HONOLULU — State and city officials broke ground Friday on a much-anticipated affordable housing project that will create some 800 units for qualified seniors on underutilized Hawaii Public Housing Authority property in Kalihi.
“When people ask what’s most important, it’s affordability – the ability to have housing available for our kupuna, our keiki, the next generation,” said Gov. Josh Green at a ceremony at the site on Friday. “It comes back to that over and over and over again and the way we touch affordability, more than anything, is making sure that people’s rents or mortgages are much lower.”
What You Need To Know
The project calls for the conversion of HPHA’s 70-year-old, 13-building administrative campus at 1002 School Street that would consolidate HPHA operations into a 30,000-square-foot office building, thereby freeing the remaining space for affordable housing
The new units would be available to seniors whose income is between 30% and 60% of the area median income, with studios available for as low as $634 per month
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi hailed the project as the first in what he expects will be many new affordable housing developments over the coming years
California-based Highridge Costa, which was earlier selected to build nine affordable housing projects (totaling more than 10,000 units) across the state, is serving as the master developer
