 politics and land in Hawaii with Dennis Isaki on Think Tech Hawaii. Today we'll be speaking with Sherry Raposo, a Kama'aina real estate agent. When I say Kama'aina, I don't mean just anybody who lives in Hawaii. She's a child of the land and lives it. Besides helping others with real estate and housing, Sherry has practiced for the iconic prosecutor's office in the hotel industry. She started a trucking company. And her passion includes extreme hiking, hula, canoe paddling, partial arts. Understand she's a second degree black belt in karate, so I'll try not to get her mad at me. Sherry, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. Hi, Dennis. Please tell us a little bit about your background on Hawaii and your passions. My background in Hawaii is I'm a fifth generation to the island. My grandparents, some came here, one came from Portugal, which was my grandma. And they all came to the sugar cane industry to work here. My grandfather grew up in Kilauea area and he relocated to Makawale, which is also known as Pakala. And he was pretty much up there as a superintendent for the sugar cane industry. So a lot of my time was playing in red dirt in Pakala. I am a single mom. I have two kids, two grown girls. One is probably not gonna come back home because cost of living is just crazy here. My daughter, my oldest daughter is back home with two of my grandchildren. And she's also considering relocating to because just cost of living here is just not economical for her to be here already. Yeah, well, I forgot to mention you're a horseback rider too, right? In the road? Yes. And it appears that you go all out in whatever you do, which leads to getting frustrated sometimes when you see things that could be done better. Yeah, you know, starting with politics and government on a scale of four to 10, I'll put you on the spot. How satisfied are you and why? With politics on our island or in general? Politics and government in Kauai and Hawaii. On Kauai, I'm very disappointed. Scale of one to 10, I rate Kauai probably a three. And in the state probably right there, probably a three, two. It's a lot of, too many politics, a lot of talk. Nobody wants to do the dirty work. Okay, well, not as a good, you know, you're a real estate agent. And you deal with trying to help people with housing. To talk about affordable housing is just a word and affordable because they categorize it. Let's talk a little bit about that. Like you mentioned, for the kids come back and stay here. You know, every two years, we hear the same thing from the council, affordable housing. What is affordable? There's no criteria. I mean, most people that live here with their income, they actually qualify for HUD. And HUD is like an offset to use for rentals. The criteria that we have in Hawaii is very different from the other parts of the state because we pay to live in paradise. People are coming here and not coming to visit anymore. They're coming here to relocate. That has to taking a turn doing COVID on housing. Not only it creates a housing shortage for buyers, but it's creating a shortage on rentals right now on the island. There is a severe rental shortage on the island. I mean, weekly I get phone calls, people looking for rent. And it just can get worse. I mean, people want to live here. This is paradise. You know, they come here, they want to move here. And because a lot of people can do work online now, a lot of people are closing up their offices and having their workers work online. And they're saving a lot of money, not paying commercial space. So we see a lot of change here and it's affecting our island. Our growth has changed dramatically and we are not prepared for what's gonna be happening. Our infrastructure is here on the island. We're so far behind, way, way behind. Traffic is just getting worse and it's just gonna get worse and worse. Kapa'a is deadlock. We see the West Side traffic coming into Lihui, same thing. And it's just gonna get worse. Are there any talks of road improvements? I didn't hear anything about new roads, nothing. It's just peacemaking stuff. Peacemaking stuff to just get, you know, high-end developments have been happening on the island. You see the infrastructure is being put in for that, but for regular housing around the island, there's nothing on the books right now going on. Besides, Habitat is gonna be start building like 37 homes in Waimea and that's it, you know? And you have Ile Ile Nani still doing the next phases in Ile Ile, sorry, that Ile Ile Nani across Ile Ile Nani. They're doing that phase coming up, but, you know, where else, you know? Hawaiian homes are trying to go back and forth, trying to get through the less. They have a lot of monies to start, you know, developing areas to get to the less because a lot of people that has been on a Hawaiian home list are passing away. And it's all, you know, there's politics controlling this whole avenue on how to go about developing this area, how to go about getting electrical and water lines. And, you know, is it gonna happen in our lifetime? Chances are the aglots, no. There's, you know, for