 Think Tech Away, civil engagement lives here. Aloha. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. We need more affordable housing opportunities for local hardworking families. Our topic for this segment, the impact of zoning on housing affordability. Kimberly Marcos Pine never imagined that she would be an elected official, seeing her community neglected by government leaders in the areas of traffic relief, school funding, and crime motivate her to run for office to ensure that the leeward coast would no longer be left behind. Sent her election to the Hawaii House of Representatives in 2004 and now as a member of the Honolulu City Council, her district has received over a billion in funding for new roads, schools, parks, beaches, and various community improvement projects. Tougher crime laws were all so passed. Meet our special VIP guest, Kimberly Marcos Pine, Vice Chair Honolulu City Council. Welcome to Sister Power. Wow, what an introduction. I love this Sister Power show. Oh, me too. Yay! Well, it's a Sister Power who's sitting in the Sister Power seat. We're so happy to have you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you for coming. And for our Sister Power viewers, just tell us, for instance today, it's Thursday, what are your responsibilities as soon as you walk into the office on Monday? What are your responsibilities about zoning and housing affordability? Well, of course, my first responsibility is making sure that my dogs are fed in the morning. The stray cats that I adopted outside are fed in my fish, and most importantly, that my baby girl feels loved, is fed, and gets to school on time. And then from being a mama, then I kind of become the mama of my district and now the entire city to make sure that families can afford to live here in Hawaii. My number one mission in being in politics is to ensure that I can improve your quality of life so you can stay here. A large part of my family lives in Vegas because that's where they can live and afford and be happy. And my dream is to make sure that my daughter's generation doesn't suffer like that ever again. So everything that I do, from every meeting that I do and from morning to the end of the day, is about how do I make people's lives better. I love that. I just had that conversation with a young man and he said, I'm still living at home with my mom and I want to move out on my own. So you're the perfect person to have here this week to talk about affordable housing. It is so needed here in Hawaii. How do you solve affordable housing in parts but focus on the whole? Well, there's several things going on. First, within our own system within the city, we have a very outdated and problematic functioning of our Department of Planning and Permitting. So for example, in a week's time, we're going to finalize a bill to speed up building of single family homes. There are people, for example, a family in Waipahu that just wanted a slightly bigger house for their multi-generational family, but they've waited a year now for that permit. But they still own the house that they live in and that empty lot in Waipahu. And the dad said, you know, Kim, this process is so long that I either have to go bankrupt, sell this property or get another job. It shouldn't be like this. So we're looking at the systems within the Department of Planning and Permitting that has plagued the department for years. We have great staff, but a lot of things have happened over time that has made it very hard to build an affordable house. In the private sector. And second, what we're doing, what we passed, we passed historic legislation where every developer that builds units of 10 or more now must build affordable homes for the people of Hawaii within their development or just outside somewhere, partner with a nonprofit. And so now that is the law that if you're going to build in Hawaii, you're going to help others as well. But we have to do our part to help make sure that it's financially beneficial for you to do that. No one's going to build if they lose money. So we also gave them additional densities and incentives that would speed up the process as well as financial incentives that they build affordable housing. OK, well, so let's just back up a little and break it down to our viewers about zoning and housing affordability. So there's different needs right now. And half of the need for affordable housing is for a family for that makes a combination of $80,000 a year. Half of the units that we need, we need 24,000 units of affordable housing. OK, so that's something that includes the lowest levels of two people that work in McDonald's, any of the house. And so it has it ranges up to 80 percent and mine below the $80,000 family of four. So government is helping for people who make 80 percent and 60 percent and below or $60,000 a year in terms of family of four. But what we're doing is for the family of four that makes the 100 to $120,000 a year, we're asking the private sector to help government a little bit. And so that should be the working class. And then market rate, which is the family of four making $140,000 or more. And those are the people that can afford something, but we need to get some more supply in the middle class area. So it's a little complicated, number wise. I hope I simplified that just a little bit. That is complicated, but, you know, won't it sink in? What I love about sister power shows people, they rewind it and listen to the parts that they don't quite get. So it's all good. What gives you hope in our democratic system? I would have to say, seeing my own experience in government gives me hope. You see, I've always ran against the machine. I remember my first election running against an incumbent. