 Welcome to Inside Hawaii Real Estate, a community real estate talk show dedicated to providing up-to-date information used to Hawaii home buyers, sellers, and investors. I'm Will Tanaka with Bicolos, business partner, and wife, Leone Lab, a realtor with over 20 years of experience in leadership roles in the Hawaii real estate industry. Thanks, Will. Will is a full-time realtor with a background as a lawyer. He's also a law school professor and the former head of a Hawaii title and escrow company. Together as full-time realtors, we work as a team to bring you the latest in Hawaii real estate, and we have a very special guest today with us. He's born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii. He graduated in political science from University of Hawaii, and he has dedicated most of his career to public service. In fact, right now he serves as the director of communications for Hawaii County, also known as the Big Island, and he works directly with Mayor Mitch Roth. Welcome, Cyrus Jonathan. Hey, hello, everybody. Thanks for having me here today. Aloha, and welcome, Cyrus. You are the man. You're so packed about community and government, public relations, and I think a lot of us and your circle of friends would call you the ultimate community advocate to address the disparities between the underserved populations, affordable housing, and speaking of affordable housing, that is the really hot topic these days. I know you're in the midst of the legislative session. We really appreciate your time for being here, and you and Mayor Roth have been the biggest advocates for affordable housing, especially on the Big Island, where workers have to commute all the way from the east side, Hilo town, all the way to the west side like Waikaloa, Kailua Kona, and you know, to kind of kick it off, what's going on with affordable housing? You know, I mean, just to give you the 30,000 foot elevation overview, right, when we came into office December 7, 2020, there were 100 and 1,200 homes in our affordable housing pipeline, right, 1,200 homes. Those were homes that weren't built yet, but were slated to be built, that there were entitlements for so on and so forth. We were able to raise that up from 1,200 to 1,600 in just three short years. Not only have we raised it up considerably by working with, you know, our state partners by working with developers, by working with others who are committed to fighting housing for local people, but we're able to bring 300 to market in the first three years. This year alone, we'll be bringing an additional 500 homes to market. So essentially 800 of those 1,200 homes that were just thought or, you know, conceptions when we came into office have already either been built or being built as we speak. And those are homes that are going to be sold anywhere between 30% to 60% AMI. And for folks out there that don't know what that means, that's a family of four that make $74,000 collective in a household can now afford a place to live and not only live, to own. That is impressive. So 1,200 to nearly 7,000 affordable housing units. I mean, how does that even possible? I mean, in the three years, how do you make the impossible possible? I mean, you guys. You know, I think one thing that we really had to do was we had to prove to people we could do it. And what we did, we focused on our building permitting system. You know, when we came in, I think, if you were to turn in a single family residential home permit, just one, even if it was, you know, a prefabricated home or one of those, you know, it was like a stock sort of a layout or board design, it would take anywhere between 200 to 250 days with no corrections. Right. Essentially, that's just I'm turning in a perfect application. I still have to wait 200, 200 plus days. You know what that does for developers? It makes them weary because, you know, loans and funding and financing, all of those types of things rely on time. And so the longer that it takes them to even get the permit in, longer takes them to build the home, the less chance for them to keep some of that funding. The less chance it is for them to complete the project on time and on price point because of inflation and the rising cost of materials. All of these things play a role. So we focused on the building permitting process. We said, we're going to get this right. And we did, you know, we were able to lower that from 200 to 250 days with no corrections to an average of like 34 to 42 days at any given month. And I think when we were able to put that investment in, show them what we could do on our side, they were more willing to show us what they could do on their side. And so none of this, of course, would be possible without partnerships. Right. And we have great partners in this state. We have folks that, you know, build affordable housing as a passion. I mean, they could make way more money doing high end projects, especially in Honolulu, but no, they choose to build bigger scale, larger scale projects that are affordable to local people. And I just want to show it through, you know, a shout out to folks like Stanford car and others whose career have really, you know, even though they've amassed a certain amount of wealth, you know, doing it, they're really focused on the local person because that's where they come from. You know, a lot of these guys are giving back in their own way. And that's through development. Also, we have great state partners. You know, the governor has made housing a priority. So a big shout out to him, HHFDC and all of these other organizations, Keith Cotto here on the Big Island, that all, you know, have really dedicated their career and their service to focus on this issue. And so when we double down on our side, they double down on their side. And that's how you see the proliferation of these units go from 1200 to almost 7,000, like you said. You know, it's so positive to hear your perspective because your local boy born and raised, and then you can share that perspective with us in addition to the role and the voice that you have in local government. So it's just very refreshing to hear that and so positive. And I hear about the rising construction costs here in Oahu. Is it even worse on the Big Island? Or is it? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think our guys, especially our local folks Jason Fujimoto, HPM, you know, they try to keep costs out as much as they can for our local families. Again, you know, this is a local grown company. It's what Big Island is built on. And, you know, of course, we have bigger box exchange stores, Lowe's, Home Depot, whatnot, hot store lumber. But, you know, the price is the price and often it's supply and demand. A lot of times it's shipping, the cost of fuel dictates. A lot of times, you know, the market, as well as a lot of other factors that make it iffy. And so, yeah, I would say the longer, particularly here, the longer that we make somebody wait, the more money they're going to pay a guarantee. Even if it's just a week, even if it's just a month, that week, that month it adds up and can make at an extra $10,000 to $12,000 to a home. And that's not something that we want to do. You know, going back to what you said earlier about the permitting process, I mean, it's incredible to get it down to less than two months. And I did hear about a law that was passed that like any permit application has to be at least reviewed or approved, you know, within six months. So that is, that's a huge step forward for the Big Island. And I hope, you know, we could do the same for Oahu. Yeah, I know Mayor Blanchiarty is working hard on it. I know they're looking at AI and other forms of software to really help with some of the issues. They're also looking at some pay raises over there on Oahu as well. And I think, you know, the reality is that the government, especially local government, our colonies, our cities, you know, it's a great job and you can do a lot of really good stuff for the community from these roles. But they don't pay very well. And there's a lot of reasons for that we will get into for this segment. But if we can figure out how to pay people more, they'll put more time, more effort into their work and more things will get done because they'll feel their value for the service that they provide. And so looking at it from that baseline, frontline level, just from the intake process alone, showing that value to those folks is really important. And we here in Oahu, we do value them and we try to give them all the Oahu we can because that's sometimes the hardest job. Sitting at the top is very easy sometimes. But when you're in the weeds and you're in the dirt every single day and your hands are getting dirty, you've got to remind people that they matter. So yeah, I feel like you are one of those that, you know, rolls up your sleeves and just you're with the people. And do you think, you know, in terms of our viewers and people who maybe many of us have been to a big island? I know Leone would love to retire in Hilo, you know, where you were born and raised. But can you paint like a big picture overview in terms of what people have to deal with in terms of the actual commute that, you know, they're facing and, you know, what they're looking at on building more on the west side? Yeah, you know, I think over the last, you know, over the last probably 20, 30, maybe even plus years. What we've seen is a lot of the work's been on the west side, right? Development with the hotels, right? We've had, we started, I think Hilton was the first major resort out there in the Waikawa coastline, probably built back in the late 80s, early 90s. And now you see five, six, seven huge resorts, you know, I mean, even if you're talking about further up the coast, you know, Motakevich hotel, little hotel, all of those provided a serious amount of jobs, right? Because it's not just the construction of those jobs, which a lot of people on our side of the island in Hilo do. They work construction, they're laborers, they're bricklayers, they're cement misans. And so those provided huge jobs for us as a state in the amount of time. But not only did they provide the jobs for the construction, they provided for, you know, the groundskeepers, the housekeepers, the front desk staff, the sales staff, and all of the support services, the chef, a lot of them come from the east side, right? It's cheaper to live in Puna than it is to live in Waikawa. It's cheaper to live in Hilo, or it was cheaper to live in Hilo, I should say, than it was to live in Kona. And so you have all of these people who are ingrained in this service or in the service industry, hospitality industry that have been and continue to commute every single day back and forth, two hours one way, two hours the other way. That's four hours a day in a car if you're driving the speed limit, right? And that is time away from your family. It's time away from other chores, other responsibilities. And it's time away