Council Meeting - Regular Meeting

We'll be right back.

Aloha and good afternoon, everyone. It is Thursday, May 21st, 2026, and the time is 1.04 p.m. Will the Committee on Housing, Homelessness, and Parks meeting please come to order? Welcome Committee Members Cordero and Tolva, Committee Member Nishimoto is excused, as well as Council Member Weyer. Joining us, we do not have anyone joining us by video conference. Pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statute section 92-3.7, this meeting will be conducted as remote meeting by interactive conference technology with the following procedures in effect for the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items of the agenda. When each item is taken up in two ways, In person, in the council chamber, and remotely, before testifying, each person shall state their name for the record and be limited to a one-minute presentation on each item. All persons who registered to testify in person will be called upon first. Persons who have not registered will be given an opportunity to testify following the registered testifiers. Once in-person testimony has concluded, I will proceed to remote testimony via video conference or phone. When I call your name or the last three digits of your phone number, please follow the prompt to unmute. As both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii pursuant to Article 15, Section 4 of the Hawaii State Constitution, HRS Section 1-13, members of the public may testify in either language. For oral testimonies offered in Ololo, Hawaii, additional time, as may be necessary, will be allowed for the testifier to provide an English translation for their testimony. HRS section 92-3.7 requires that all votes at a remote meeting be conducted by roll call unless unanimous. Therefore I will first call for objections and if there are any I will call for a roll call vote. Written testimonies including the testifiers address, email address and phone number will be available to the public as described in the posted agenda. As a courtesy please turn off your cell phones or silence them for the duration of this meeting. For action, items number one through six. Members, I will be taking up agenda items one through six together as they relate to gifts to the city on behalf of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Testimony and discussion on these items will be taken up together and the votes on each item will be taken up individually. For items one. two, three, and six. There are gifts for the annual mayor's Memorial Day ceremony to be held at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Puowaina. Item number one, resolution 26-111, accepting a gift to the city from Aekakula LLC DBA Aloha Air cargo of in-kind shipping services valued at 2,500 for the shipping of flowers and lei from the neighbor islands to Honolulu to support the making and collection of 38,000 lei. Please note that a proposed CD1 to the resolution identified as OCS 2026-0325 backslash five backslash 15 backslash 2026 1139 AM was posted on the agenda. And a summary of the amendments was also posted. Item number 2, Resolution 26-112, accepting a gift to the city from Diamond Bakery of cookies valued $606 for the Boy Scouts who will be volunteering. Please note that a proposed CD1 to the resolution identified at OCS 2026-0318 backslash 5 backslash 15 backslash 2026, 7.58 a.m. was posted on the agenda. And a summary of the amendments was also posted. Item three, resolution 26-113, accepting a gift to the city from Murakami Farms on ongoing weekly donations of commercial tea leaf valued at 8,000, which will be sown into lay by public volunteers. Please note that a proposed CD1 to the resolution identified as OCS 2026-0319 backslash 5 backslash 15 backslash 2026 1104 a.m. was posted on the agenda, and a summary of the amendments was also posted. Item number four, resolution 26-115, accepting a gift to the city from the Old Spaghetti Factory of 300 free kids meals coupons totaling $2,397, which were used for goodie bag and or basket items at the Diamond Head Complex Easter egg hunt. Item number five, resolution 26-117, accepting a gift to the city for the Oahu Pickleball Association of three champion pickleball net systems, 12 Engage Pickleball N-Core Pro V2.0 paddles, and 12 Franklin Pickleballs totaling 1,584 to be used at Palolo Valley District Park. Item six, resolution 26-118, accepting a gift to the city from Rangel Packaging of 100 small corrugated boxes, 300 medium corrugated boxes, 54 large corrugated boxes valued at $1,360.80 to store and transport lay. Please note that a proposed CD1 to the resolution identified as OCS 2026-0317-5-15-2026-1044-AM was posted on the agenda, and a summary of the amendments was also posted. With us, we have Keiho Lenipu, Deputy Director of Department of Parks and Recreation.

Aloha Chair and members of the Council, mahalo for your time today. Kehau Pu'u, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation. So we just want to mahalo all of our donors who are supporting Mayor's Memorial Day, which will be happening on this Monday, May 25th. Without their support, we would not be able to make both the lace sewing and the ceremony itself a success. So thank you very much for that. And then also our other resolutions, we do apologize as they are late. we were a little tardy in submitting our quarter three gift report. And so we did want to pull out for transparency, pull out our higher valued gifts from quarter three to be heard before you today. And also I want to Mahalo you folks for cleaning up our errors in our, in our results. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy. I have a question, but council members, any other questions? Who sold all the lei?

