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Almost everyone wants more affordable homes in Hawaii to prevent residents from leaving the state.

But two bills advancing through the Legislature call for increased building density in almost all residential neighborhoods in the state while offering no promise of affordability.

And worse, they have the potential to greatly increase crowding in already overcrowded Oahu neighborhoods.

I wrote about the legislation before when it was first publicly presented at a hearing with very scant notice. Since only a few people directly impacted knew about the legislation, nobody showed up to oppose it. The room was peopled only by supporters.

But what is new and different now is elected officials — specifically the Honolulu City Council as well as numerous neighborhood boards and members of the public who would be negatively affected by the legislation — are aware of the billsÊ» impact and are starting to come out in force to stop what they see as a plan for unsustainable development.    

And it is clearer now where the bills are coming from and who’s behind them. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz is among those involved in getting the legislation passed.

“Solving our state’s housing crisis is one the biggest challenges of this generation. It will take our collective efforts — federal, state, and county — to solve it,” Schatz wrote in an email.

He said he’d been working with many state and county officials, including House Speaker Scott Saiki and Senate President Ron Kouchi.

The bills would overturn Hawaii’s current zoning laws to allow residents statewide to subdivide their single family lots into smaller parcels —  as little as 2,000 square feet — and be allowed to build at least three separate dwellings or even a single duplex or triplex apartment on the smaller lots.

On Oahu, one residential unit and an additional ohana or accessory dwelling unit are generally allowed on any lot 3,500 square feet or larger. 

The bills would require counties to increase residential density by changing state zoning laws rather than letting the individual counties decide which of their own neighborhoods would be best for that.

Under the guise of affordability, the bills would be harmful to many of Oahu’s already overbuilt neighborhoods now struggling with problems of limited off-street parking, aging water and sewer systems and the noise and traffic that come with the crowding. 

Rep. Luke Evslin, the author and the chief backer of the House version of the bill, agreed that many residential lots in Oahu are already maxed out with large home structures edging out to the boundaries.

He says the bill would give the homeowners more flexibility on whatÊ»s allowed inside their homes, such as the right to build additional individual living units for family members or others without adding square footage to the lot.

Still, that could mean many more people living in neighborhoods that are already stressed by crowding.

There is nothing in the measures to prevent investors and out-of-state buyers from outbidding local residents to buy residential properties. They could then cover the properties with duplexes or triplexes or subdivide single family lots into much smaller parcels and then rent or sell them in one of the most expensive markets in the country.

There is also nothing in the bills to say the subdivided units would have to be owner-occupied, which would do more to insure that local families could rent or buy them.

Evslin said in an email that local residents are already getting outbid by out-of-state buyers. He says evidence shows smaller properties on smaller lots would be less expensive to rent or buy.

Supporters of the bill say similar laws to increase housing density have been enacted on the mainland. But Hawaii is not the mainland. The islands have limited buildable land and finite natural resources. There is nowhere else to go here.

Backers of the bills say the counties would retain their power to deny permits when applications exceed the counties’ limits on building size and height and setback requirements.

However, in the Honolulu City Council’s Planning and Economy Committee , Deputy Corporation Counsel Brad Saito questioned that interpretation. He said the wording leaves it unclear if state law would trump county law if the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting rejected a  subdivision for not comporting with county building regulations.

The city’s rejection could lead to litigation, Saito said.

At the meeting, DPP Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna said the division that approves subdivisions is understaffed and would have a hard time dealing with the large number of applications expected if the legislation passes.

The committee to oppose the state’s legislation. If it passes, the committee said, Oahu should be exempt. The full council adopted the resolution on Monday.

High density is already allowed here. Residents can build almost to the edges of their property. OahuÊ»s land use ordinance requires only 5-to-11-foot side and rear setbacks, a 25% permeable surface and a floor area ratio or living space of up to 70% of the lot size.

So on a 5,000-square-foot lot, you could build up to 3,500 square feet of living space that can be split between a primary dwelling and an ohana unit or additional dwelling unit.

Even though Oahu residents have been allowed to put extra housing units on their properties for almost 10 years, very few people have built them.

DPP said in an email that it has received 2,462 ADU applications since the ordinance was adopted in September 2015, and it has issued 1,541 permits. Construction has been completed on only 1,119 permits.

DPP says about 122,600 additional dwelling units could be built on Oahu under current regulations.

And even now that would allow two additional accessory dwellings or a total of three dwelling units on qualified lots in Ìýresidential zoning districts.Ìý

So what is the rush to add the possibility of many more ADUs on a single small lot when eligible Oahu residents are not inclined to build them in the first place?

Also, under current law it’s already possible to subdivide single family properties into smaller lots.

City Council Chairman Tommy Waters said at the meeting that the state proposal overrides years of careful planning for residential neighborhoods and sustainable and affordable housing.

He criticized its sweeping mandate for statewide residential housing density for failing to take into consideration the different needs of residential areas from Waianae to Kaimuki to the North Shore.

He said for any such densification to make a difference, there has to be a provision guaranteeing affordability.

Evslin said in a phone interview that language requiring affordability was kept out of the legislation because such restrictions would discourage people from subdividing to build more units.

He said that on Kauai, the island he represents, affordable housing requirements have increased the cost of dwellings, not reduced it.                  

Waters said at the meeting that a better way to generate affordable housing is to allow Honolulu to continue what it is already doing: concentrating on urban core areas that can handle increased housing density such as Oahu’s apartment and business zones and neighborhoods along the rail corridor.

Also, the planning department is singling out some Oahu residential neighborhoods that could stand additional housing density.

I would add that since Oahu homeowners already can have one additional housing unit on their property and maybe two, if the council bill passes, that it would make sense to incentivize residents with tax breaks or other bonuses to build them.

In the meantime, let’s steer clear of trying to change for the worse many of Oahu’s long-established and very crowded residential neighborhoods.