As you may have seen, the Sunday, March 1st edition of the Star-Advertiser included a commentary by an Envision Laie team leader, Eric Beaver, president of Hawaii Reserves, Inc.
We have included it here in case you have missed it:
Laie has always been a model, walkable "live-work-play" sustainable community, long before it became a popular planning concept. However, Hawaii's shift to a global marketplace has driven home prices far out of reach for most of the state's working families, including Laie's and those of nearby areas.
Here the housing crisis creates acute overcrowding, or worse, painful splitting of long-time families, between here and the mainland, making the "live" in our live-work-play community become near impossible for working families.
It's also undermining the foundation of the region's cultural, historical, educational and economic drivers, including the Brigham Young University-Hawaii and the world-famous living museum, the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Laie, together with its rich culture, special heritage and unique offerings, has been a significant part of the island's fabric for 150 years. Bill 47 helps to preserve that legacy into the future by shifting unbuildable existing housing designations to the Laie-Malaekahana area. Existing housing designations are either down-wind of the sewer plant, on steep slopes, low-lying flood prone areas requiring multiple stream crossings for access; or hem in the university - the former makes affordable housing impossible, the latter threatens BYU-Hawaii's long-term viability.
The Laie-Malaekahana housing designation in Bill 47 is on non-food bearing AG-2 land that is flat and gently sloped, and conducive to affordable housing for our area's working families.
To eliminate housing from the proposed Ko'olauloa Sustainable Communities Plan (KSCP), as contained in Bill 47, is to remove the "live" in what has always been a self-sustaining, live-work-play community. This unfairly shuts the community out of the process.
With no affordable housing options in Laie or Ko'olauloa, our workforce would be compelled to the less sustainable "live-drive-work-drive-sleep" model.
Why not sustain an existing "live-work-play" community by simply carving out a fraction of Oahu's needed 24,000 units to provide desperately needed housing to keep working families living in the country?
The proposed KSCP includes 875 housing units in Laie-Malaekahana over the next 25-years, and calls for 50 percent of them to be affordable.
Based on well-established workforce housing programs elsewhere, we have identified a solution that could cut home prices roughly in half, and provide a housing preference for local workforce residents.
The KSCP housing designation in Laie-Malaekahana sets aside less than 1 percent of the moku's acreage to help its families remain and thrive. We have yet to see a better plan.
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As mentioned, our community has a solution that could cut home prices to roughly half of what's typically offered in the market, and provide a housing preference for the local workforce.
However, zoning committee chair, Ikaika Anderson, is calling for housing in the Laie-Malaekahana area to be removed from the proposed City plan.
A City Council Zoning & Planning Committee hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, March 5th, 10 a.m. at Honolulu City Council. The committee will take public testimony on Bill 47 - the Ko'olauloa Sustainable Communities Plan (KSCP).
Some Envision Laie proposals are in the KSCP, such as affordable housing at Malaekahana, and growth for BYU-Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center.
If you are in favor of the KSCP, which would help solve the affordable housing crisis in our communities, you can help:
- Call and e-mail City Council members, including Ikaika Anderson, to voice your support for housing in Laie-Malaekahana. For phone numbers and e-mail addresses, click on View Councilmembers, under About The Council on their website (www.honolulu.gov/council).
- Attend and testify at the hearing on Thursday, March 5th, 10 a.m.
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Set up a "cottage meeting" with family and friends to learn more. To do so, please contact Jane Toluono at 293-9201.
We encourage everyone to attend this hearing and participate in the democratic process - your voice and our combined support is critical to our community's future!
Mahalo,