Hawaiian homes land, I don't see anything happening in the next 10 years. There might have some house lots up in Honopipepe and Honola, but, you know, we're very behind. And I blame our political leaders for where we are today. And, you know, you see the same people running for politics, they can do their whole term. While they were there for 10 years, did they fix anything? No. And now you see them want to go back again. You got the same people going back in, but the people are voting for the same people. So what do you do? Same thing, over and over and over. Okay, getting back to housing and affordability and availability. It was a recent study came out, I guess it must be a mainland group. They said, you know, you kind of blame the mainland people, outside people for housing. I think they still have a large percentage or, you know, maybe not majority, but I think they're still impacting the availability of housing here. Correct. Yeah. Yes. I feel that, yeah, it's, as a rotor, I have sold houses to people during COVID, during the shutdown, site unseen, cash. Yeah. Cash. Yeah. And, you know, and it's kind of, kind of local person that has been living here for decades, competing against these people. No, they drop it on cash. So affordability, that's out the door. I mean, realistically, a condo right now, which, you know, Halilani used to be like 250, maybe the most 300,000. Now they're in the 500,000 bracket. And that is pretty much where most local people can qualify for a loan, is pretty much in the 550, 650 range. That's the normal. And are we gonna see more housing in that price range? Very, very slim, very slim. And if there are, if you have a house for 650, you'll probably have like 30 plus offers, like, you know, in a day on the same house. So we do have an issue, you know? And if we think we're gonna wait for the market to crash, good luck, because everybody wants to be here living on the island. They wanna come to Kauai. You know, everybody's looking for a good deal. There's no such thing as a good deal. You pay to live in paradise. And on, you know, on the mainland, the prices of housing, maybe get 300,000, something thousand, you can get a decent whole, not a normal year. You can even buy a vacant piece of property on the 300,000, you know? And, you know, my children's a good example. They have a vacant piece of land, but to construct a home here, you're looking at, you know, on the low ends, like 350, $400 a square foot to build your house, even though you have the land, then you have to put in your own septic system, you know? So very costly for, so affordability on this island, I think that's a term that is just been stretched out and used in every political campaign. Affordability, affordability, it's gone. Yeah, it's a misnomer, you know? It's just a word that doesn't mean what it says. No, it's no. Yeah, you thought you touched upon the infrastructure, the septic bank for one? Yeah, you're going to start off, you know, most of the island don't have a sewer system, so you got to build your own septic banks, right? Correct. A septic system plus a 30 grand or something, right off the bat. It's over there right now on, yep. And, you know, septic design is like 2,000 plus. And, you know, and right now a septic system in Kei Kahaa, in Kei Kahaa now, it's you don't have to dynamite or and it's pretty much sand. It's $36,000 in Kei Kahaa. Yeah, it's a big thing already, then you're going to, if you want to, if you need a water meter and facilities, reserve tons of $14,000, the ads up. And just to get started, so I guess a lot of those things come under the county. So yeah, the waste water falls underneath the state and the state, you know, the conversion is in the year 2050. And people that are in sex schools right now are pretty much stuck. If you want to add onto your home, if you want to add an additional dwelling unit to your home to, you know, help with your children to build a second house, you have to take that sex school and you have to abandon it and you have to put in a septic system. So, you know, you're looking at costs right there to even have an additional dwelling unit on your home even. So it's just a bunch of money it takes to get to that level to help all children to stay here on the island to add onto our home and it's everything's costs and the cost of material on our island went up like 40% more. Freight went up, everything went up, you know, and it's just going to get worse. For us to live here on the island, you know, most people work two jobs, you know, and they're still living at home trying to save money and there's nothing on the books for new affordable housing. Right. So it's, we're just going to get overrun by people with a lot of money, you know, and there's a lot of change. You go down to Poipu, you can't build a home in Poipu, you know, you're competing with Coquiyula Development, you know, and, you know, you houses yourself for eight million and up, you know, and that was once ag lands, ag lands, and these ag lands was turning to resort areas, high end homes, resorts. Yeah, so, and, you know, I have, I said, we have ag property. I can build a second home on my ag property because you're not allowed to build additional dwelling unit on a piece of ag property, but you can do a gas house, which is 500 square feet. What can 500 square feet do for a family of... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good, getting back to, I just want to firefight myself on the septic. The sewer systems come under county, but the septic approvals and stuff come from the state, you're correct. But I think we need more sewer system, county sewer systems. Correct. Because a lot of areas outside of the island is in the, like along the shorelines, Kekaha, for example. Kekaha, so, yeah. So, you know, I glad you brought it up. So in the state of Hawaii did a study back in 2017 and they had prioritized the areas where they need to address the cesspool systems. And Kekaha, which is lowland area, blood zone area, close to the beaches, there's ditch lines, there's runoffs that goes into the ocean. It was not even on the 2017 report with the Department of Health that was a priority item. I raised concerns on that. I did contact the agency. And of course, you know, they paid for these high-tech reports and it was questioning why Kekaha was not on this list of priority. Well, just to happen, this new report was just recently redone in 2021. And it addresses there is, they changed the whole priority system on the island and Kekaha is in the red. It's in the red area. And it is in a significant risk of, you know, human impacts of drinking water and drainage. It is probably the top of the list, which is Kekaha, Hanalei, and parts of Wailua. So this report was done in 2021. However, there was a bill that the county passed last year, bill 2873, which is a cesspool conversion law. And this report was not part of that bill because they used the 2017 report that the state put out. However, I think our county needs to revisit this bill 2873 to look at the report that was the state of Hawaii has that was done on August, 2021 to indicate the three priority areas which has Kekaha on it, which Kekaha should have been on this report from day one. So this needs to be addressed immediately because now we have a landfill that's almost capacity. It's going to reach capacity in 2027. And the target area right now again is going to be Kekaha backyard, you know? And so now we're going to deal with a sewer issue and now we're going to deal with a landfill issue. So I think money should be appropriated for septic for Kekaha or they should have these monies that they give the Kekaha community host the landfill in the backyard. They should utilize funds from, you know, this funds should be put into a sewer system for Kekaha and have them tied in, even they can be tied into the Waimea sewer treatment center because from, you know, talking to people in the field of, you know, wastewater, Waimea sewer system has a capacity to handle the whole Kekaha to do tie-ins for sewer from Kekaha to Waimea shouldn't be crazy high because the ground is soft. You have a lot of sand, you're not dynamiting. You don't have, you know, bedrock like in Koloa area. So is this in the works? No, they just nothing. Kekaha just, you know, left behind. They want to put the landfill, the toxic is putting the landfill across the road from the existing one. And, you know, they're not even addressing the sewer issue in Kekaha, nothing. We're not even on the list. And yeah, that upsets me because on the west side of the island is just, just like push it that way, push it that way because who wants some landfill in the backyard? You know, nobody. So they keep on giving Kekaha community to host the landfill in the backyard. They give monies, but that's wrong. They need to address that we have an issue. And the issue shouldn't be putting a landfill again in Kekaha that is close to our oceans, you know, water sources. And now we're going to be dealing with, you know, a successful issue that's not even on the books to upgrade, help the community to upgrade to either septic systems or connect to a sewer and get the sewer lines in and utilize the capacity of Weymail Treatment Center to, you know, to upgrade people for wastewater. And, you know, then people can bill for their children on the same lot. You know, that can be like, I mean, it's not going to happen overnight, but it should be talked about, you know, not put on the back burner. Yeah, the landfill is a big issue that we got to deal with that right away. You know, going back to the septic, the county had a $1.2 million. That won't go very far. They said they're going to help people pay for their septic system, maybe 30-something units. And then Kekaha wasn't prioritized. No, it was not prioritized. So, I mean, I'm going to, you know, there was a councilman that, you know, did push through this bill and he followed, you know, the 2017 report from the state of Hawaii. However, it needs to be readdressed, you know, Kekaha, Hanalei and persons of Wailua, they need to be prioritized in this new bill. And that $1.2 million that they're going to be having, you know, it should be an annual flow from