The Hawaii Community Development Authority said it wants to waive part or all of the affordable-housing fees and to lower public-facilities fees to stimulate development.
The existing "reserve" housing requirement calls for 20 percent of the units in a Kakaako project to be affordably priced. A developer may chose to pay a fee in lieu of this housing. The fee is based on the sales value of the housing, with lower-priced housing getting lower fees.
Under the new proposal, the faster construction is started and completed, the more the affordable-housing fees are reduced.
If developers start construction within 12 months after approval, all affordable housing fees are waived. If construction starts in 14 months, 90 percent of fees are waived; 16 months, 80 percent; 20 months, 60 percent; 22 months, 50 percent; and 24 months, 40 percent.
The proposed regulations also call for completion of construction within 24 months after it starts. The payment reduction percentage will be decreased by one-tenth for each month construction exceeds 24 month.
"More than one half of the housing units in the Kakaako district are affordable units," said Jan Yokota, HCDA executive director. "And the public-facilities fees were based on the thinking 20 years ago when plans called for putting parks on top of parking garages."
The current public-facilities fee is 7.5 percent of the land value multipled by the floor area of the project. The board wants to reduce that to 5.5 percent for residential projects and 3.5 percent for commercial projects.
Yokota said the current vision for Kakaako is parks at ground level, which is much less expensive, so the fees can be lowered. "The board wants to stimulate construction in Kakaako." The final draft of the HCDA staff proposals, discussed by the HCDA board informally this month, will go before a public hearing on Feb. 21.
Last year, the HCDA eliminated the requirement that developers reserve 30 percent of a new development's space for light industrial businesses.