So are everybody.

Like city guys or?

We have sole events. So public will come in and soleys, they'll donate. HFD, all of their stations across the island will accept donated leis from community. Sole is big. So we have sites at our parks, one here at Honolulu Hale, one at Kapolei Hale. That's where we invite community. And then our botanical gardens are actually our lead on the lei sewing. So throughout the year, they'll have workshops. or drop in for community to come in and make tea leaf lei. So that's the majority of our lei are actually lei lai because we can make them ahead of time.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, beautiful. Well, thank you. Mahalo to everyone who does it. I think it's a lost art sometimes. People forget that people have to make the lei. They just buy the lei. Making lei is a true Hawaiian practice. Clerks, do we have any in-person testimony that's registered?

Chair, there are none.

Are there any persons in the chambers wishing to testify?

Chair, there are none.

Clerk, do we have any remote testimonies that are registered?

Chair, there are none.

And are there any unregistered remote testifiers? Nope.

Chair, there are none.

OK, thank you so much. OK, members, we're in discussion. Seeing none, the chair recommends that for resolution 26-111, it be amended to the posted proposed CD1. Any objections or reservations? Seeing none, so ordered. Then the recommendation for resolution 26-111. Oh, the chair then recommends that resolution 26-111 CD1 be reported out for adoption. Any further discussions, reservations, or objections? Seeing none, so ordered. The chair recommends that resolution 26-112 be amended to the posted proposed CD1 Any objections, reservations? Hearing none, the resolution has been amended to a CD1. The Chair then recommends that Resolution 26-112, CD1 be reported out for adoption. Any discussions, reservations, objections? Hearing none, so ordered. For recommendation for Resolution 26-113, I recommend that it be amended to the posted CD1. Are there any discussion, objections, reservations? Hearing none, it has been amended. The chair then recommends that resolution 26-113 CD1 be reported out for adoption. Any further discussion, objections, reservations? Hearing none, so ordered. Recommendation for resolution 26-115 is that we, oh, that we just pass it. So any objections, reservations? Hearing none, so ordered. Recommendation for Resolution 26-117 is that we report it out for adoption. Any discussions, recommendations, I mean objections or reservations? Hearing none, so ordered. Recommendation for Resolution 26-118 is that it be amended to the proposed CD1. Any objections or reservations? Seeing none, the Chair then recommends that Resolution 26-118 CD1 be reported out for adoption. Any discussion, objections, or reservations? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you. Okay guys for action agenda items number seven and eight. I will be taking these two together as they relate to Department of Enterprise Services. Testimony and discussions on these items will be taken up together and the votes on each item will be taken up individually. Item number seven, resolution 26-125 accepting a gift to the city from the Honolulu Zoological Society of a central air conditioning unit valued at $14,816.75 to replace a 30-year-old unit in the Zoological Society's office trailer for the Honolulu Zoo. Item number eight, Resolution 26-126, accepting a gift to the city from the Honolulu Zoological Society of additional modifications to the Gario exhibit pump replacement project valued at $4,995.56 for the Honolulu Zoo. With us we have Dita Holyfield, who is the Director of the Department of Enterprise Services.

Good afternoon, Chair. It is gharial, by the way, because I wanted to tell you, not to correct you, but I've got a better story than that. So when I started, I thought gharials were monkeys, and they're alligators. So, you know, it's all, you're welcome. So... So thank you so much. I want to say a big mahalo to the Honolulu Zoological Society and Mary Benton, the executive director, for all their continued support and the finances that they send our way.

Thank you for that clarification. We were all wondering, what is a gharial? Okay. Clerks, do we have any testifiers in person registered or in the chamber?

Chair, there are none.

And clerk, is there any registered online or unregistered?

Chair, there are none.

Thank you so much. Okay, I'm gonna make my recommendation on these two resolutions. It is recommended that resolution 26-125 be reported out for adoption. Any objections or reservations? Hearing none, so ordered. The chair recommends that resolution 26-126 be reported out for adoption. Any objections, reservations? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you. Okay dokay. Moving on to agenda item number nine, informational briefing. We have with us the Office of Hold on, housing and land management. And they're gonna be doing a brief presentation on the UHERO study, which is actually found on our website under departmental communication 218. And we have with us our housing policy director.

Director.

