HONOLULU – The Hawai‘i Department of Transportation (HDOT) today hosted a blessing and groundbreaking to mark the start of construction of the Farrington Highway Widening Project, an approximately three-mile stretch from the Kapolei Golf Course Road near the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu to Old Fort Weaver Road. The widening project will expand the current two-lane road to include a new two-way turn lane, as well as bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks on both sides from Kapolei to ‘Ewa.

The scope of the project will include reconstruction of the Kaloi Stream Bridge and Honouliuli Stream Bridge, as well as construction of drainage structures and culverts; asphalt and concrete pavements; concrete curbs, gutters and sidewalks; gas, water and sewar lines; street lighting, traffic signals and landscaping. The work also will include relocation of water mains, relocation of overhead and underground electrical and telecommunications infrastructure, demolition and removal of structures, clearing, grading and pavement markings and signage.

The project is designed to meet future capacity needs, while also balancing multimodal travel for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit users. The widening will support the development of affordable housing and commercial uses in the area, while also providing connections to four of the city’s Skyline stations, including the Kualakaʻi – East Kapolei, Keoneʻae – UHWO, Honouliuli – Hoʻopili, and Hoʻaeʻae, West Loch stations.

The $138 million project, which was awarded to contractor Nan, Inc., is anticipated to take two years, with an estimated completion in Spring 2027. The City and County of Honolulu is committing $15 million towards construction.

For more information on the Farrington Highway Widening, please see https://hidot.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Farrington-Highway-Widening-TOD-April.pdf

A picture of the groundbreaking may be downloaded at https://hidot.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/farrington-widening-groundbreaking-scaled.jpg

Please credit “Hawaii Department of Transportation” or “HDOT” if you use it. Pictured left to right is Ed Shukri, vice president of Nan Inc.; Representative Darius Kila, chair, House Transportation Committee; Ed Sniffen, director, Hawaii Department of Transportation; Senator Henry Aquino, former House Transportation Committee chair, representing Pearl City, Waipahu, West Loch Estates, Hono‘uli‘uli, Ho‘opili; and Brandi Lasconia an inspector with QRSE, HDOT’s construction management consultant.

In 2021, Nolan Hong and his wife were trying to buy their first home on Oʻahu. They kept getting outbid with cash offers above the asking price.

“It became clear that many of the buyers we were competing against were not in the same boat as us — a local family simply trying to put down roots,” the couple wrote in legislative testimony supporting the Kama’aina Homes Program bill.

It was one of two bills proposed in this year’s legislative session that aimed to address the housing crisis by setting aside certain properties for residents. But lawmakers couldn’t hash out their differences, and both bills died.

Instead, the Legislature passed bills meant to boost the supply of housing overall. While those bills could address the shortage behind rising home prices, they are likely to take longer — in some cases, years — to have an impact.

Although advocates were disappointed by the failure of the Kama’aina Homes bill, they said the session shows that the state is making progress to increase the housing supply and bring down costs.

“We’ve had a chronic housing crisis here in Hawai‘i for decades, and so we’re not going to solve it with a simple cure-all,” said Perry Arrasmith, director of policy at Housing Hawaiʻi’s Future, a group that advocates for workforce housing. “Our housing shortage is 1,001 different pieces of a constantly shifting puzzle.”

Progress Report

A weeklong series looking at some of the state’s most pressing issues and what lawmakers are doing to address them.

• Environment: Bolder Action Needed To Protect Hawaiʻi’s Environment

• Native Hawaiians: Help With Housing Continues To Elude The Hawaiian Community

• Invasive Species: Hawaiʻi Primes Itself To Battle Biosecurity Threats

• Education: Hawaiʻi’s Working Families Need More Support

• Fireworks: Hawaiʻi Fireworks Reforms Put Enforcement Onus On Police

• Insurance: Will Reforms Stabilize Hawaiʻi Condo Insurance Costs?

• Progress Report: Neighbor Islands Need More State Support On The Job Front

• Progress Report: A Series Of Child Abuse Deaths Failed To Spur Major Reform

No Homes Reserved For Locals

The bill that Hong and his wife, Jamie Yamagata, testified in favor of would have funded county programs that give homeowners or homebuyers grants in exchange for agreeing to deed restrictions that limit ownership to people who work in Hawaiʻi.

A similar bill would have allocated funds so counties could provide grants to homeowners to construct accessory dwelling units — separate living quarters on the property — in exchange for deed restrictions.

The bills were based on a program in the ski town of Vail, Colorado. Since 2018, about 1,000 homes have been taken off the market in Vail for people who don’t live or work there, according to the text of one bill.

Advocates said the bills’ failures set back efforts to offer immediate help to residents in a state where the median single-family home price is now just over $1 million, more than half of renters pay upwards of 30% of their income in rent, and a quarter of homebuyers in the last quarter of 2024 lived elsewhere.

“We missed a huge opportunity to give counties power to say, you know what, we’re going to give residents money so that right now, when they sell it or when they rent out that property, we can 100% guarantee it’s going to another resident,” said Arjuna Heim, director of housing policy at Hawaiʻi Appleseed, a social justice policy research and advocacy organization.

State Sen. Stanley Chang, chair of the Senate Housing Committee, said he supports deed restrictions in theory but believes giving grants to a small number of people is an inefficient use of taxpayer money. He argued that low-interest loans would be better because as they’re paid off, that money can be used to assist others.

Chang said lawmakers negotiated the terms of both bills but couldn’t get to yes before the session ended.

“We got closer and closer to common ground,” he said. “We just ran out of time.”