from doing things that bring you joy. Nobody wants to sit in the car all day. I mean, I love audiobooks, but I can only listen to so many before I want to see my wife, my dog, my kids, right? And those types of things we have to take into consideration. When we look at where do we develop next? Where do we need to make affordable? And what does affordable mean for those people that we want to live there? All right, goodness. It's so, so in terms of the affordable projects that, you know, because you mentioned that there's like now 69, 6900 coming online. Tell us about some of the ones that are coming up soon, like local heights. Yeah. So Colocal Heights is a great project. It's right in Irving for right in Colocal, right above Costco. For those of you who are familiar with that area, 99 units for residential and then one living sort of caretaker managed property manager sort of apartment. So essentially 100 homes, 30 to 60 percent AMI. And and those, you know, those homes are to afford to buy, but also you can rent in the short term, right? So you can either rent to old or you can, you can own outright. And if you choose to just rent, you know, those are rents that, like I said earlier for folks that are making like 74,000, maybe 45,000 per household. You know, those rents are like 500 to a thousand bucks. And for places like writing Colocal now with a view of the ocean and a vista and all that, you're not going to get that price. And so like that's what affordable housing is when its government subsidizing government run. It's not necessarily the development was a government run, but government supported because you get these great gems and these great locations and you keep those price points at such a level where you know it's going to a local family. You know, it's going to go to somebody who deserves it and needs it and wouldn't otherwise be able to afford that area. That is awesome. Yeah, because I think similar to here on Oahu and obviously across the state, there's going to be buyback restrictions, share the appreciation so that people who actually get in, they're not trying to capitalize on appreciation, but the intent is to get people to live in there. Not just rent, but to afford homes and live there for the longer. So yeah, you know, one of the things I talk about, and I'm sorry if I cut you off, but one of the things I talk about a lot with people, especially my friends and the mayor as well, is this idea and concept of generational housing, right? When you give somebody a home after that mortgage is paid off, you're there, they have the ability so long as they can pay the property taxes to live there forever. That means their generation, their kids generation and so on and so forth. And you know, even if the home depreciates in value, if the home, you know, falls apart, they still have the land. And to me, that's something that we really have to make sure that we look at because a lot of our local families, that's what happens, right? Maybe they go off, maybe they buy their old place, but a lot of times the inheritance of that land is really how we continue to build wealth, we can take out key lock loans on these properties. There's all these other opportunities that come when you talk about the equity, when you talk about what it means to have this asset of value in your portfolio, right? Now, all of those things are really, really important. And once we can do that, we can create generational wealth. So generational homes, create generational wealth, we break poverty and we create healthier, safer and happier communities. It must feel good to be, you know, part of this and sort of instrumental in being kind of out on the front lines, making sure that, you know, these things are moving forward and then also to be able to report that they are moving forward and everything. So it must feel really good. And I mean, when you're putting as, you know, legislation goes and all that. But for these affordable units, are there roadblocks? Are there what are what are the challenges that you folks or you've seen developer space seeing? Or I don't know if you want to get into that? Yeah, why not? You know, I mean, everybody out there, if you're watching, I'm speaking solely for myself and not the county employee today. But I think one of the things we really have to talk about is a true barrier to building houses, particularly on the West side, like I said, where most of the jobs are, most of the industry is still being created is water. And our Commission of Water Resource Management hasn't given back to hasn't hasn't given the rights to another water well in the urban for of Kona for quite some time. Our hydrologists at the at the county and our Department of Water Supply have said that the multiple studies, they stand by their work that we do have the amount of water necessary to drill another well and support thousands more homes on the Kona side in the aqua for a sustainable yield. And for those of you don't know what that means. Basically, it means that the well will continue to refill itself beyond what we would take with with a great barrier or a great cushion between it. So we wouldn't even be running it nearly to half capacity with how, you know, if we were to build drill that well. But for some reason, the State Department of Land and Natural Resources Commission of Water Resource Management hasn't allowed for decades now the approval to drill another well. And so without that water, we can't build houses because