Director. Go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, member of the committee. My name is Gavin Thornton. I'm the Housing Policy Director at the Department of Housing and Land Management. Today's briefing is focused on UHERO's assessment of ROH Chapter 32, commonly referred to as Bill 7. This is an Economic analysis, I cannot promise excitement. I hope to provide clarity. You might wish that I could speak as quickly as Chair Tupoula. I cannot. Hopefully this will take around 20 minutes for me to get through and then available for questions after. So I just want to note that UHERO's brief that was provided to you is draft preliminary findings. UHERO's continuing to conduct initial analysis, which I'll talk about more, which is expected to be completed in July. It's my understanding that we'll have an opportunity to return and present to the committee in July after that's completed. For today, I'm going to walk you through UHERO's preliminary findings, the policy options identified in the brief, and the additional analysis that UHERO is going to be doing for its final report. So this first slide just summarizes UHERO's five core findings. I'll summarize those and then dive deeper into each. First, Chapter 32 targets an important income group, a gap in Honolulu's housing system. Second, UHERO's preliminary feasibility analysis suggests that Chapter 32 makes developments of small infill parcels feasible where it wasn't feasible under the existing land use ordinance or LUO. Third, while the program has been successful at producing housing that wouldn't have otherwise been produced, it hasn't achieved the 500 unit per year goal set out in the original legislation. Additionally, Chapter 32 permit applications have slowed since peaking in 2023. The fourth finding is that Chapter 32 projects are concentrated in transit-rich areas where residents are less likely to rely on cars, suggesting that an absence of minimum parking requirements is more appropriate than it would be for other areas. And finally, Chapter 32, permitting times are not meeting the standard set by ordinance, and they appear to actually be taking longer than other multifamily permits, which might be limiting development and reducing the value of the program's incentives. On that first finding, this is really straightforward actually, on this slide is a table from the 2024 Hawaii Housing Planning Study that shows that Honolulu has housing needs across nearly all income levels. At the same time, 60 to 120% of the area median income range represents roughly one-third of Honolulu's total housing need. And as Yuhiro notes in their report, that segment is not fully addressed through traditional federal subsidy programs. So UHERO frames Chapter 32 as a workforce housing tool targeting 80 to 100% of area median income households, so somewhere in that middle income range. And it can help address a portion of that housing need through land use flexibility, regulatory relief, and targeted incentives, rather than providing deep operating subsidies. The second major finding from the UHERO report is that Chapter 32 does indeed appear to be increasing the ability of small parcel development, moving development of those parcels from infeasible to financially feasible. UHERO built a parcel level financial feasibility model that estimates whether development would pencil, whether it's financially feasible, based on expected cost, revenue, financing, allowable building size, and required return, among other things. The model is actually developed from UC Berkeley's Turner Center. They have a policy gauge tool, which was designed to help policymakers evaluate how any changes in land use rules and other policy variables might affect housing production. So for this analysis, UHERO created a prototype of this model. and looked at Chapter 32 permit applications. It found that without Chapter 32, about 20% of the parcels that they tested, only 20% showed positive modeled profit, meaning it's unlikely those parcels would be developed. When you add in the Chapter 32 program, roughly 95% of those parcels showed positive modeled profit. So the report states that the expected production increase from Chapter 32 versus no Chapter 32 is it goes from 102 units under base zoning to roughly 1,685 units under Chapter 32, so a significant increase. And I just want to note that UHERO intends to continue to develop this model so it can use not only to assess Chapter 32, but also to evaluate other potential housing policy changes could be very valuable in the future. And I just want to mention one important caveat to this finding. It was completed before Bill 6 of this year. amended the land use ordinance. So when UHERO reruns the analysis with those changes, the share of projects that are likely to pencil without Chapter 32 might increase. The third finding is regarding production. And Yuhiro found that Chapter 32 has produced housing, but not at the number of units originally intended. And the volume of permit applications has decreased since peaking in 2023. So this chart shows Chapter 32 permitting and developing activity. development activity by permit application year. The x-axis is the year the application was submitted, and the y-axis shows the number of units associated with those applications. So each bar here in this chart is divided into three different colors. Green means that the units from the project have been completed. Blue means that the units have been approved and permitted, and orange means the units are still in application review. The dashed green line at the top there shows the 500 unit per year construction goal, and this chart shows that it's not being met. It also shows the decrease from 2023 to 2026 in permit applications. And UHERO has flagged that in the report as a concern and an issue that needs further investigation. I want to also note another thing that this chart shows you that's not explicitly addressed in the report. So the blue and orange portions of the bars from the early application years represent permit applications that began the permitting process many years ago, but still haven't moved toward completion. So it's very possible that some of these projects have been abandoned or perhaps they're in a holding pattern until interest rates or other circumstances changed, but The units shown on here