$200 Million To Lend To Developers

Lawmakers appropriated $200 million to a program offering low-interest loans to developers to build affordable rental housing. That’s on top of $300 million provided three years ago. More than 2,000 below-market-value units built with the assistance of the 2022 allocation are expected to come on line this year.

The fund has $186 million available for other projects, said Gordon Pang, a spokesperson with the state’s Housing Finance & Development Corporation.

Under another bill that passed and that advocates lauded, the fund would also be used to encourage higher density development in neighborhoods around transit stations, like those for Honolulu’s Skyline rail system.

Under the bill, counties that want the state to fund mixed-income rental housing in those neighborhoods would have to meet density standards established in the bill. It requires those projects to be approved by planning officials based on objective standards rather than by elected officials.

The Legislature has not yet funded that program, said Rep. Luke Evslin, chair of the House Housing Committee, but he said he hopes it will next year.

“Now we have the definition of transit-supportive density in statute, and we should over time be tying more and more funding sources to that definition,” Evslin said.

Housing advocates acknowledged the impacts of the high-density development program won’t be felt for some time, but they said the bill lays the foundation to pursue such housing in urban areas.

“It’s a very forward-thinking bill,” Arrasmith said.

Speeding Up Project Approvals

Lawmakers also passed bills that aim to break up bureaucratic logjams blamed for holding up projects.

Several bills tackle delays at the state’s Historic Preservation Division, which reviews development proposals to determine their impact on historic and cultural properties.

The division serves a critical purpose in a state with thousands of Native Hawaiian historic and sacred sites threatened by tourism and development. But housing advocates and developers say those reviews can slow construction because under state law, any structure older than 50 years is potentially historic.

A study by the libertarian group Grassroot Institute of Hawaiʻi found that the Historic Preservation Division handled 2,300 projects between 2021 to 2024 and took an average of 94 days to review each one.

One bill tightened the state’s definition of a historic structure, adding that it must be eligible for the state’s register of historic places. The bill also excluded certain projects from historic review, including some on existing residential property.

Another bill allows the understaffed office to hire outside consultants to conduct reviews.

“Obviously there are a lot of things here that need historical review,” said Ted Kefalas, director of strategic campaigns at the Grassroot Institute. But “not everything over 50 years is historical,” he said, and if the preservation division “needs a long time to look at these things, it’s OK to ask for help.”

Self-Permitting Bill Weakened

Another bill that aims to cut red tape would have allowed architects to sign off on building permits for certain projects themselves if a county doesn’t do so within 60 days. The bill cited a study that found it took Hawaiʻi three times as long to issue building permits than the nationwide average.

Justin Tyndall, a University of Hawaiʻi economics professor who co-authored the 2022 study, said the bill had been watered down as it made its way through the Legislature.

As introduced, the bill would have required counties to issue a building permit within 60 days if a project met certain conditions. By the time the bill was forwarded to the governor’s desk, it simply said that after 60 days, applicants can apply for an expedited permit that they could sign themselves if certain conditions were met — including that the building is under three stories tall and that the architect is adequately insured and absolves the county of liability.

The bill “might result in shorter permitting times, which is probably helpful,” Tyndall said. But it’s “probably not a game changer.”

Housing advocates across the ideological spectrum were more hopeful than Tyndall, but they said any impact of the bill would depend on whether counties embrace the process. “It’s a question of whether they play by the spirit of the law or slow-walk it,” Kefalas said.

One Honolulu architect whose firm handles multi-family, affordable and workforce housing said he is concerned about the liability that might come with signing permits for the firm’s own projects.

“The permitting process is so slow and onerous here, and time is money,” said Grant Chang, a principal at Lowney Architecture. “And something like this could really help. But I think we’re very cautious about it.”

Last week, a similar self-certification program developed by the Honolulu City Council was launched, 18 months after it was created. The program’s start was delayed by the same staffing issues that had led to a backlog in building permits, officials said.

This year’s annual Keiki Fest was a successful mix of entertaining activities and critical information for Molokai families. Organized by the Molokai Community Action Team, the event focused on ‘ohana well-being, explained Titi Hernandez, lead organizer of Keiki Fest.

“It’s for the keiki and their families,” said Hernandez. “We wanted to celebrate the keiki a little bit more as well as have a place for families to hang out.”

With over 1,200 Molokai community members in attendance at the Molokai Community Health Center on April 26, Hernandez and the Molokai Community Action Team were busy ushering kids and families between information booths, games, prizes, music performances and more. The Molokai Community Action Team partners with Molokai Child Abuse Prevention Pathways to deliver critical messages and education to families at Keiki Fest.

The informational booths with different Molokai services and resources serve as checkpoints for kids to earn prizes, explained Hernandez.

“Nobody can get a prize until they get education,” she said.

Senator Lynn DeCoite, fresh out of the senate’s final budget discussions, came out with her family to enjoy the day and present special recognitions on behalf of the senate.

“This event says a lot about our community,” said DeCoite. “I think this gives us an opportunity to come out and share some of our mana’o on how we can do better for Molokai.”

DeCoite presented the Molokai Community Action Team with an award from the senate for their community contributions. Additionally, Jodi Puaoi, branch manager at American Savings Bank, was recognized for her years of contributions to Keiki Fest.

“This Keiki Fest wouldn’t be here without you,” said DeCoite to Puaoi as she presented her with the award.

The day ended with the highlight to end all highlights – the fire trucks came and sprayed the kids with water hoses.

As DeCoite put it, “the kids are happy, the parents are happy, everyone is happy.”