Gov. Green kills controversial Hawaii housing group

Feb. 24—Green initially asked critics to trust that he would make adjustments, which he did to mollify a lawsuit from the Sierra Club in response to sunshine, environmental and historic preservation concerns.

Gov. Josh Green on Friday abolished his controversial, seven-month Build Beyond Barriers Working Group intended to accelerate the development of affordable housing across the islands.

Green had hoped that the working group would help fill the need for 50, 000 more affordable housing units across the state, but it instead generated immediate pushback that included criticism for initially exempting it from typical rules, including the state Sunshine Law designed to ensure government transparency.

Green initially asked critics to trust that he would make adjustments, which he did to mollify a lawsuit from the Sierra Club in response to sunshine, environmental and historic preservation concerns.

In signing his fifth emergency proclamation relating to affordable housing, Green's office said Friday that the proclamation "also concludes the Build Beyond Barriers Working Group and assigns the BBB's duties to the Hawai 'i Housing Finance and Development Corporation (HHFDC ), which will review developer applications for eligibility and process fee waiver exemptions."

In a statement, Green said, "I want to thank everyone who participated in the BBB and helped us identify the many challenges and barriers to building affordable homes in Hawai 'i. It is now appropriate to integrate its functions into the operations of HHFDC, which is uniquely positioned to execute the (emergency proclamation )."

Green said the group's work helped drive "about 20 bills this legislative session, seeking to codify solutions to housing challenges identified by and aligned with the group and the emergency proclamation. Proposals include bills to make it easier for office building owners to convert their commercially zoned properties for residential uses. Others permanently repeal school impact fees for affordable housing projects and exempt the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands projects from paying general excise and use taxes on their projects."

The Build Beyond Barriers Working Group was established under a July emergency proclamation, and by Dec. 20 approved its first housing project since it began meeting in August by granting a school impact fee waiver to a developer converting a downtown Honolulu office midrise into 52 rental apartments.

The 36-member panel initially was empowered to sidestep state laws regulating housing development.

Lindsay Apperson, a policy specialist with the Office of the Governor's Housing Team, told the working group at its Dec. 20 meeting that only 8, 000 of the backlog of 50, 000 homes were expected to be delivered by 2025.

The group also was saddled by problems assembling a quorum of members, who included agency department heads.

The short life of the Build Beyond Barriers Working Group illustrates Green's promise to move quickly to address critical issues facing working families and adjust his plans if they do not turn out as intended, said Colin Moore, who teaches public policy at the University of Hawaii and is an associate professor at the University of Hawaii Economic Resource Organization.

But the sheer size of the working group may have been a factor in its demise, Moore said.

"The Build Beyond Barriers Working Group was designed to show that everyone had a seat of the table, but I don't think it served that purpose for the governor, " he said.

And there was collateral damage that included the resignation of Green ally Nani Medeiros, Green's initial director of housing, who resigned suddenly amid death threats to her and her family as head of the working group.

"There was that lawsuit from the Sierra Club, along with fairly intense opposition and the fires on Maui and intense pressure that Nani Medeiros came under that became politically charged immediately, " Moore said. "It may have been simply that the group was too unwieldy. He may have decided ultimately that it was too complicated and may have created more problems for him. It was partially to solve political problems, but it was creating more problems than solving problems."

The dissolution of the working group will unlikely slow Green's urgency to develop more affordable housing, Moore said.

"I don't think it's going to slow him down, " Moore said. "Green has been very good about pivoting when something isn't working, even though I'm sure he'll take some political heat for this. I think he has a sense that he largely has public opinion on his side, so he'll come up with a different way to accomplish this. He feels he has to deliver results quickly."

Dean Minakami, HHFDC's executive director, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Friday that Green scaled back the initial scope of the working group amid issues including getting enough members to attend to generate a quorum, especially among heads of various state and county agencies.

"That was a problem, " Minakami said.

But Minakami said producing more affordable housing for Hawaii is "the governor's priority, without a doubt. So that has not changed."