should not be interpreted as what's actually going to get built at the end of the day through Chapter 32. So my key takeaway from this is that Chapter 32 is more swell than tsunami. Chapter 32 is producing units, but not yet at the intended level. The fourth finding concerns parking and the transportation context. One of the common concerns that I know you all have heard about Chapter 32 is that projects might not be providing enough parking. And UHERO explored this issue in two different ways. The first is this transit access map. The dots on here represent Chapter 32 project locations based on submitted permit applications, not completed projects. And the red shaded areas show the concentration of bus stops around Oahu. The deepest red areas indicate five or more bus stops within a five-minute walk. The lighter the red shading, the fewer bus stops there are within that five-minute walk. The green line here represents the rail line, and the white line, which is a little difficult to see, represents the planned rail line. So according to Yuhiro, this map shows that Chapter 32 projects are concentrated in urban areas that are well served by the bus. Predominantly, the report also states that 65 projects are within 400 meters or about a quarter mile of a bus stop. The typical project has 10 bus stops within that distance, and the average distance to the nearest bus stop is about 120 meters. They also approached it from another way, looking at census tract level transportation indicators. So the US Census includes questions about transportation, and it asks households what mode of transportation people use to get to work. It also asks about the number of vehicles per household and commute times. UHERO used responses to those census questions to assemble this chart. The blue markers here represent data from Oahu as a whole, so the average, the county benchmark. In the tracks where Chapter 32 projects are located, located those are represented by the the orange markers and this chart shows that people are less likely to rely on solo driving and more likely to walk or use transit in chapter 32 project areas. They're also less likely to live in households with zero or one vehicle and more likely to have shorter commutes. And just a couple examples here, the UHERO report shows that public transit is used 8.5% in project tracks, in Chapter 32 project tracks, compared with 4.9% countywide. So there is a significant difference between where Chapter 32 projects are cited and just the average. Taken together, UHERO's transit access map and transportation indicator analysis do not mean that parking is not a concern. But UHERO's conclusion is that Chapter 32 projects are concentrated in transit-rich areas where residents are less likely to rely on cars, suggesting that the absence of minimum parking requirements is more appropriate than it would be in other areas. All right. Last finding, finding number five, pertains to permitting. This chart compares median permitting times for Chapter 32 projects against other multifamily projects in Honolulu County. The x-axis here shows the year in which the permit applications were submitted from 2018 to 2025. The vertical axis, the Y axis, shows the median number of days to permit issuance for all permit applications submitted in that year. The blue line represents Chapter 32 projects. The orange line represents the comparison group of non-Chapter 32 multifamily projects. And so, for example, among the permit applications submitted in 2019 that were ultimately approved, Non-Chapter 32 projects took under 500 days to get a permit, whereas Chapter 32 projects took over 600 days, so the opposite of what was intended with Chapter 32. There's a 90-day shot clock in the ordinance, and that's represented by the dotted blue line there near the bottom. One other note on this graph, Yuhiro suggests that what might appear to be a drop in processing times in 2023 and 2024 is likely attributable, at least in part, to incomplete or what they call censored data. Censored means that some projects from those years are still under review, so their final permitting times are not yet known, and as a result, recent year numbers might look artificially lower because only the faster permits have been issued so far. But overall, the chart shows that Chapter 32 permitting times have generally been long and longer than non-Chapter 32 projects. The UHERO's report also suggests that, you know, that main thrust of Chapter 32's streamlined and by right pathway loses a lot of its value because of the long permanent times. So, UHERO identified some policy options based on these findings, which this slide summarizes. And I wanna be clear, UHERO characterized these as options to explore, not formal recommendations. They said, we'll analyze and provide information on the impact, pros and cons of potential policy decisions, but they avoid making recommendations about what trade-offs to choose or what policies to adopt. So these are just options that they've identified. If there are any specific questions that you have about these options that you want insight on today or following up after today, it would be a good time today identify those questions and I can relay them to UHERO to see what additional insight they can provide. So the first policy option UHERO identified is allowing additional height, FAR, floor area ratio, basically density, and unit yield near skyline stations and within TOD districts. Your Hero suggests that Chapter 32 may be working reasonably well in bus serving urban neighborhoods, but that they suggest considering a second generation version of the program that could be effective around rail and in TOD areas. The idea would be allowed to allow greater height, FAR, and unit yield near skyline stations and TOD districts. particularly where somewhat larger parcels support more economic mid-rise workforce housing. I know that height, density, and lot size are of particular interest for the council, so I asked UHERO for additional insights beyond what was included in this preliminary brief, and they provide me some additional information that I wanted to share with you. Based on that follow-up discussion with respect to height, UHERO said a few things. One, if you were to adhere to the underlying zoning, in A1 and A2 districts. Not using the Chapter 32 60-foot