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Gov. Josh Green says the elimination of the working group set up to speed home building marks a transition that has evolved over the past few months. Public feedback and action by lawmakers to address what the governor had previously sought to do by emergency proclamation makes the working group unnecessary, he says.

Green on Friday announced he was transferring the duties of the Build Beyond Barriers Working Group to the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp.

The new emergency proclamation will still exempt some housing developers from paying state school impact fees and general excise taxes, as well as county park dedication and wastewater fees, subject to county approval.

But it’s a far from the sweeping steps Green took earlier in his administration to fulfill what he saw as a voter mandate to solve Hawaii’s housing crisis. Green said in an interview Monday that the working group had succeeded in identifying issues and solutions.

His administration’s goal, he said, remains the same: to develop tens of thousands of housing units to address a housing crisis that has led to a continual outmigration of residents. 

“There’s one ideology here: people need housing,” Green said. “We have to build housing or our local families will keep leaving.”

But now the HHFDC will be in charge, with planner Dean Minakami, a veteran of firms like Alexander & Baldwin and Castle & Cooke, in charge. 

Developers have long complained that Hawaii’s land-use laws and regulations combined with slow-moving and in some cases corrupt bureaucracies have unduly slowed development of residential properties. Nongovernmental organizations, meanwhile, have argued that protections are necessary to prevent runaway building, and that many of the homes that are built are meant for wealthy residents and offshore investors anyway.

Chief Housing Officer Was Forced Out By Attacks

�Ұ�����’s on housing made numerous sweeping changes to land-use laws, relaxing rules insuring government transparency, environmental protection and historic preservation. Much approval power was placed into the hands of the working group, which was composed of state and county officials and representatives of NGOs, including the Sierra Club. 

The order met heavy and immediate resistance from critics who said Green went too far and that the state’s housing issues, however dire, were not the sort of emergency that justified a governor adopting laws by fiat. The Sierra Club objected, despite its position on the working group. 

Nani Medeiros, �Ұ�����’s chief housing director who was appointed to chair the working group, resigned in September, just months after taking the job, amid political and personal attacks and threats. And, since then, Green has scaled back the sweeping exemptions allowed by his first order through a series of emergency proclamations that culminated in the latest one last week. It dissolved the working group and folded it into the HHFDC.

Administration officials noted that lawmakers are seeking to make changes the legislative process. 

Scott Glenn, �Ұ�����’s senior advisor for federal affairs, climate and housing, said lawmakers proposed about 20 bills this legislative session seeking to codify solutions to housing challenges identified by and aligned with the working group and emergency proclamations. 

A bill making its way through the House, for instance, would exempt certain developments from  on nearby schools, while  would exempt Department of Hawaiian Home Lands projects from general excise taxes. Others would allow underused office buildings into residences.

Minakami stressed in an interview that HHFDC projects eligible for the waivers would have to include a substantial percentage of homes sold at below market rates. 

Specifically, he said, under the new order qualifying projects would have to set aside 60% of the units at prices considered “affordable” for people earning no more than 140% of the area median. That is individuals earning no more than $128,380 and four-person families earning up to $183,400, according to HUD guidelines. 

At current interest rates, , that amounts to $712,700 for a four-person home and $498,900 for a one-person home, , for 2023.

“It’s basically a working class family,” Minakami said.