it doesn't rain enough out there. And so we have people within developers with entitlements. We have folks with properties. We have huge development projects and parks and other great resources that are ready to go shovel ready as a matter of fact that need the water entitlements. And that's the biggest barrier we've been trying to work through with the state. They have changed leadership recently. We're looking to work with that Commission, looking to talk about what might be feasible and reasonable to them. Maybe even if it's half the water entitlements to these to these properties and to these projects, we want to get it going. And if we do, it will immediately create at least 2000 bus homes on the West Side of Boy Island. Well, thanks for sharing that. And we'll look forward to movement there in that area. It sounds like there's potential progress. So I hope that things can clear up because that would, it sounds like it's just ready to happen. So yeah, absolutely. And we're going to, we're going to keep pushing so long as we're here in office and even after we're going to make sure we can make that push and we'll get them to come around, guaranteed. That's great. And to kind of tie in with affordable housing, there's been hot topics. All these various bills on short term vacation rentals, ADUs to address this housing problem. So let's start with the additional dwelling unit bills. I think that was passed last year. Yeah, so I know I told you folks that we passed it last year. We wrote it last year. It's gone through a phase of council. It's going to be coming in front of council one more time. I do believe it's going to pass. It was written in collaboration with the council chair and our planning director as well as the mayor's office. We do believe it's going to pass. And that's essentially going to give, you know, all of our residents the opportunity to build additional dwelling units on their properties. And what the hope is there is, but, but they have to be for either one long-term rental or two for family, right? And so that gives, you know, in some cases that will give kids the opportunity or young adults the opportunities maybe to create their family and get a start at their parents' property, but still in their own space, right? Giving them the dignity of feeling like they're out on their own, that they're doing something on their own. Because that's really important as well when we talk about, you know, sustainability and we talk about building an island where people can thrive. Thriving is about feeling like you're thriving. And for us, we want to make sure that that dignity is there. Another thing that it'll do is hopefully create more units for the housing market, right? For the rental unit and for the rental market. I think places like Oregon and other larger cities have done this, I believe, all the way, something like it. And so we are hoping that the more people build these units, the more these units are filled. And then the more these units are filled, the less of a stream we have on the rental market. Yeah, that was the only way that I could afford to buy my house, my first house back in like the early 2000s. Because with the additional unit that we could rent out, then we utilized that rent to help us pay the mortgage, right? Which is a super scary thing when you're in your younger years and you know, and everything to get into buying a house. And so it really brought comfort to be able to have that additional income to supplement so that we could pay our own mortgage. Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, getting into the STVR thing. I, because I do want to answer that question. This morning I asked my planning department for some numbers, right? And so I'm not going to get like into the nitty gritty, but right now we have about 4,000 registered mortgage STVRs on the island. Granted, there could be more. There could be, you know, I don't know how many more. We're not going to get into that specific portion, but there are about 4,000 registered. Of those non-registered, of those registered, about 900 or so are non-conforming use, meaning that they got a special permit to operate. So we are looking at the potential phasing out the non-conforming use permitted STVRs if the market continues to be strained like it is. And that's a difficult decision because, you know, we could, you know, we could say that, oh, everybody outside has, you know, everybody who owns a rent, vacation rental is not from you or they're making millions of dollars or whatever. And that's simply not the case. You know, some people, they fill their vacation rental, I don't know, 12, 15, 16 times a year and barely make ends meet. But it is a little bit of extra income for a local family who happens to own some extra property, right? That could be the difference between a Disneyland trip for the grandkids or or even a medical bill or something like that. Right. And so the STVR situation, it is sticky. It's something that, you know, it's hard to explain to somebody who's struggling and somebody who is benefiting from it. You know, those two polar opposite perspectives on what's actually happening is difficult to communicate across the board. But what I can say is that, you know, if we do phase them out and nothing changes, then we have a bigger problem than just STVRs. Yeah. And then in terms of, is there a bill that's going to, that's trying to increase the short term rental period from 30 to 180 days? Yeah. So we have an