height, you would essentially have no Chapter 32 program in those districts. It wouldn't work. Two, Yuhiro suggested that there could be some benefits to adding even just a few feet above 60 feet to allow for improved design of six-story projects. Another thing Yujiro shared was that going to 75 or 80 feet could provide a natural cutoff since buildings above those heights become significantly more expensive. With respect to height in special districts such as Punchbowl, Yujiro said they could do additional analysis of the impact of adhering to the underlying height limits in those districts, identifying how many projects or units would be taken off the table if you were to apply those special district type limits. I also wanted to note DPP's presentation back in March had some valuable information about height. I think it was, let's see, Department of Communication 136, 2026. It showed the Chapter 32 projects were typically below the underlying zoning heights, though there were some exceptions. With respect to floor area ratio, not much there. UHERO's perspective is that height is really the limiting factor for Chapter 32 projects, not FAR. And with respect to increasing maximum lot size beyond 20,000 square feet, Your hero pointed out that most projects are being built on 5,000 or 10,000 square foot lots. They pointed to the original purpose of Chapter 32 to focus on small infill lots and said that going bigger would be out of alignment with that original purpose. However, bumping up the lot maximum to even half an acre or an even half acre or 22,500 square feet might capture a few more lots that are still in that small lot range. Okay, so that was the first option. I have less to say about the next four. The second option Yuhiro identified is extending the program into business districts, noting that it wouldn't be necessary to do that on an island-wide basis. You could target particular business districts. Third option for intervention identified in the report is creating a genuinely distinct permitting pathway for Chapter 32 projects with clear ownership and coordination. UPRO points to Austin's smart housing program as one example where qualifying workforce housing projects receive a separate, entirely separate review track and staff assistance to resolve issues. The fourth area Yuhiro identified for potential intervention is reviewing Chapter 32's code exemptions further to determine which provisions create real project value and which do not. So some provisions, some exceptions to the code may be critical to feasibility while others may not actually reduce cost or improve the project's feasibility. given real-world design constraints, engineering, insurance issues, or financing outcomes. So the report suggested a provision-by-provision review of those code exemptions. And then finally, UHERO suggests exploring whether Chapter 32 could be paired with city land, strategic land acquisition and financing tools to determine whether these additional tools might help increase the number of projects. Lastly, there are several areas where UHERO is continuing to develop additional analysis. The first is to look at whether Chapter 32 incentives are ideally calibrated. So UHERO's analysis tells us that Chapter 32 is effective at getting more projects over the financial feasibility hump. Projects that wouldn't get built without Chapter 32 are getting built because of it. But the analysis in this preliminary report doesn't tell us whether those incentives are ideally calibrated. It doesn't actually tell us which parts of the program are doing the most work in making projects feasible and which parts might be discarded without significant impact. on the number of units built. It doesn't tell us whether we are essentially oversubsidizing Chapter 32 projects with certain characteristics, whether the incentives are not just getting some projects over the feasibility hump, but providing even more value than necessary. which might be better reallocated through adjustments in the incentive structure to help make more projects reach feasibility. There are going to be some limitations on what UHERO is able to do in this analysis, but they should be able to provide some additional insight. The second area of continuing work for them is to explore why Chapter 32 permit applications appear to be declining. It could be numerous factors. It could be market conditions, interest rates, availability of developable Parcels, the Chapter 32 developers could be maxed out on capacity. Some of the developers have shared with us that general contractor capacity is an issue. So UHERO is going to try to provide additional insight to help foster understanding about what improvements could be made. The third area of further inquiry is why Chapter 32 projects take longer to permit than other multifamily projects. Again, this could be attributable to a variety of factors. It could be that the Chapter 32 building and fire code variations are actually complicating and slowing the process. It could be related to the comparison group. Perhaps the other multifamily projects benefit from scale or repetition. It could be related to differences in the developers that are doing Chapter 32 projects versus non-Chapter 32 projects, or it could be related to internal permitting processes and practices. And the final matter that they're exploring further is how Bill 6, now Ordinance 26-7, may affect Chapter 32 development. So Bill 6 changed the rules for apartment districts. It reduced minimum lot area and width and increased FAR. That likely will allow more projects to be built without Chapter 32. and it may affect the relative value of Chapter 32 incentives going forward. So, in closing, I think the central takeaway from UHERO's brief is that Chapter 32 appears to be a meaningful workforce housing tool. It targets an important income gap, appears to improve feasibility, for many small infill parcels, and it's generally located in transit-rich areas where reduced parking requirements are more defensible. At the same time, the program is not producing units at the intended scale. Applications appear to have slowed, and permitting timeframes are longer than the program envisioned. Thank you for bearing with me, and I'd be happy to take your questions. Any questions I'm unable to answer, I'd be happy to relay them to you, Hero.

