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Kalihi Valley Sister Rose Anthony Tanio is elated that renovations of Kalihi Valley Homes are finally beginning today after four years of planning.
Homes modernization
job begins
Work at the public housing
project will update 5 buildings
and cost $6.5 millionBy Treena Shapiro
Star-BulletinNo modernization has been done on the public housing project on Kamehameha IV Road since it opened in 1953, and for years the tenants have been plagued by cockroaches, rats, leaky pipes and cracked sidewalks and roadways.
The renovation plan calls for gutting 34 of the 45 existing buildings and installing new bathrooms, kitchens, sliding glass doors, solar water heaters and garbage disposals. The remaining 11 buildings will be demolished to make way for playgrounds and larger parking areas.
The existing community center and administration buildings will be replaced by a new, shared building. The roads and sidewalks will be repaved and the sewer lines replaced.
Because the plan means the loss of 99 of the project's 400 apartments, it has been criticized by advocates for the homeless. But Tanio, who has lived in the project for 16 years, said the residents had asked for more open space, and they expect that the problem of reduced housing will be solved by not filling vacant apartments when tenants move out.
"What we want is a safe place for the kids," she said. But Tanio said she is also a little disappointed, because the $40 million project is expected to take more than 10 years to complete. Her apartment will be one of the last to be renovated.
For now the state has only $6.5 million in federal funding to renovate five of the buildings, which is likely to take a year. "As we get money, we'll do the rest," said Eric Sakanashi, project manager for the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawaii. "We're hoping to probably average four to five buildings a year."
An added benefit is that 30 percent of the construction workers and security guards hired will be Kalihi Valley Housing tenants. "The plan is that all of them will have nice new homes," Sakanashi said.
"This is the first time we're doing a full-blown modernization project, not one of those 'Repair this part here, clean that part there.' It's a total modernization."
In addition to improving the infrastructure and the buildings' interiors, the state plans to break up the "barrack-looking rows of homes" by replacing the flat roof line with sloped roofs and painting the buildings different colors, Sakanashi said.
The apartments will also be given small front yards.
"I think it will be a significant improvement to what we have now," he said.