65,000 more housing units will be needed by 2025… The O`ahu housing shortage will dissipate by 2028… A leasehold plan based on Singapore’s success is being explored locally… Infrastructure needs (sewage, water, electricity) and the necessary permits slow things down drastically… We need taller buildings with affordable units… We need more unused government land, and government help beyond current tax breaks to incentivize builders to build truly affordable housing…
The statistics, stories, and projections go on and on. And then they vanish, until the next time someone says that it’s time to get serious about Hawai`i’s future. Our population slowly decreases while the remaining populace ages, yet we see too few relevant, plausible, economic models featuring new job opportunities that will encourage local Millennials and Centennials to stay, even if we do develop affordable housing.
Pretty simple building logic in Kaka`ako. The market will bear multiple million dollar (or close to it) apartment/condo complexes, so they’ve been built… and sold. From a business standpoint, why build $400,000 units when seven-figure priced units result in greater profits and increased property values for neighbors? It’s business 101.
A concerted effort to find and encourage new industries (the Internet of Things, geriatrics, nutrition, nursing, security, surveillance, virtual schools, alternate energy, offshore gambling) will not be made if our legislators spends the next four months looking only at the perceived ills du jour. We need bigger picture thinking and acting… now. We need partners we don’t even know about today. We need mainland and other isolated islands expertise and successful reinvention models to help us coordinate and quickly strategize, without losing the things that make Hawai`i unique and special.
We don’t have the luxury of another decade of laissez faire “ho hum”-ness here. We can’t just assume record tourism numbers, increased airline lift, and a bevy of new hotel workers will pick up the slack. We micromanage and nickel-and-dime our state university system annually (via the legislature) without providing for or encouraging “what if” vision. We act as though just getting through another day, week, or 100-day legislative session is good enough. Well it’s not.
The time has come to get really serious about public-private opportunities. Not just political grandstanding and pandering in an election year, but meaty treatises with timelines and accountability. We need to look beyond simply saving the status quo here, because that’s slowly slipping away.
Think about it…