon as his building is deemed sound. Built in 1916, the structure has survived two fires with its 2-foot-thick concrete walls intact. Koch says all his former tenants, including Fleetwood’s, want back in once the space is rebuilt. But he said the timeline depends on how fast the county moves.

Koch doesn’t believe the solution is building more business space away from Lahaina town. He thinks it’s more about streamlining the permitting process — for example, taking the same traffic study for all businesses preparing to rebuild on Front Street instead of forcing all of them to do the same study over and over in the same area.

The county created a dedicated permitting office run by the contractor 4LEAF to expedite applications for rebuilding homes in the burn zone. Barberi thinks they did a “wonderful job” on the residential side and hopes businesses will get the same opportunity.

Of the 148 commercial lots damaged in the fire, 134 had been cleared of debris by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as of Monday, according to the county’s recovery dashboard. Seven building permits on four properties have been submitted thus far, with none issued yet.

Front Street’s rebuild is made more complicated because it is located in the special management area, which runs along the shoreline. That requires more permitting and brings concerns over sea level rise and coastal erosion.

“The County Department of Planning is meeting with certain commercial properties owners to provide the path forward on permits,” the county said in a statement on Friday. “Those in the SMA will more than likely need approvals by the Maui Planning Commission under the SMA Major process. The Planning Department is committed to creating a process to ensure adequate permit processing.”

read … Businesses want to return to Lahaina. Can they afford to wait for the rebuild? : Maui Now

Surprise: DHHL Bowl-o-Drome rentals to go to non-Hawaiians

SA: … Stanford Carr Development, a local firm developing the 23-story Hale Moiliili project with 278 units in Oahu’s urban core, is highly confident that more than enough demand will exist for the project featuring studios to three-bedroom units where monthly rent is estimated to range from $675 to $3,461 and will be reserved for households with very low to moderate incomes.

The firm also believes that Hale Moiliili can be a template for additional similar projects on DHHL land well-suited for multifamily rental housing.

(CLUE: More contracts for Carr.)

Earlier this year, however, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is insuring a $59 million loan that is helping finance the $154 million tower, was very concerned about some units remaining empty when Hale Moiliili opens.

(CLUE: And you are only now being informed.)

To mitigate this perceived risk, HUD pushed to make units available to nonbeneficiaries if demand from beneficiaries fell short.

What was described as a condition of HUD’s financing was presented to the Hawaiian Homes Commission in March, stirring considerable debate…

At the meeting, commissioners were asked to approve a 65-year ground lease, under which the developer would build, own and operate the tower on the DHHL-owned site that was once occupied by Stadium Bowl-O-Drome.

Information provided to commissioners didn’t mention the broader tenant eligibility sought by HUD, but commissioner Dennis Neves noticed that written meeting materials described the project’s tenant profile as “primarily” Native Hawaiian beneficiaries.

“What does that mean?” Neves asked.

State Deputy Attorney General Alana Bryant explained that the commission should decide whether Hale Moiliili units can be rented to nonbeneficiaries if there’s not enough demand from beneficiaries. This backup eligibility, she said, could first go to Hawaiians who don’t meet the 50% minimum blood quantum for DHHL, and then to the general public….

DHHL also regards Hale Moiliili, which the agency is not funding, as more akin to one of its commercial property leases where the agency leases its land to private developers for retail, industrial or other commercial uses that generate income for the agency to support homestead development.

For Hale Moiliili, though, the developer is paying $1 a year for the land lease….

“HUD is scared,” he said, also acknowledging that 10 empty units for such an affordable-housing project is the difference between defaulting or not defaulting. “The vacancies are razor thin.”

DHHL Director Kali Watson, who is also commission chair, encouraged approving the broader eligibility….

Commissioners voted 6-3 to approve the broader eligibility.

Yet sometime after the March meeting, HUD abandoned the provision it pushed to obtain. Agency officials would not publicly say when the change was made or why….

(CLUE: But DHHL has already cemented this in to the deal with Carr.)

Some members of the Hawaiian Homes Commission are uncertain about whether enough beneficiaries will move into Hale Moiliili when it opens. The eligible pool will be smaller than the waitlist total because households will need to meet income limits to live in the tower.

(TRANSLATION: DHHL wants to rent to non-beneficiaries. They are just using HUD as the fall-guy.)

Of the 278 units, 183 will be reserved for beneficiary households earning up to 60% of the median income on Oahu. That equates to $58,500 for a single person, $66,840 for a couple and $83,250 for a family of four….

About 20 years ago, (CLUE: Kali Watson was Cayetano’s boss of DHHL 1995-1998) DHHL had major problems filling a rental townhome complex reserved for seniors earning between 30% and 100% of the median income. That 86-unit project in Waimanalo, Kulanakauhale Maluhia O Na Kupuna, was 56% vacant about a year after opening and took more than two years to reach 90% occupancy ….

2023: Cayetano Dumped Kali Watson After DHHL Secret Land Deals

2024: Kauai apartment residents challenge DHHL as eviction looms

read … Uncertainty over demand lingers for rental tower for Native Hawaiians

Military Lease Negotiations: Did the Election Cost Hawaii political insiders a Huge Grift off the Military Budget?

HNN: … Will Donald Trump blow out OHA’s dream of milking the military budget to boost its ‘ceded lands’ slush fund? How about telescopes on Mauna Kea without activist toll booths? Questions, questions ….

read … Did the Election Cost Hawaii a Huge Payday? That's the question we're asking this morning

Pro-Tourism Activists at Surfrider attempting to shut down Kauaʻi Shrimp Farm

KN: … ~~Environmental~~ (pro-tourism) activists testified during a public meeting last week in Kekaha that Kauaʻi Shrimp, the island’s only shrimp farm, should not be issued a new pollutant discharge permit due to concerns ~~about its effluent polluting waters and killing fish~~ (that it doesn’t line up with tourism marketing imagery) ….

read … Surfrider raises concerns about issuing new pollutant discharge permit to Kauaʻi Shrimp : Kauai Now

Advocacy groups seek to change how bills move through the House

HPR: … Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action and other groups such as Common Cause Hawaii and Our Hawaiʻi, a progressive political action group, are circulating a petition that calls for changes to the Legislature’s rules.

Although they want the rules to change in both chambers, the focus is on the House because of the recent upheaval in leadership following the defeat of former House Speaker Scott Saiki. He lost the August primary to incoming Rep. Kim Coco Iwamoto….

read … Advocacy groups seek to change how bills move through the House | Hawai'i Public Radio

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