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I just had a heart for my community and I knew things were wrong. And I went door to door and I talked to people about we can stand up and bring change. We don't have to put up with all of these crime issues, these traffic issues, our schools falling apart, our parks falling apart. We're the bosses here. And I wasn't supposed to win. In my first election, we won by a landslide and the $100 million road that we campaign and fought for that was taken out of the state budget for 20 years. We got in our first year and it wasn't because of anything I did. I told my community if they want that road, they've got to come to the state capitol and fight for it. And people of all walks of life who never gotten government before, they came to the capitol and they backed me up and they fought for this road. They said, okay, who's the chair of the finance communities? Okay, which auntie has a nephew or who knows or is related to this finance chair? And they on their own had relatives. And I think the finance chair's own mother was called. It was friends with another lady from the Ewa Beach area. And if people can understand that they can take care over their government, just district by district, that gives me hope. But they have to know that it can be done. Can't be done. Is that one of your favorite accomplishments? So just maybe one of them or you want to share, like the one with us? Well, we weren't getting enough money for our schools either. And we were able to in that, while I was in the legislature, we were in the top 10 of capital improvement projects out of 51 legislators every year that I've been in office. And it's just really about people backing up your elected politician. People think, oh, I'm going to go vote and I'm done. No, you back that person up and you show up when they need you that one person alone can't do this. And that is something that can imagine if there's 51 house districts, if one person in every district gets inspired and inspires 20 people to inspire 20 people, that can start a whole revolution. So when people don't want to vote, they don't want to get involved, I just said, look at me. I was a nobody. I was just someone that had a passion and a spirit to fight for my community. And we won. And you can do it too. You can do it. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. I love that. Well, Kimberly, why do you think it's important for women to be on our city council? Well, we had something historic happen this year. OK, tell us about it. Another mama close to my age ran for city council against what I call the machine. And when I say the machine, they're not necessarily bad people. We have all good people. But it's people that have been in power that choose the leaders who lead us. And she was a young mom that was tired of seeing people that she loved, like me, moved to the mainland. And he says, I'm going to put my hat in the ring. Her name is Heidi Sunyoshi. Tell me her name. Heidi Sunyoshi. She won in the primary outright. So for the first time in the history in a very powerful city government in Honolulu, we have four women in the city and county of Honolulu City Council. That's never happened before. So women, young women like my daughter, who's three and a half, they need to see women of all different races and backgrounds and ages in areas not necessarily of power but of influence. So that they can know that they can do whatever they want to do. I never had anyone be my mentor. But I was such a tomboy that I saw men and I saw me as being able to do the same thing that's what my mom just raised me is not seeing gender as being a problem. And I guess because she knew her struggle. Sure. And so it's important that we step forward no matter how hard it is, because it is hard. It's hard. Well, this is a long detail question, but one I think should be asked. Some advocates have conflated affordable and workforce housing. That is combining homelessness, low income and middle class needs together. Does such an approach sufficiently address the complexities of the debate? Or are cities more successful when they address these issues separately? That's a tough question. Yeah, that's a tough one. Because in all those categories from homelessness, low income, to middle class, working class, that's the 24,000 units that we need, with half of them being in the lower level. You have to see the whole picture, because when I look at zoning and housing, if I just help homeless and if I just help the low income, we still have half the people from the middle class to the working class that are not being taken care of. So for example, in Al Moana, when I was doing different high rises, I saw what happened in Kaka'aka where it was just all luxury. Yes. And so I said, this is not the Hawaii that's for local people. This is for some other people coming in and having a part-time residence. You'll see some of the towers at night that are built, there's like maybe eight lights on, right? Everyone else is in another country or somewhere else. And so I said, okay, Al Moana, we're going to do different. So in one building, we have 60 units, all for senior citizens at the lowest income rate. Okay? So even people that were homeless senior citizens, they can go in there as well, because there's benefits that can go with that. Another building, I said, okay, we're going to have our millennials affordable housing. So those new workers that just got out of college, we're going to give you units in this building. And then just down the street, we're going to say, okay, people who want to purchase, okay? Because the other two were rentals. Okay. People who want to purchase at the middle income affordable rate, we're going to have a building that you can get into. So that's how I looked at it. So when I'm looking at the zoning in