CommunityScale

City & County of Honolulu Housing Plan

Client City & County of Honolulu Office of Housing, Hawaii
PartnerLevine Planning Strategies
ServicesHousing study, Dashboard
TimelineApril – October 2024
DeliverableHousing Plan

CommunityScale developed a Housing Plan for the City & County of Honolulu with support from Abt Global. Read the press release and download the final plan.

The plan focuses high density housing around the rail system on the southern side of the island with neighborhood-scale infill housing around the island’s other communities.

As part of its commitment to tackling Honolulu’s housing challenges, the City is taking a proactive approach to addressing the housing shortage by:

  • Partnering with developers to activate underutilized public lands
  • Exploring innovative financing strategies to unlock new resources
  • Centralizing housing functions to streamline development, finance, and policy efforts—enabling faster project delivery and improved coordination of housing initiatives

Key initiatives of the Strategic Housing Plan include:

  • Expanding Transit-Oriented Development (TOD): The Skyline rail system presents an unprecedented opportunity to create high-density, mixed-use communities along its nearly 20-mile route. Concentrating growth in the Primary Urban Center, TOD corridors helps preserve rural areas while integrating housing, offices, retail, education, and government services. This approach reduces commute times, lowers transportation costs, and supports Honolulu’s sustainability goals.
  • Activating the Kūwili Station TOD Redevelopment Area: The Kūwili Station area presents a transformative opportunity for an underserved community. The City and State’s land holdings in this area will help improve connectivity, address environmental concerns, and mitigate flood risks. The Strategic Housing Plan builds off of the Downtown Neighborhood TOD Plan, which was created after almost a decade of extensive community engagement and input. The plan envisions thousands of housing units within a vibrant mixed-use district, backed by $2.7 million in federal and state grants for infrastructure and master planning.
  • Accelerating Housing Development: The City is leveraging underutilized public lands and streamlining procurement processes to expedite partnerships with local developers. An example of this success is Parkway Village at Kapolei—a mixed-use development on City-owned land featuring 401 housing units and two on-site preschools—completed in just over a year through effective public-private collaboration.
  • Enhancing Housing Finance Strategies: Existing funding sources for affordable housing, including General Obligation Bonds, Private Activity Bonds, and the Affordable Housing Fund (Ordinance 7-19), are limited. The City is committed to exploring new financing strategies that will expand resources and create additional opportunities for housing development.
  • Reorganizing Housing Functions: For nearly three decades, the City has lacked a centralized housing department. As announced in Mayor Blangiardi’s 2024 State of the City address, the City plans to consolidate its housing programs under the proposed Department of Housing and Land Management (DHLM). This restructuring will improve efficiency, accelerate project delivery, and enhance coordination of housing initiatives.

Jeff Sauser

Jeff Sauser, co-founding Principal at CommunityScale, has over 10 years experience leading urban design and planning projects for public and private sector clients in complex urban contexts across the country. His work emphasizes the role of housing policy and production in driving economic development progress and creating opportunities for socioeconomic mobility across the community. He is particularly interested in applying emerging big data resources and AI tools to help clients and communities plan smarter and more proactively.