Okay, sounds good. Council Member Tobler.

Thank you, Chair. Is your department looking to propose any legislation related to the policy options identified?

We definitely can. If there are specific recommendations that you'd like us to look into making, we'd be happy to do that.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot. So, you know, if we need to change things, then we should, right, to move the process along.

Absolutely. I mean, one of my takeaways from all of this, Chapter 32 is kind of acting as a pilot and an experiment in some ways. And the way that that's playing out, when Chapter 32 was first passed as Bill 7 in 2019, We had parking minimums in the PUC. And then Bill 6 recently adjusted apartment zoning. So ultimately, it probably makes sense for Chapter 32 to dissolve into what we're doing. But yeah, it's going to require further evolution and further legislative changes. Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Go ahead, Council Member Cordero. Thank you, Chair Tipola. Thank you, Mr. Thornton, for the initial reactions to the preliminary report from UHERO. I do want to ask, in addition to Chapter 32, it did say in their draft report that They recognize that the city elected officials have allocated historic amounts to affordable housing in recent years and it stated how many has gone into the affordable housing fund. And they mentioned that to accelerate housing at a particular succeeded 120% AMI range, then we should look at other policy changes beyond direct subsidy. So my question is relating to beyond the policy recommendations there that doesn't really directly impact financing. Is DHLM, the city, looking for other further policy changes that will then allow for the affordable housing fund to be utilized? Because as it listed, there's 135 million. We don't always spend, we barely spend that down. So I was just wondering if there's any other tools that DHLM's looking at other than direct subsidy?

Sure. So today I'm laser focused on the Chapter 32. I do want to emphasize the point. Chapter 32 is one piece of a much bigger puzzle. So it's looking at developing housing with limited subsidy. It's focused on mid-rise. It's focused on small parcel infill. And so there is a much broader plan. Actually, I believe next month DHLM has an informational briefing scheduled during which Director Auger will share the breadth of the work that the department is doing, which will answer your question much better.

OK. Well, maybe I'll add to that so that it can be brought up in the presentation that If we should be amending any part of the ordinance that then distributes the Affordable Housing Fund, that would be great to include because that does also help fund Chapter 32 projects as well, right?

The Affordable Housing Fund today, I don't believe has, but I don't know, Director OJ, if you want to respond to that. Yeah.

So the reason I brought up the Affordable Housing Fund is because funds from the Affordable Housing Fund directly help subsidize Chapter 32 projects, right?

Thank you very much for the question. Kevin OJ, Director of the Department of Housing Land Management. Affordable housing funds are limited to 60 AMI and below by charter and Bill 7 projects allow developers to build up to 100% AMI. So the whole point of Bill 7 projects where they were intended to support smaller developments on infill site locations that are not currently subsidized by other forms of subsidy.

Okay, but for the pre-construction or post-construction, would that come from the Affordable Housing Fund?

Does not. There's a separate pool of monies that are set aside for pre-development and post-development construction funds for Bill 7 projects.

That's good to know. But I do hope when we do get the presentation update, sorry, Housing Chair, hopefully, when we do get that presentation, we could find out if there's any other possible amendments that we need to make to the affordable housing fund so that we can distribute the funds down more.

You were supposed to make that presentation today, but we moved it to accommodate this presentation, and we're scheduled to go, I believe, on June 23rd. Okay, perfect.

I look forward to that.

We look forward to coming back to you and talking to you at that time.

Thank you, Chair, for letting me jump the gun.

Yeah, no, you're fine. I really wanted to have this one because everyone in the committee wanted to hear about this so that we could discuss Bill 1819 because we wanted to see what you here all had to say about Chapter 32 in regards to that. I think what the director is going to present is like a more macro level housing at all facets of the city and what they're doing and how they're proceeding forward, which is still important. But I think in regards to the conversation we're having just about Chapter 32 projects, we just need to figure out in a very small lane what we should change, if anything.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you both. Thank you.

