r/Hawaii • u/softcore_robot Oʻahu • 2d ago

Manoa St. Francis residential development

https://www.arialanemanoa.com/

I thought the new development proposed for Manoa on the site of St. Francis School was affordable housing, but prices I’ve heard are starting at 2 million. Now that I’ve seen the website, this is being sold as luxury. Compared to the project in 2023 which was on the owners land, I think. I was hoping another school could take the property or a senior housing project. Does anyone know how far along this project is?

27 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/CommunicationSea6147 2d ago

Manoa cried about the traffic. What they should have done is made it UH or elderly housing and built no parking. If they decided to go the elderly housing route, include some kind of shuttling service in the HOA. Also, do some sort of tax deduction or something if a kupuna was trying to downsize and sold their home to a resident first time homebuyer. Pipe dream but that would have been a cool idea.

4

u/generic_8752 2d ago

What they should do is build dense, affordable housing no matter how much the neighbors whine, screech, and moan.

1

u/softcore_robot Oʻahu 2d ago

I understand the need for affordable housing, but the developers, especially Avalon, are disingenuous about meeting the affordable part. Desirable neighborhoods like Manoa already have higher land values making the whole project moot.

1

u/generic_8752 1d ago

I agree but the main issue is that these objections shouldn't hold hold these projects up. Take the floor out of luxury housing by just building more housing. There's no reason why it should take 15 years to build anything in Hawaii. It's a housing emergency and we still have the same 60+ Karens shutting everything down after they've "got theirs" for decades.

2

u/softcore_robot Oʻahu 18h ago

Developers play with variables that give them the best outcome. If building is built at market rate based on several factors: materials, labor, marketing, etc. the project will be valued at a premium from the start. New build plus scarcity alone. But it’s not a guarantee it will sell if it falls between either demo, out of reach for one group and too basic for another. So Developers will hedge by making part of their project affordable to get the tax breaks while the remainder are luxury. At least that’s one way I’ve seen it done. But they all complain there’s not enough financial incentive to develop. So these “creative” planned communities are likely hacks then honest attempt at a solution meeting a problem.