different areas and say, how do we mix this place up? So we don't just have one type of people in a neighborhood. You've got to integrate kids especially so they can see different types of lifestyles. The lower income residents can aspire to have a college degree when they grow up and get a better job than their parents did. And so this is really something you almost have to look at everything all at the same time. It's a lot more complicated to do, but you can't forget each different category because what's happening and what's happening with all this, the homelessness, especially in my district, so the prices in town went up so the people that used to go to town are now living in IAEA. That prices there went up so then they moved to Ewa Kapolei. The prices there went up, went to Wynine. And so if you don't take care of everyone, the middle class is going to take the lower income homes. We'll hold that thought and we're going to take a small break and take care of that cough with a little water for you. Don't touch that dial. We'll be right back. Thank you. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner, inviting you to come visit with us on Cannabis Chronicles, a 10,000-year artist where we explore and examine the plant that the muse has given us and stay with us as we explore all the facets of this planet on Wednesdays at noon. Please join us. Aloha. 皆さんこんにちは。 Big Tech Hawaiiが日本語でお届けするこんにちはハワイの日本語放送のコスト 国主へゆかりです。 各州月曜日の2時からお届けしています。 日本語コミュニティー、ハワイの日本語コミュニティーに便利なお助け情報、ニュースなどをゲストを招きしてお届けする番組です。 こんにちはハワイ。 各州の月曜日2時からぜひ皆さん見てください。 コストの国主へゆかりでした。 Aloha. アロハ。 Welcome back to Sister Power and the title of our episode for today is the impact of zoning on housing affordability. And we have our very special guest, Kimberly Marcos Pine, who's the vice chair of the Honolulu Council. And we've been talking about some very important issues on zoning and affordability. And my question to you, Kimberly, is affordable housing hard to build? It's very difficult to build in Hawaii because your material costs are higher because you're shipping it in. The land costs are higher because there's so little land. And we also have higher labor costs. And so how we've tried to do it is government will do, of course, for the lowest of income. And we have the private sector now helping the middle class and some of the lower income residents. Wow. Yeah. You know, bringing things from across the water, I guess, adds on the costs for everything. Explain inclusionary zoning for affordable housing. Well inclusionary zoning is very similar to what I described and what we had passed earlier. It's not very popular with the development community because, and rightfully so, they say, well, you're making us do these affordable homes. So just making the prices of the other houses and other units higher. And so what we did was we tried to find a middle ground where for every, whenever they do a units of 10 or more, they have to build a certain percentage of affordable housing. But how we made it better than what other cities did, we said, okay, we're going to speed up your permitting process. We are going to fast track some approvals that are normally required. We're going to give you more density so that you can build more units, go make your profit, but still build the units that we can't afford to build alone. What so do you want inclusionary units to be set aside in all new market rate developments or just those of a particular size? Well, actually, we gave people options. It's really the square footage. If they want to do a studio instead of a two bedroom unit, if they feel that the market for their particular product is better for studios, we don't care. It's really the square footage that we want you to provide that equals the amount that by law you have to build. By law? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, tell us about the two, I don't know if they're two new projects. The Nohana, Holly, and Kulana, Holly Housing. Tell us about those affordable housing projects. Those projects are for the lowest level income residents on our island. Some of them will be just homeless straight off the street. But we have some subsidies from the federal government, the city government, the state government that we will provide to help them to have that home. But also, you don't just get a free ride, you have to have your own income too and make an effort if you're able. If you're mentally ill or have health issues, of course, we always want to help those citizens and those people, many of them have access to social security that they had paid up their whole life and just at the end of their life, they've had some issues. So units can go as low as $500 a month. Wow. Now, in the unit, what comes with the unit? Is it a one bedroom, two bedroom, wash and dryer, or do you go downstairs to do your laundry? The laundry rooms will be in a separate area and that's how we're able to afford. In some of these areas, we're combining vying of construction material with other large for-profit companies so that it's more affordable to build. There's studios, there's one bedroom, and in a couple of units, there's just three bedroom homes. And actually, it's more like an apartment. It's not like a single family home. And there's also going to be park areas so that the kids can play and we're going to have access to a lot of things for the kids so that they make sure that they have good after-school programs. But that's good. Have you done an assessment of the housing need across income levels in our community to know how many new units are needed and what level of affordability? Yes. And so there's the 24,000 units that we need just for Oahu. We're not even talking about the Big Island or Maui or any of that. We need 24,000 units in all different affordable