According to Overstory, members of the Pukalani Community Church of the Nazarene spent eight months building four homes for residents displaced by Maui’s August 2023 wildfires. Photo courtesy of the Pukalani Community Church of the Nazarene, via Overstory.
Kefalas praises ‘Yes in God’s Backyard’ law in Overstory article about housing
from Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, March 13, 2025
The following text, featuring comments by Grassroot Institute of Hawaii Director of Strategic Campaigns Ted Kefalas, is excerpted from an excellent in-depth article by longtime local journalist Noelle Fujii-Oride that appeared in the March 12 edition of Overstory. The new online publication describes itself as a “nonprofit solutions journalism initiative powered by The Kūpa‘a Network, a Hawai‘i-based nonprofit organization dedicated to using digital tools and platforms to drive meaningful change across the islands.” The article, headlined “Local Churches Are Addressing Hawaii’s Housing Shortage,” concerns the efforts of local religious congregations to build affordable homes on their underutilized properties in response to their communities’ deepening housing needs.
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With Hawai‘i having the most restrictive housing regulations in the country, Ted Kefalas, vice president of strategic campaigns at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, said the Islands can learn from California’s so-called “Yes in God’s Backyard” law. …
The California law allows religious organizations to build affordable, multi-family housing on their land “by right.” A project is automatically allowed so long as it meets certain health, safety and affordability criteria and complies with the area’s building rules. Kefalas said with county entitlement processes taking five to 10 years, this would help give faith-based organizations more certainty about their projects’ timelines and that they’ll be approved.
The California law isn’t perfect though, he said. It requires projects with more than 10 units must pay construction workers prevailing wages, which drive up costs. And rental units are required to remain affordable for 55 years and ownership units for 45 years. Those lengthy affordability periods can deter residents from buying and can make it hard for them to move as their needs change, he said.
Kefalas added that Hawai‘i’s Legislature is looking at revamping the state’s historic preservation rules, which would impact many churches looking to build affordable housing. The current rules require properties 50 years and older to go through the State Historic Preservation Division for review, a process that the Grassroot Institute found can take an average of 94 days. A couple bills (SB 1002, HB 830) seek to speed up that timeline by allowing third parties to review certain projects if SHPD can’t review them within 60 days.
Locally, Hawai‘i’s state Legislature the last couple of years (HB 814 in 2023, HB 2007 in 2024) considered bills to allow religious, medical and educational institutions to build homes on certain parcels smaller than 15 acres and require that the institution retain ownership of those homes for a certain amount of time. The bills didn’t pass, but a set of resolutions (HR 102 / HCR 122), which don’t have the force of law, did.
Kefalas said the resolutions were a step in the right direction, but the Hawai‘i [Legislature] needs to get the counties on board. He said church-built affordable housing “could be a gamechanger when it comes to our housing situation.”
Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting testified in opposition to the two Hawai‘i bills, citing concerns about providing certain landowners preference over others. Rep. Luke Evslin, who introduced HB 2007 in 2024, said he thought the department had a decent argument and instead of narrowly targeting certain institutions, Hawai‘i should relax restrictions on allowing housing in the state urban land use district in general.