City and County of Honolulu
Comprehensive Housing Plan

The challenge

The shortage of affordable housing on O'ahu is a long-standing, complex issue that the City has faced for decades.

The lack of housing impacts us as a community. Increasing the supply of housing for all income levels must be considered, as a continuum of need exists, ranging from homeless shelters and permanent supportive housing, to low-income rentals, workforce housing, and single-family homes and condos for those pursuing the American dream of homeownership.

This plan builds on the 2023 report's goals and priorities by:

📈 Projecting household growth and housing demand to help target strategies toward the unit types and income levels where need is increasing fastest.

🤝 Engaging key stakeholders across disciplines and perspectives to learn from practitioners, test ideas, foster collaboration, and build consensus around promising strategies.

🔬 Evaluating current and proposed housing policies to improve their effectiveness and impact toward achieving City goals.

📜 Introducing new policy concepts and precedent examples from places comparable to Honolulu for City and stakeholder consideration.

🏙️ Providing place-based recommendations to distribute new housing development most appropriately and efficiently across the island, with primary emphasis on TOD districts.

📖 Documenting analyses, findings, and recommendations in report and online dashboard formats to help inform and advance the community's housing discourse.

Access the full Comprehensive Housing Plan:

The sections below summarize the Plan's key analytical findings and policy recommendations. The links at right lead to the full set of reports and documents comprising the plan.

📄 Executive summary (coming soon)

📄 Housing needs assessment (coming soon)

📄 Affordable housing development barriers assessment (coming soon)

📄 Strategies to increase housing production (coming soon)

📄 Place-based opportunities and constraints (coming soon)

📄 Literature review (coming soon)

📄 Map atlas (coming soon)

Much of Honolulu's projected household growth is projected to be concentrated at higher incomes.

Honolulu’s household population has grown modestly since 2010. In terms of relative income levels, most of the growth has been concentrated among households earning >140% AMI.

Looking forward, the fastest growing household income group is >140% AMI, followed by the 80-100% AMI group. The ratio of households below 60% has been decreasing since 2013 and will not result in net new households if trends continue. However, households at lower levels of AMI are cost burdened and new affordable housing would address that need as shown in the following pages.

Households are cost-burdened at all income levels but especially at lower incomes.

In Honolulu, most low-income households are cost burdened. Cost burden is also prevalent at higher incomes, but it does not represent the majority of households earning over 60% AMI.

Homeownership is increasingly out of reach.

Median prices for both single-family homes and condos are significantly higher than what a median income household can afford.

Housing options should follow job concentrations.

Job access is a key consideration in determining where to prioritize housing development.

Much of Honolulu's workforce earns 80-140% AMI.

Many of the occupations comprising the foundation of the economy pay wages that equate to household incomes between 80-140% of AMI. This ranges from a single-earner household making $89,100 (80% AMI for a 2-person household) to a dual-earner household making $175,400 (140% AMI for a 3-person household). Honolulu caps incomes eligible for affordable housing designation at 120% AMI, excluding many dual-earner working class households.

Thousands of households are out-migrating annually.

Honolulu has lost more households to outmigration than it has gained to inmigration every year since 2015.

Most out-migrating households earn between 60-140% AMI.

Most outgoing households are middle-income, earning between 60% and 140% AMI. Projections based on past trends suggest relatively low growth in these income groups, especially when compared to households earning above 140%. However, these projections have this out-migration trend baked in and assume they will continue. If these households did not leave the island altogether, they would drive substantial middle-income household growth. Building more housing that meets these households’ needs and ability to pay could help stem the tide of out-migration.

More 80-140% AMI housing is needed to retain the workforce.

With limited resources at the City’s disposal, it is important to match the current cost burden, expected household growth, and rates of out migration with the correct policy response.

Currently, the development pipeline outpaces projected new demand for <80% AMI housing and falls far short of projected new demand for 80-140% AMI housing (which includes expected growth plus the outmigration likely to occur without sufficient housing supply). While resources should not be diverted from low-income housing, more attention is needed to close the gap at 80-140% AMI.

What we want to accomplish:

Stem the flow of out-migration driven by Honolulu’s high housing costs and high cost of living. The outmigration threatens to deprive Honolulu of moderate-income households, who are the engine of Oahu’s economy.

Increase opportunities for homeownership and homebuyers’ ability to build wealth through homeownership.

Ensure the availability of housing for residents across the income spectrum.

Encourage a majority of new housing development to occur in TOD areas, especially those currently prioritized by the state (East Kapolei, Halawa-Stadium, and Iwilei-Kapalama)

Align infrastructure investment with housing development plans to make the most effective use of limited infrastructure funding and long implementation timeframes.

Ensure that the City's staff capacity matches the tasks assigned to it. This includes permitting and housing finance and development staff capacity to support the desired scale and pace of development.

Recognize the need to balance:

The City’s needs for property tax revenues to sustain vital services (e.g. police, fire, road maintenance, etc.) that benefit the community,

The community's need for affordable housing, and

Builders' need for project feasibility.

Strategy framework:

The 2023 Housing Plan for the City and County of Honolulu laid out a pragmatic menu of strategies, some of which have already been accomplished, and others of which are currently being implemented.

The Comprehensive Housing Plan recommends that Honolulu continue to robustly implement current strategies. Additional strategies recommended here build on this work already underway.

Robustly implement current strategies.

Add new strategies to help the City’s housing programs better serve residents and accelerate development in appropriate locations:

Accelerate the pace of housing development.

Update affordable housing incentives and related policies.

Facilitate desired development types in appropriate locations.

Make more effective use of federal housing funds.

Explore innovative strategies that have the potential for significant future impact.

Create an effective enabling environment for progress.

78% of housing production is recommended to be contained in the three sustainable plan areas with light-rail access.

The current lack of density around transit stations represents a significant opportunity for achieving the community’s housing goals.

The station areas include over 9 square miles of parcels within ½ mile, currently home to 32,064 units. The State’s TOD Council is currently focusing housing-supportive infrastructure efforts at: East Kapolei (1,000 units), Stadium / Halawa (2,000 units), and Iwilei Center (27,500 units).