categories. For the lowest of income, we need 12,000 units. And sadly, in Alamoana alone, I've really only just did a couple thousand units, but that's a lot more than we used to do. It used to be just 500 total houses a month. And that includes everybody, even the higher income ones. So we've made a lot of strides in this last year that we've been a chair of his owning and housing. And so we really think that our effort combined with the state's effort is really going to help pick up the pace for all these affordable housing units to be built. Well, that's good to know because you are having an event November the 15th, and we have just a snippet of it. And I think that this is a good time if people have additional questions and they can come and meet and speak with you. Tell me about this event on November, is that the... The 13th? Yeah, November 13th. They can come and talk to me at Jay Dynasty restaurant. You know, it is kind of a high end fundraiser, but I want to let you guys know the hint about these fundraisers. It suggests the donation. Oh. You can still come and all my fundraisers, I don't require people to pay. It's like if you can help out, great, but it really is a time for us to celebrate the successes of the four women that are going to be on the council starting in January. And so it's a week after election and we're just going to be kind of you there, answer your questions, and we're just so happy to see you there. Oh, I definitely want to attend that. It's an evening. It's an evening. And what time? It's from five to seven. Five to seven. So right after work, you can just stop right by Dynasty and meet and greet and chat with you and give you some ideas and we can learn from each other. Yes. I would love to have that. And I'm very excited. I know a lot of women in Hawaii felt very sad that some of the top female candidates didn't win. Yes. But the Honolulu City Council is kind of the sleeper that no one knew about. All these women were fighting in their own areas and not winning because they're women. They're winning because they were smart, they were hardworking, and they love the people that they represent. And that is how they got elected, and they're going to bring a different type of leadership to the city council. Well, I'm excited. Are there other factors I'm not taking into consideration that I should be on this issue? Is there something that I'm not asking that you would like the public to know about that is close to your heart, that's a passionate issue that you want to let the sister power view of this know about? Well, in terms of affordable housing, I want to let them know that we are making a lot of gains. And to not lose hope that you're not going to be able to stay in Hawaii, we're doing a lot of stuff to make sure that you stay here, and we're not there yet, but we're heading in the right direction in terms of women leaders. I just want to encourage everyone to take that chance to know that you're the best person to run, not this other person, and you don't have to have any experience whatsoever. You just have to be strong in what you believe in, love the people that you want to represent, and just go for it. You don't have to have all of these lobbyists backing you and these big money people, because I didn't have that in my first race. Who was your role model? I didn't have one. She didn't have one? I didn't have one. I just had to make my own because there weren't any real women leaders when I was growing up. You know, I had Oprah Winfrey, and I was supposed to be a talk show host like you, and I majored in journalism and English at UC Berkeley, and I was supposed to be on TV, but I saw what was happening in my commute, and I said, you know what, I can't live another day and if I do something, and I can't get someone else to run, so I'm going to do it myself. I wasn't supposed to win, but we surprisingly won because the people helped us to get there. Tell us your districts. My district right now in the Honolulu City Council is from Ewa Beach, Kapolei, Kaila Loa, Makakilo, all the way to Waianae and Makaha. Beautiful areas. And Koalina. And Koalina, one of my favorite places. How might and can cities in the position of Honolulu create policies that address scarcity in affordable housing? Well, I think what we've been doing is making sure that we build more in the urban core where all of our transportation systems are at. And what we're doing now, too, is we are looking at ag land for our ag workers. That's something that I forgot to mention early on, not to build these luxurious homes like those fake farms, but this is actually for agricultural workers. And so what cities have done is they've done the inclusionary zoning where they failed was not giving the incentives to developers to actually build. So a lot of development stopped all across. And even on Honolulu, when our inclusionary zoning was not incentivizing the developers to build. So they would just sit on land. And so we're doing a lot of things incentivize people to build more housing. This has been so informative, Vice Chair Kimberly Marcos-Pine. And we're coming to a close. Oh, I was so fast. I was so fast. We just have to come back and talk in November the 13th. We can chat with you more. And thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and educate us about zoning and housing affordability. Finally, Sister Power is coming to a close now. And I wanted to chat about very briefly that we only have five days before we are to vote. And that is just something that I want everyone to get out, get your children out. If you need to carpool or whatever it takes, if you get out there and vote on November 6th, we can change the world. Yes, we can. We can. And so again, thank you for spending part of your day with Sister Power Aloha.