Five housing questions on Oʻahu’s November ballot—and why they matter
Once a decade, Honolulu residents get to decide what to change in the city charter—the document that creates the framework for how our local government operates. This November, Oʻahu voters will consider 20 proposed charter amendments, and five of them deal directly with housing.
Together, they would give the City and County of Honolulu more predictable funding, more flexible ways to use affordable housing dollars, and a requirement to plan for housing the same way it plans for infrastructure.
Mail-in ballots arrive in mid-October. Here’s what each housing question would do.
Question 7: Make housing a city priority
“Shall the Revised Charter of the City and County of Honolulu be amended to encourage increasing housing availability and preserving available housing as policies for the City and County of Honolulu?”
Right now, our charter says nothing about Oʻahu’s housing shortage or the families it’s pushing out. This amendment puts the City on record: keeping homes available for residents is a “compelling governmental interest.” That language gives future housing policies a stronger legal footing.
Question 8: Make affordable housing dollars revolving
“Should the Charter be amended to clarify that the Affordable Housing Fund is a revolving fund, with repayments, interest, earnings, proceeds, and other receipts derived from the Fund to be redeposited into the Fund?”
The Affordable Housing Fund gets about $8 million a year for rental housing that is affordable to households earning up to 60 percent of area median income. The charter doesn’t say whether loan repayments and interest go back into the fund. Making it a revolving fund, like the state’s Rental Housing Revolving Fund, means each dollar repaid can be loaned out again instead of granted away and never returned.
Question 9: End duplicative hearings
“Should the Charter be amended to no longer require a second public hearing for any transaction related to City real property interests?”
Every City real property transaction already requires public notice and testimony at the Council. But transactions over a quarter acre need a second hearing in the affected district. These hearings take hours of staff time, thousands in publication fees, and parks facility and IT staff to stream them live. In many of these hearings, no one comes.
Voting yes keeps public input at the City Council and stops wasting taxpayer dollars on duplicative processes that are largely unattended.
Question 10: Plan for housing like we plan for infrastructure
“Should the City be required to prepare and carry out a functional plan for the development of affordable housing?”
The charter already requires long-range functional plans for parks, environmental services, and transportation—but not for housing. A functional plan treats housing like infrastructure. Just as the City plans sewers and roads, it would make concrete housing plans, set money aside for them, and carry them out.
Today, housing plans change from administration to administration, and even from housing director to housing director. That has left us with many ambitious plans and little housing to show for it. This amendment requires a 10-year Housing Functional Plan, updated at least every five years, to guide the City’s housing policy and budgets starting in 2030.
Question 12: Allow for more kinds of money into the Affordable Housing Fund
“Should the Revised City Charter be amended to allow the Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund, Affordable Housing Fund, Climate Resiliency Fund, and other funds established under Section 9-204 to receive funding from federal, state, philanthropic, and other sources?”
Today, the Affordable Housing Fund is paid for only by its set share of real property tax revenue: 0.5 percent each year. This amendment opens the fund to sources beyond that allocation, including state, federal, and philanthropic money, so our housing investments aren’t confined to that 0.5 percent. That means more money for housing without raising taxes.
Taken together, these five amendments won’t solve the housing crisis on their own. But they make the City’s commitment to housing more durable—by putting it in the charter, by stretching affordable housing dollars further, by requiring real plans instead of ephemeral ones, and by opening the door to new revenue. For a crisis this deep, that’s the kind of structural groundwork that has to come first.
Read the full list of proposed amendments in the City’s 2026 Charter Amendment Booklet.
Find community information sessions from the Charter Commission.
Make sure you’re registered to vote, and return your ballot by November 3.