Thank you, director. OK, any other questions, committee members? OK, I'm going to go. So I do have a letter. that I'm going to send to you guys with a lot of the comments I'm going to make. So don't feel like you have to remember everything, because I'm going to have a lot of comments. So I'm so grateful that this study was given to us in the draft form, because then we can actively work with you guys on it. I actually love it. So forgive me for all of the comments I'm going to make, but it's because we're we're drafting it together, so it's exciting. First off, the executive summary, and I think just for me in general, the structure of this organizational framework could be improved. typically when you're writing a research paper, you do have like the background and then you have the findings and then you have methodology, then you can have your results, your discussion and all your suggestions. But I think for me that this paper goes kind of like zooms in and zooms out. Like so it starts talking about housing on a macro level in the city of Honolulu and then in other areas it's like, but in chapter 32, this, that, I think this whole study is supposed to study chapter 32. So my suggestion is to kind of like narrowly tailor it to that because you guys have some good findings in here, but every now and then we pop back out and we're like HHFDC said this. HHFDC is a finance tool and it's for the macro plan of housing, but it doesn't necessarily touch our Chapter 32 projects. So in regards to this particular study, when that table was brought up with the HUD income, the very first paragraph on that page, I'm sorry, there's no page numbers, so I think it's like page three. It talks about the different AMIs and it talks about HHFDC providing gap funding. I think because to me, that's irrelevant. So unless there's like an actual nexus to this paragraph in chapter 32, then we should possibly leave it out. Then the next paragraph, It talks about FY 2026 capital budget, affordable housing budget, that's all fine. But if we're not talking about money that went to chapter 32, then we're not actually talking about the monies that are helping this program. And it actually divided the money from FY 2027 and it said it equals $127 per resident or 4,932 per needed unit. But that's a very macro look at it. because some of those capital projects are not bill seven projects, they're not chapter 32 projects. So I think we have to take that out to kind of see like what are we actually funding to help this program and what are we not funding just so that we can kind of see like if we're, be honest. Chapter 32 is actually our way of helping developers build. We do very little besides give them exemptions and if they want to apply for the grant, they can. They're basically on their own. A lot of the capital money that we put towards you guys' department is for other projects that we're actually spearheading. So next page. It talks about that to be effective, these tools should be evidence-based as well as compared to other cities. So during the literature review, so whenever you're doing a literature review in a study, you want it to be exhaustive, like every single thing that's written about this. And to be honest, there's very few things written about Chapter 32. So I appreciate some of the references to DBET and all these other things, but that's not actually applicable to this program and what we're doing with this program. Because DBET doesn't have, it's showing a study on private developers and city-owned projects, but it's not talking about Chapter 32 projects. Also, on the next page, it references a study by Schuller, Meltzer, and Ben from 2009. Whenever you're writing a research paper, your references should only be three to five years old. That's too old to be referencing. So you want to reference more recent research, which, to be honest, for chapter 32, you guys might only be able to reference Director Apuna's presentations. because there's not a lot of people that have just solely talked about the pros and cons of what's going on with this program. I do think that in the lesson three, this was probably the best paragraph in the literature review. And the point of that was that you guys said, in other words, infill development is better for both its own residents and the city at large. So that was clear. You pulled a few studies and made a point as to why infill development is like good and that this project is good. That's good. On the next page, when you guys talked about the target of 500 units per year, there was no background given on who said that goal. I've never heard anyone say the goal of 500 units per year, but if someone did, we should reference that. We should reference it in the original, maybe the original bill that was passed in 2019. because I think this goal is referenced throughout the paper. You got to put that in the beginning of the study and say where you got that idea from because I'm not even sure where that idea is from. Then the next page, it says that obviously it's not been reached. But the phrase in the second paragraph says, the Bill 7 project seemed to linger in the application review phase. We can't be using any opinions, so the first part of any research paper has to be all data driven, not like, I think this, it seems that, just straight up data, quote, data, quote. So that's probably something that needs to be edited. The next page, you guys talk about parking. Okay, so there is nothing mentioned in the beginning of this paper that parking was related to Bill 7. So like if Bill 7 projects somehow had some parking relationship, that should be mentioned earlier. Like maybe I can say one of the reasons that Bill 7 projects were made was because we wanted more things without parking. I don't know why we're talking about parking right now. So then it says a common criticism of Chapter 32 is that they do not provide enough parking. Who said that? like we gotta reference people. So like we should be quoting people, footnoting it, because we're just pulling things out of the air and this is a study that we're going to release. So I think it's correct, but a common criticism has to be more factual than just stated like that. And then also like relate it to what we're talking about with Bill 18, which is whether or not a little bit more of a footprint would help with parking. It could be part of it. I think I'm lost on why there's three methodologies. So it has like a methodology for parking, it has a methodology for production. Typically in a research paper you have one methodology, like this is what we're thinking, this is the outcome that we're trying to study, and so this is how we decided to do it. I don't know, again, back to the parking and the bus line. Was there something that was stated in the original Bill 7 that said that we should build around bus lines, or are we assuming that that's why they're built around bus lines? Because the bus line section was interesting, but I was just wondering where it came from, because I didn't know that the bus lines were part of the incentive or the reason why we did Bill 7. Then you guys refer to Turner Center Housing Policy Dashboard for Los Angeles. I think it's fine that you guys are referring to, because I know you guys are working with you, Hiro, that they're referring to other cities. But if they bring that up, they have to really explain what that is. What is that? What does it look like? Why are we bringing it up? How is it related? Because they use it in one line, and then it's over. And then the next one, I would say this was like my favorite page, this chart right here that's called Table 1. This is what a paper should look like. You are comparing the base zoning to the Bill 7 zoning and what is the difference of housing that can be popped out because of the zoning change or the height change. This is like at the root of what should be studied for chapter 32 projects. We change these laws and by doing that, did it pop out more units? So if you have a methodology section of this, the methodology should say, If we change the height, then what? If we change the footing, then what? If we change the incentives, then what? Do we get more housing? Does any of these pop out more housing? Because that would be something very interesting to study, because like Council Member Tova was asking, what would we change? When you're writing the paper, that's a perfect time to actually basically suggest the change by using data. So actually saying if we change this law and did this zoning, like say for example, you guys suggested business district. If we change the law to business district, we hypothetically think 10,000 more units could pop out and this is how. That would be a good methodology because you're making an assumption and then you're giving the result for your assumption. I would say that in the discussion section, There's a line that says that you guys interviewed developers. It would be great to say how many developers? Did you do quantitative interviews where they did check boxes or did you do qualitative interviews where you interviewed them and you wrote down their stories? In chapter 32, this is gonna be your biggest way to pull information on whether or not the bill works or not. Ask the developers. But then write that down. 90% of developers said that they hate the program. 20% of developers said the incentives are good. Like anything, write down what all the developers said. 30% of the developers said the 90-day shot clock doesn't work. Then we're pulling out information from people who are participating in the program, and we're studying what's broken in it and what we could fix. So this line suggested to me that there has been some other type of collection of data that's not being shared. And maybe it'll be shared later, but that would be great. And then it says that Honolulu should conduct a provision by provision review of Chapter 32. There's not that many provisions in this, so you guys should probably just make a chart and suggest which ones to change. I think I could think of some of them off the top of my head. But lastly, on the last sheet, it says a practical next step would be to create a TOD or rail corridor tier. That's not a bad idea, but nothing was explored in that prior in this paper. So whenever you're writing a research paper, your findings and your discussion have to be built upon things you explored and then found a dead end, and then there was more to be found there. And then it says FAR. So it says additional height FAR. I've actually asked every single developer if they want more FAR, and they said no. So I don't understand how we got to the conclusion that FAR should be changed. So lastly, I will say the very last paragraph. It says, Philadelphia's Workforce Housing Program addresses that by adding workforce housing credit enhancement that partially guarantees eligible construction loans. This is great. This is actually a really good suggestion. This can't be a conclusion because we don't even know what the Philadelphia Workforce Housing Program is. You would have to really explain it. But I think this loan idea is like an actual tangible point that we could do. A revolving loan because if you looked at Director Apuna's presentation in March, she literally said nobody's using the pre-construction loans. it's just, it's not worth it for them. So if that's the case, then maybe this loan revolving fund program is actually what's gonna help it. So long story short, I have a letter written of all of these suggestions. I think it's a great time for us to kind of interject and kind of help you guys to have a better direction.

