---

Kalihi homes update
was indeed wrong

State Sen. Donna Mercado Kim says she was surprised when she read the Nov. 21 Kokua Line, in which a state housing spokesman said renovation work on 63 units at Kalihi Valley Homes was continuing.

Kim, who was at the groundbreaking for the project in 2002, said she had been told just a week before that work had stopped in January because of design problems, and that she had been trying unsuccessfully to get information.

She said she was not aware that the project had stalled until someone called her recently.

"I have requested documentation based on what was told to me by the project engineer about the faulty design problems that they're having," she said. "I've asked for all the information, and have asked for a hearing to get to the bottom of this. I want to know why it's on hold, what's the cost and who's paying for it...."

In the Nov. 21 column, a reader noted the rundown landscaping and apparent lack of construction work at the public housing project. Derick Dahilig, spokesman for the Department of Human Services' Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawaii, acknowledged a lack of maintenance outside, but said work was taking place inside the units.

Asked Monday about the discrepancy in what he had told Kokua Line and what Kim said, he said, "I was under the impression that we were doing site work."

But that was wrong.

"It wasn't physical work going on, it was basically 'change orders,' calculating costs. ... Sen. Kim was correct; there was no actual physical work being done on the site," Dahilig said.

The current renovation -- Phase II of a proposed eight-phase project -- is over budget by $350,000 because of change orders, he said. The initial cost was placed at $10.9 million.

Dahilig said 95 percent of Phase II is complete, "but we still need to work on the remaining 5 percent of the units, inside the units."

He also said "some design snags as related to the parking and drainage" need to be resolved. Housing officials are continuing to "calculate the additional costs," he said.

Meanwhile, he said, "we just got word" that the landscaping was going to be worked on this week.

Although six remaining phases involving 193 units have been penciled in, Dahilig said it was premature to talk about them because everything depends on the state obtaining federal funding.

April is still the projected completion date, Dahilig said, but he could not give a restart date.

Meanwhile, Kim said housing officials wouldn't give her an estimated completion date, mentioning possible litigation.

She said she was told problems involved "sewer lines not properly done, grading not properly done, retaining walls not properly done ... a lot of stuff not properly done, just to name a few."

She said she also was told the state might "have to redesign the whole project."

|

---

---