UHERO expands its housing team with two nationally acclaimed researchers specializing in housing affordability

The University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization (UHERO) welcomes two new affordable housing experts to its team, JoonYup Park, UHERO Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, and Trey Gordner, a Policy Researcher/Data Scientist. 

They join a team of more than forty faculty, staff, fellows and research assistants specializing in economic forecasting, affordable housing, economic diversification and development, taxation, public health, education, energy and environment. 

Earlier this summer, UHERO published its analysis of Maui’s legislation to regulate Transient Vacation Rental (TVR) properties, stating, “If the policy is enacted in full, it would increase Maui’s long-term residential housing stock by 13%, representing a dramatic increase in housing supply,” said UHERO’s economists. “Reductions in tourism or property tax revenues would also present serious challenges to Maui County… Understanding the broad impacts of this policy will be key to understanding future economic conditions on Maui.”

Park, an applied microeconomist specializing in urban and real estate economics, focuses on addressing housing affordability and residential segregation, with recent work exploring how improved access to higher-opportunity neighborhoods for low-income and minority households affects residential equilibrium and household welfare. Park underscores the importance of a measured approach to Hawaiʻi’s challenge of supply and affordability. “The tourism industry drives demand yet sustains the local economy,” said JoonYup Park, UHERO assistant professor and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa assistant professor of urban planning. “Finding the delicate balance between these two competing interests, along with increasing new housing construction with more lenient regulations, could improve housing affordability for local residents.”

Park is the Hawai‘i Community Reinvestment Corporation (HCRC) Professor in Affordable Housing Economics, Policy and Planning. In 2018, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa established the HCRC Professorship in Affordable Housing Economics, Policy, and Planning, thanks to the generous donations of the Hawai‘i Community Reinvestment Corporation (HCRC), American Savings Bank, Hale Mahaolu Central Office, the Hawaii Housing Development Corporation (HHDC), the Hawai‘i Island Community Development Corporation (HICDC), Hawaiian Electric Charitable Foundation, Mr. Randolph G. Moore, and Tracy J. Takano.

Prior to joining UHERO, Park worked at the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School and earned his B.A. in Mathematical Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. His Ph.D. in Economics is from Duke University.

Also joining UHERO to study housing affordability is Lincoln Institute Vibrant Communities Fellow, Trey Gordner. Gordner holds a Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech, where his research included the applications of artificial intelligence in urban planning and the relationship between land use regulations and housing affordability. 

Referencing a 2021 publication from Sightline Institute, Gordner summarized the two-fold problem colleague JoonYup Park eluded to. “The ‘contradiction at the heart of housing policy’ is that housing in Hawaiʻi is both shelter, which we want to remain affordable, and an investment, which we want to increase in value,” said Trey Gordner, UHERO policy researcher and data scientist. “If our policy goal is to increase housing affordability without harming current property owners, our main option is to build more homes, especially ‘starter homes’ that prioritize shelter over investment value, such as publicly subsidized for-sale units or shared equity models. This would allow first-time buyers earning local wages a chance to enter the market, build equity and thereby stay in Hawaiʻi long-term.”

Most recently, Gordner directed the Hawaiʻi Zoning Atlas, a statewide data advocacy project seeking to reduce the cost of housing through zoning reform, serving in the Office of the Governor. Past roles include U.S. Digital Corps Fellow, Partners for Democracy Hawaiʻi Fellow, lecturer at UH-Mānoa and startup founder.

This year, UHERO expanded its annual Hawaiʻi Housing Factbook by launching an interactive Hawaiʻi Housing Dashboard that produces customized factsheets from market data across Hawai‘i neighborhoods. Users can analyze zipcodes based on factors such as zoning categories, housing stock, demographics and access to amenities like health services, grocery stories and recreation.