Housing & Real Estate

The Public is invited to community meetings this weekend to learn more about the new Koa Waena affordable housing project by developer Peter Savio in Kīhei. Savio plans to break ground on the project later this year.

In Hawaiʻi, more than forty thousand households earn $30,000 a year or less. For them, housing they can afford barely exists.

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has published a final Environmental Assessment with a Finding of No Significant Impact for a 500,000-gallon concrete water storage tank and related improvements in Waikapū, Maui.

Koa Waena will be available to current Maui Residents only, with no outside investors allowed. Savio is selling at cost with a limit of developers profit of no more than 5%.

Despite objections from local for-sale affordable housing developers and Maui County’s administration, rules that establish new affordable housing sales price guidelines narrowly passed second and final reading Tuesday at Maui County Council. When asked whether Mayor Michael Victorino will sign or veto Bill 107, a Mayor’s Office spokesperson declined to answer.

Lahaina Crossroads renters Etina Hingano and her husband work three jobs to make ends meet. After hearing that her apartment building may be purchased by the county to stay in workforce housing, Hingano breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh wow,” she told Maui Now on Tuesday. “My reaction is really good because then it’s going to stay for the people of Lahaina.”

After a marathon contested case, Maui Planning Commission today gave a green light to the next phase of long-debated Honuaʻula, a master planned community with more than 1,000 homes slated for 670 acres mauka of Wailea. Honuaʻula would include 515 single-family residential units, 346 multifamily residential units and 288 workforce housing units, along with 24 acres of village mixed use and 103 acres of recreation and open space. A quarter of the total project area would be dedicated to permanent preservation. Also, Pi’ilani Highway will be widened from two to four lanes from Maui Meadows Mapu Place / Kilohana.

After longtime residents, including kupuna on fixed incomes, spoke out about looming evictions at one of the last affordable apartment rentals left in Lahaina, county leaders are making moves to purchase the 20-unit Lahaina Crossroads building blocks away from Front Street.

Calling it “innovative” and unique, a Maui County Council committee on Tuesday recommended approval for a 100% workforce neighborhood in Wailuku, which would include 202 diverse houses for sale — from tiny homes to live-work townhomes. Maui County Council’s Affordable Housing Committee voted 9-0 to recommend approval with modifications for Kuikahi Village, a project by Alaula Builders set for 14 acres mauka of Honoapi’ilani Highway and adjacent to Kuikahi Drive. 

The median sales price for single-family homes dropped below $1 million — to $983,575 — for the first time this year. However, the median sales price for Maui County condominiums spiked last month to a new record high of $820,000, partly driven by luxury condo sales in Wailea/Mākena, Kapalua and Kāʻanapali.

Despite opposition from developers, a plan that promises to make affordable homes more affordable moved one step closer to reality at Maui County Council recently.

The funding will finance the design and construction of teacher housing in the Lahainaluna Complex Area.

Nonprofit, Stand Up Maui continues its efforts to fight for affordable housing, and recently honored one of its member for efforts to advance the organization’s mission to “stand up for the basic human rights for Maui County’s residents.”

Maui County home sales fell by more than 50% for condos and 20% for single-family houses last month, as rising mortgage rates and record-high sales prices pushed out buyers. Still, Julyʻs median sales price for single-family homes rose 5% year over year to $1.1 million, according to the Realtors Association of Maui report released Wednesday. Condos were up 11% to $789,500 compared with the same month last year.

Applications are available, and a lottery will be held for the Kaiāulu O Halele’a, Kihei Affordable Housing rental project in South Maui.

After area residents voiced strong opposition to Hale Waipu’ilani over flooding, traffic and density concerns, Maui County Council during its recessed meeting Monday killed the 100% affordable housing project pitching 28 units in Kihei.

“Over a decade, Maui County could easily add about 25,000 new single family housing units by opening up a modest amount of agricultural land for light touch density development or by allowing existing homes to be converted to duplexes,” said Peter.

Another affordable housing project is advancing in Waiehu, and this time the developer is pitching 752 units in a plan called Waiehu Residential Community. The 100% affordable housing project by California-based Genova Construction Development would build single- and multi-family units, retail space and parks on about 160 acres of overgrown macadamia nut fields mauka of Kahekili Highway near Waiehu Beach Road.

Bio-Logical Capital LLC bought Hāna Ranch for about $9 million less than a decade ago, and the Colorado company recently put it on the market for $75 million. Hāna Ranch, which includes a working cattle ranch and diversified orchards, comprises 37 separate parcels totaling roughly 3,600 acres in East Maui.

Meanwhile, condo median sales prices in June set another record at $832,500, according to the Realtors Association of Maui report released Wednesday afternoon. 

Saying the move is a step toward closure, the council’s Government, Relations, Ethics and Transparency Committee voted 8-0 today to recommend a resolution authorizing the county’s acquisition of the home for public purposes, such as a Hawaiian cultural education building or other public facility. The resolution now heads to the full council.