Great strides taken for Hawaiian homes

THE ISSUE State official have broken ground on a project for construction of homes for Hawaiians in Kapolei.

LAND transfers made two years ago are leading to the most significant step in enabling home ownership to Hawaiians under a program that began eight decades ago. Ground was broken this week on a project that will provide 403 single- family homes with infrastructure that will support a new University of Hawaii campus in Kapolei. This progress is one of the most impressive achievements of the Lingle administration.

The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands will spend more than $50 million on water, sewer, electrical and other infrastructure within the 97-acre residential parcel along with off-site reservoir and access to a street that will connect to the H-1 freeway. The department itself will move its offices there from downtown.

More than 200,000 acres were intended by Congress for homesteading under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, but most of it was remote and uninhabitable. Increased funding for the department in the past decade and land transfers in the past two years to acquire livable property have corrected that injustice.

Development of a 326-lot, 53-acre residential Kapolei subdivision called Kaupea, or Village 8, was launched two years ago, and the second of three phases was initiated in January. The first of the 76 homes in phase one are expected to be completed this fall.

The university's regents approved a plan last month to finish the first phase of its West Oahu campus in 2009 and complete full development by 2015, serving 7,600 students. That development will include more than 4,000 homes and 760 units for student housing.

The waiting list for residential applicants for leasehold home ownership has grown over the decades to 12,000. Lingle and Micah Kane, chairman and director of Hawaiian Home Lands, can take pride in forging a design for more than 3,500 homes for Hawaiians during the next three to five years.