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July 7, 2007
Hawaii County Council
25 Aupuni Street
Hilo, HI 96720
Pete Hoffmann
Dominic Yagong _
Donald Ikeda r-~
J Yoshimoto
Stacy Higa -t:
Emily Naeole ~
Bob Jacobson ~
Brenda Ford
Angel Pilago W
RE: Amendment to Chapter 11 relating to affordable housing requirements.
The proposed expansion of affordable housing requirements in this Amendment
will, without question, increase the costs of development for many, many
properties. It is stylish now to picture developers in a jaundice light, but that
picture is incorrect for individuals and families who have struggled to acquire,
maintain and hopefully one day develop property to its zoning potential.
I am involved in the development and management of a very nice commercial
building in Waimea, the High Country Traders Building. We are struggling to find
tenants for this building, although our rents are slightly below average. This is a
gocd prcject, well-received by the community and environmentally friendly as well.
In short, it is exactly what the community wants. Your proposed amendment would
make a building like this impossible to develop by increasing the costs beyond the
tenants' abilities to pay for the use of it.
Our property was purchased many years ago with the promise of CV-7.5 zoning,
yet waste water treatment requirements took away much of that potential by
requiring no more than 4 dwellings per acre. After long and difficult modeling we
determined that we could build an office building on part of the property and make
a thin profit if all went well. The balance of the property remains fallow. Your
proposed amendment will make it impossible to provide any more office space on
our property here. It will be just too expensive.
Ref. To: •
Ref. Dp~e ~
Like many others I applaud your desire to see that affordable housing is created for
our neighbors and children. You are addressing a very critical need, yet you do not
know how to solve the problem. You are experimenting to see if one thing or
another will work, but your experiments can be very harmful to those of us who
are willing to take the risks required to see that things get built for our
communities.
It is quite obvious that by requiring even small developers to bear the costs of
producing affordable housing you are increasing the costs of development that
must then be passed on to the community through rents or higher sales prices. All
you can achieve on this path is to assure that new facilities are not created and that
our children will not have the opportunities they will need to remain here with
their families.
I urge you to postpone this effort until a tried and true method of producing
affordable housing is discovered. Without that, you are blind in your efforts and
may expect to do damage to the very community you seek to help.
Respectfully,
William N. Jardine (R)