^Awesome thanks a lot for the updates and comments.
Huge news here!
60,000 new homes planned for O'ahu
Source: Honolulu Advertiser
These homes on Kaie'e Street at Haseko Hawaii's
Ocean Pointe are nearing completion and are part of
the unprecedented housing expansion cycle O'ahu has
experienced over the past few years.
Developers, encouraged by strong housing prices, plan
to build roughly 60,000 new homes on O'ahu over the
next two decades, according to a city survey and
Advertiser estimates.
The expansion — adding the equivalent of a new
Mililani, Hawai'i Kai, Wahiawa, Kailua and Kane'ohe
combined — comes with benefits and drawbacks. It's
good for the economy, jobs and families pursuing the
American Dream of homeownership. But it's often bad
for open spaces, commuters frustrated by increasingly
congested traffic and children attending overcrowded
schools.
"Are we to become like Los Angeles?" asked
Hank Higuchi, a Pearl City resident of 56 years.
"I really can't see how our infrastructure can
handle it."
The projects could mean significant impacts on O'ahu
residents already facing congested freeways, crowded
schools and rising fees for infrastructure such as
sewer lines.
Whether developers will be able to follow through on
their plans depends on market conditions, but the
prospect of so many new homes is jarring to many.
Kathleen Kaiser, a longtime resident who has owned a
condominium in Waipi'o Gentry since 1998, is dejected
by residential sprawl into more of Central and Leeward
O'ahu where city planners have directed urban growth.
"It does not work on an island with a finite
availability of land," she said. "I believe
we are now at the tipping point of
overdevelopment."
Still, as families grow, so do housing needs,
especially for affordable housing that the city
mandates for many new communities. There are enough
people who support the growth and enough jobs
dependent on it that limiting expansion is not
considered an option by most lawmakers.
"You cannot stop growth," said state Rep.
Michael Kahikina, D-44th (Nanakuli, Honokai Hale)
House Housing Committee chairman. "People are
still going to make babies."
Kahikina said he wants to see more workforce housing
and smart-growth projects designed to minimize traffic
increases, but controls on building do not make sense.
Whether people favor or oppose housing growth, the
marketplace and regulatory constraints will largely
dictate how many homes are built and how fast.
STRONG DEMAND
The new Capitol Place and the
Pinnacle condominiums in Downtown Honolulu are taking
shape.
Over the past several years, O'ahu experienced an
unprecedented housing expansion cycle with
stratospheric price increases and sustained demand
that recently has slowed but remains relatively
strong.
The market, in turn, spurred developers to rekindle
stalled plans, speed up construction of ongoing
projects and propose a slate of new communities.
These plans have pumped up the development pipeline
enough to potentially spew a flood of new residences
throughout urban, suburban and rural communities.
Most of the development is concentrated among urban
Ho-nolulu high-rises and massive master-planned
communities of detached homes and townhomes in Central
and Leeward O'ahu.
Advertiser calculations and city Department of
Planning and Permitting's August 2005 survey show that
developers could deliver about 5,500 homes both in
2008 and in 2009, after fewer than 4,000 estimated
homes this year and next year.
By contrast, an average of 3,430 homes per year were
added on O'ahu between 1990 and 2000 — 54 percent of
it in Central and 'Ewa regions, according to the city.
The market may put the brakes on some of that
construction. Sales of existing homes have slowed
since late last year, in part because rising prices
and interest rates are putting homes out of reach for
more and more buyers.
Economists forecast that home prices will continue to
rise, albeit only slightly, through 2007. If that is
true, it follows that demand will continue to decline.
That could deter builders from delivering as many
homes as they'd like.
"There's been a tremendous amount of permitting
activity (to build homes) in the last few years,"
said Carl Bonham, a University of Hawai'i economist.
"Something's not going to get built. I think the
peak is here."
Other industry observers also predict that many of the
homes slated for delivery in the next few years will
be delayed, and that the homebuilding "boom"
is over.
HOMEBUILDING PEAK
Paul Brewbaker, chief economist for Bank of Hawaii,
forecasts a slowdown in home construction starting
next year and running through at least 2010.
"We're right at the peak for homebuilding,"
he said.
Brewbaker noted that the peak — expected to be under
4,000 homes this year — is lower than what it was in
almost every year from about 1960 through the
mid-1990s.
If the construction does slow, that's not terrible
news for residents frustrated about transportation
infrastructure and schools failing to keep pace with
new subdivisions, and for people dismayed about former
sugar cane fields being gobbled up for housing.
One major advantage to rapid new-home construction is
that it can lead to lower prices, but the pace of
building on O'ahu is not expected to boost supply
enough to take pressure off prices in the near term.
Brewbaker notes that even if developers build 5,000
homes a year, it would be the equivalent of a roughly
1 percent increase to supply. "It's next to
nothing," he said.
The city's most recent housing growth projection, made
last year, is for 1 percent annual growth, or about
3,000 homes a year from 2000 to 2010, and then about
4,000 a year from 2010 to 2030. Updated projections
won't be available until later this year.
Developers typically try to alter production to match
demand, so it's difficult to say exactly how many
homes will get built.
"I don't think developers are going to push the
envelope too hard," said Mike Jones, president of
D.R. Horton's local Schuler Division. "We've all
been through the bloodbath (when Hawai'i's housing
market crashed in the early 1990s)."
Large projects dependent on government approvals also
can be delayed by the permit process, creating more
uncertainty as to whether developer plans will be
realized.
Of the nearly 60,000 homes slated for development in
the next two decades, at least 25,000 need major
government approvals such as zoning changes, including
Castle & Cooke's Koa Ridge near Mililani and
Schuler's Ho'opili on the 'Ewa Plain.
Many of the planned homes, however, are within already
authorized and ongoing projects such as Ewa by Gentry,
Haseko Hawaii's Ocean Pointe and numerous high-rise
condos.
Residents can voice their concerns about development
and the planning process by attending community
meetings to begin in October.
A task force created last year by the state
Legislature plans a series of meetings and studies to
examine how much land development, water use and
population Hawai'i can support. The Hawai'i 2050
Sustainability Task Force also plans to
address
other quality-of-life issues as development increases.
There's just so much going on for a metro of under a
million, I just have to share it. 