I appreciate that, Chair. And for clarity, we received this draft report from UHERO and sent it to you the next day. It was the first time we saw it. We weren't involved in the actual writing of it. And so I'm sure I appreciate you writing it up so that I can share it with UHERO and they can take that feedback and use it. I also want to be clear the policy options that you hero identified like I we don't necessarily love all those we probably have differences of opinion within the department even but so this is just entirely you heroes work product I had some of the same questions that you did some of the ideas on follow-up so I appreciate that and I'll definitely share it with them

Yeah, the authors are Trey Gordner, Edith Prager, Rafael Cecilio Munoz. I thank them for their work. I think the main thing that I'm trying to suggest that we do is because they probably need a little direction as researchers, that I think because you guys lead the housing department, just guide them a little bit. Because other than that, they don't engage in what we do every day. So I think it'd be good for them so that the outcome of the study can be something beneficial for this chamber.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other questions, council members? Okay, thank you so much. We appreciate you guys' hard work on this. Council members, we have no other agenda items. Mahalo, everyone, for being at our hearing today. There being no further business, this meeting is now... Oh, sorry. Is there any testimony, clerks, in person or online? Chair, there are none. Anyone wanting to testify in the chambers? No? Okay, members, thank you so much for being here. No further business. This meeting is adjourned.