Bill offering displaced tenants protections dies at legislature

Federal law delivers a version of the HB1325 protections to tenants of public housing complexes who are displaced by redevelopment.

That’s the case at Kūhiō Park Terrace, where 215 tenants are being moved out in the first phase of a project to create more affordable apartments. The bill’s advocates say the problems with how the Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority and the project’s developer have handled the relocation of residents shows the federal rules aren’t enough.

The bill was even more critical, advocates had argued, because of the state’s plan, dubbed Ka Lei Momi, to partner with a private developer to tear down nine public housing complexes around the state and replace them with at least 10,000 more affordable units, displacing thousands of tenants.

HB1325 would have applied beyond just public housing tenants—to any publicly financed affordable housing development in Hawaiʻi for displaced tenants making up to 140 percent of the area median income.

“It’s a good policy, stabilizing current renters so they can stay in their communities and be housed in Hawaiʻi,” said Arjuna Heim, director of housing policy at the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Appleseed. “Because they’re essential parts of it. To not even entertain the conversation is so unfair.”

Grandinetti and Rep. Luke Evslin, chair of the House Housing Committee and one of the House conferees to the bill, said they had no idea why the Senate hadn’t acted.