STVR bill that's going up in front of our council. It was drafted again, kind of between the council chair and the planning department. There are, you know, there's elements from both sides in there. But there is some language in the current draft of the legislation that talks about a short term being anything less than 180 days. Right now, the current law is 30. And I think that's a little bit extreme, especially like I said, we don't really know what kind of inventory we're going to free up. And I think if we were to just go out with that strict and that strong of language, it could throw things off for a lot of people. We don't, you know, the one thing I don't want to do, and again, speaking for myself and not for the mayor or anybody else, is rock the market too much, you know, everybody, you've heard the saying, you know, rock the boat, don't sink the ship. And I think that the easier we go into things, the less abrasive we are, the better we can study and understand the true results of our work versus going in too heavy handed and creating a new problem that we didn't foresee coming in. So that's my reservation there. But I would hope that that'll get settled in council. And I'm sure the mayor's office will be submitting testimony on these these bills. Yeah, that's a great perspective on Oahu. No, it's still 30 days, about a year and a half ago, our mayor passed the bill to increase to 90 days. There was a preliminary injunction earlier this year, the federal court ruled that that it's still about a 30 day, you know, it should still be a 30 day short term vacation period. So I know Oahu is now 30 days, but, you know, we'll see how it goes. The short term vacation mentors and then there's a there's always a fine balance. And I really like how you kind of balance that out, you know, from a perspective standpoint. I'm sure some people don't like how I balance it out. But that's my perspective and reasoning, which is why I say I'm not working for the colony today, just working for the people. But, you know, I want to get into something you said earlier, because you're giving me this really nice introduction. And you said, oh, you know, there's friends and people will call about a community advocate or this and that. And, you know, as much as that is, the way that I look at it in this community is I'm paying a debt, right? I'm paying a debt back to all of the folks that were able to raise me, the folks that were able to provide nourishment when I was malnourished. And those, you know, whether that be physically or actually metaphorically, a lot of times more metaphorically than physically if you look at me. But I think the bottom line is simple, is that we all can take care of each other over here. And I think raising the points of how our house, our extra houses, our extra properties can value and benefit our neighbors is a lot more important and more potent than legislation can be. Because when you explain to somebody here on Hawaii Island how they can care for the person next to them, whether they know them or not, they're going to do it more often than not. And we have to rely a lot more, I think, on the goodwill and good nature of people, especially here on Hawaii Island where Aloha is still strong. Because, you know, it may seem naive to say, but, you know, we can legislate ourselves into more problems, but we can't allow ourselves into more problems. And so that's kind of my message when it comes to STBRs, when it comes to the affordable housing market, when it comes to a lot of the stuff where we're trying to figure out ways to put handcuffs on people. They just want to hug. That's so awesome. And, you guys, we're coming to a close. Well, what is your vision for the Big Island? You know, I think my vision for the Big Island is that it continues to hold this special and unique spirit, like I said, of compassion, of care, but where people find equity. And, you know, when I say that, I mean, when everybody gets at least one small kind of equal chance, you know, I want, if I, if I was to leave office, if I was to leave this opportunity in public service and I walked around and I saw kids, you know, and kill a car that, that are, you know, or in, or in Pahala or in Kohala or somewhere out in Ookala. And I tell them about, you know, and I give them an idea, a dream, a vision, and I say, yeah, you know, you can be on doctor one day. And that kid looks at me and said, uncle, get chance that I know that I did my part in public service, because if they get one, get chance attitude. That means that we've shifted a barrier. We've broken through a ceiling of broken through a wall and we're going to create opportunities for these kids that's going to extend far beyond our lifetime and they'll solve the problems that we don't. Chicken skin. Oh, that was, that was deep. You know, I'm so appreciated and grateful for to Lailan Bento, our mutual good friend for introducing us and connecting us because you're so powerful in so many ways, not just, you know, but the real estate affordable housing, but just your vision for your big island, you know, as a local boy, it's like, wow, just the last part was just hit me really hard. So thank you so much, Cyrus. You're so awesome. Thank you for your defense. Thank you, Cyrus. I appreciate you both very, very much. And I look forward to doing this again one day. Wonderful. Aloha. Aloha. Let's take care. If you liked this show, why don't you give us a like or subscribe to our channel? Thanks so much.