Aloha Housing and Land Use Committee Chair + Council Members,
I am submitting written testimony OPPOSING the requested changes relating to the Kuikahi Village Workforce Housing Project ‘converting for-sale units to 100 percent rental units’. This project was already approved with the intent of offering workforce housing opportunity to our Maui Residents and helping our working-class get into homeownership (and out of renting). The numbers in their presentation are misleading in attempts to establish their point to fit their narrative for argument’s sake when the reality is these numbers are contingent on when everything is released and interest rates will likely be down by then.
Interest rates fluctuate regularly and have gone up due to manufactured inflation (as of 10/31/23 FNMA; 30-year fixed is 7.2% and overall rates are predicted to drop). The FEDs increase rates to slow the economy because the housing market has been insane across the U.S., which was fueled in 2020, and residential construction has been DOWN state to state resulting in low inventory across the U.S., which further drives up demand (and therefore prices) and affordability is clearly an issue here in Maui County.
The lack of housing/inventory will continue to keep homeownership out of reach for the majority and WHEN interest rates drop it will become an even more frenzy with people competing and overbidding for homes opposed to someone already in a home with the option to simply refinance with an even lower rate. Plus, each month a homeowner pays their mortgage they’re paying a portion of their principal down + earning equity opposed to renting where that money is solely the cost of a roof over their head. Let’s help our people get into homeownership, not prevent it!
There has become a pattern of already approved projects returning to the council requesting changes that benefit the developer and not the community. There’s a difference between providing housing versus stimulating homeownership. This is nearly 15-acres of precious land; it would be great to allow our people the opportunity to own the roof over their head. The residents of Maui deserve purchase opportunity and workforce housing for purchase creates that + the ability for them to establish their own equity (paying into something that is theirs / a legacy) opposed to a developer now being able to collect monthly rent checks on a large project indefinitely. That’s not what the community approved!
In a Maui News article dated 9/15/22, it said this Council voted 9-0 approval and this project was supposed to be under the county’s fast-track process allowing incentives and exemptions for developers of 100% residential workforce housing, so what happened to their timeline? Regardless, this is a wonderful proposed community and it would be a shame to remove the for-sale option because everyone, especially our workforce community deserves a step up into homeownership / owning the roof over their head and to have a piece of generational wealth. Let’s not take that away from them.
Aloha Housing and Land Use Committee Chair + Council Members,
I am submitting written testimony OPPOSING the requested changes relating to the Kuikahi Village Workforce Housing Project ‘converting for-sale units to 100 percent rental units’. This project was already approved with the intent of offering workforce housing opportunity to our Maui Residents and helping our working-class get into homeownership (and out of renting). The numbers in their presentation are misleading in attempts to establish their point to fit their narrative for argument’s sake when the reality is these numbers are contingent on when everything is released and interest rates will likely be down by then.
Interest rates fluctuate regularly and have gone up due to manufactured inflation (as of 10/31/23 FNMA; 30-year fixed is 7.2% and overall rates are predicted to drop). The FEDs increase rates to slow the economy because the housing market has been insane across the U.S., which was fueled in 2020, and residential construction has been DOWN state to state resulting in low inventory across the U.S., which further drives up demand (and therefore prices) and affordability is clearly an issue here in Maui County.
The lack of housing/inventory will continue to keep homeownership out of reach for the majority and WHEN interest rates drop it will become an even more frenzy with people competing and overbidding for homes opposed to someone already in a home with the option to simply refinance with an even lower rate. Plus, each month a homeowner pays their mortgage they’re paying a portion of their principal down + earning equity opposed to renting where that money is solely the cost of a roof over their head. Let’s help our people get into homeownership, not prevent it!
There has become a pattern of already approved projects returning to the council requesting changes that benefit the developer and not the community. There’s a difference between providing housing versus stimulating homeownership. This is nearly 15-acres of precious land; it would be great to allow our people the opportunity to own the roof over their head. The residents of Maui deserve purchase opportunity and workforce housing for purchase creates that + the ability for them to establish their own equity (paying into something that is theirs / a legacy) opposed to a developer now being able to collect monthly rent checks on a large project indefinitely. That’s not what the community approved!
In a Maui News article dated 9/15/22, it said this Council voted 9-0 approval and this project was supposed to be under the county’s fast-track process allowing incentives and exemptions for developers of 100% residential workforce housing, so what happened to their timeline? Regardless, this is a wonderful proposed community and it would be a shame to remove the for-sale option because everyone, especially our workforce community deserves a step up into homeownership / owning the roof over their head and to have a piece of generational wealth. Let’s not take that away from them.
God bless,
Maui Resident