the clean water state revolving fund. And it's a forgiveness loan. So you can apply for it every year and get it. So, you know, they should not be only considering these funds for, you know, certain areas that this report covers. If they're going to put a landfill again, smack in Kekaha, they need to address the sewer system immediately. This is critical, you know? It's like, don't just dump something on the west side of the island without, you know, revisiting this bill. It shouldn't address the west side of the island, you know, and Hanalei has, you know, should be prioritized too because they're like straight there. They're quite a river, water source, ocean, you know? So I think a lot of these monies, I think that report, you know, when you see Koloa and this, you know, high end home on this list, that doesn't sit well with me. Most of some of these are vacation rental soon, you know? It should go for the Tamayana of the island, you know? It should, the money should be here and utilize where, you know, it's really needed. You know, Kekaha, I think there's 1200 cesspools right now there. And they're not a priority right now. It should be a priority. And, you know, and I think the state, our state representation on the island, even though this is a county issue, you know, the standpoint comes from the state implementing 2050, you know, that the conversion has to happen. So county and state needs to work together on getting this, you know, resolution on this issue. It is an issue for any future development. Okay, we're gonna get through a minute's left. Well, Kulawa area is in a, they got a private sewer system in a way with all the price of houses going up, it affects the real property tax assessments and, you know, how much we all pay. Got anything to say about that? Assessments. All the property assessments on the island, they're all over the place. And speaking as a realtor here, I can, you know, look up, you know, prices on assessment and for sale, what they're selling for and what the assessment's values, they're way off. And, you know, I'm picking on an assessor, but I think the county seriously should take a look at the department and probably get more assessors, hire more assessors because your monies will come to the island from the property taxes. So I can look up, like I can look at it any given day. I can put up, you know, I'll look at, you know, data from 2018 prior all up to now, you know, home sale for five million, eight million, resale for 10 million. However, their assessment value is still at two million. Why? You know, why is it still two million? A lot of the areas are not being corrected on the island. You know, I did, you know, adjust the issue with the county before, you know, I gave them some data and of course, you know, they have their high tech software system, which I think it's failing. It's not right, you know, and certain assessors, they do go into the neighborhoods and they do look at the areas, but I think they're so sharp handed, sharp staff that if the county would put more monies in hiring assessors on the island and really getting the true values of what people are paying for and being assessed properly, I think that can generate a lot of property taxes, revenue back into Hawaii. And that can be used for the wastewater systems. I mean, how are you really skilled? Oh, it's almost the end of our time we're running out. Any last words? Yes, I, you know, for our future to remain here on the island, our political leaders seriously needs to look at infrastructures and without having our infrastructures in with roadways, our sewer systems, you know, utilities, we're not gonna see any growth for our Kamayana to remain here on the island. It'll just be for the rich to be here, you know, and to utilize, you know, whatever we're providing them with roads and such, but our children is not gonna be able to stay here unless we start being aggressive and, you know, looking at solutions to what we have and what we face. And without having the solutions in place, you know, we're gonna see more and more of our children relocating off island, not be able to live on Kauai, you know, because of the frustrations of not be able to build because of all these loopholes that you can't build because of this, you know, and wastewater would be a top priority on everybody's list right now. And the landfill, nobody wants a landfill in the backyard. Yeah, so. And the word, what is that phrase, site unseen. Site unseen, I have a lot of site unseen, but anyway, but I think, you know, I think our political leaders need to, you know, put the game face on and this is, needs to be addressed, can't be passed on to the next couple of years. Okay, yeah, we're running out of time. Okay, thank you, thank you, Sheree. Okay. Look to our wonderful guests, Sheree Repozo. Mahalo to our viewers on Think Tech Kauai. If you like the Think Tech free media shows, please help support this nonprofit platform. Aloha, ahoiho, Malama Kono. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Kauai. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechkauai.com. Mahalo.