During his fifth State of the City address Tuesday night, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi's focus was on the future and what the city is doing to address some of its major challenges.
"While I'm proud to say we've created considerable success together over the past four years, my focus tonight is on the road ahead — and specifically on what you can expect from our team over the next four years as we continue to improve the operations of the city, as well as the quality of our lives," said Blangiardi, who took office in 2021.
Housing and public safety were two topics the mayor tackled in his remarks, which were delivered before a crowd that included city, state and community leaders and lawmakers Tuesday, March 18, at Mission Memorial Auditorium.
Here are some of the highlights from his speech:
— Blangiardi spoke at length about housing and homelessness on O‘ahu and said that to solve the island's outmigration issue, the city must solve its housing issue.
He noted that a resolution to merge the cityʻs real estate and housing experts "into a single, unified operation" called the Department of Housing and Land Management has formally been introduced to the Honolulu City Council.
Kevin Auger, the executive director of the city's Office of Housing, has been asked to serve as the director of the new department, with Cat Taschner, the current director of the city's Department of Land Management, tapped to serve as deputy director, the mayor said, "placing our focus on the development of housing and transit-oriented communities."
Their teams have already been working together for much of the past year, "completely rethinking our housing strategy," Blangiardi said, adding that their new housing plan has two key components.
The first, he said, is creation of a development division within the new department that can spearhead efforts with development partners to "aggressively create new housing units on city lands." Blangiardi said at least 10 under-utilized city-owned properties that "have the potential to add nearly 2,000 units to the housing market on O‘ahu" have already been identified.
But to "fully unlock that potential," the mayor said the second component of that reorganization is the creation of a finance division that can "engineer new ways to address the cost of development."
"The bottom line is that we cannot build new housing units if we cannot make these projects pencil out," Blangiardi said. "We are determined to introduce creative financing options that can be implemented on city developments, using city properties, with city infrastructure, for the good of this cityʻs residents, before the end of our administration."
— Blangiardi said, too, that when it comes to its housing shortage, thereʻs "no bigger catalyst for change," and no bigger impact the city can make than to focus on transit-oriented development.
In Honolulu, TOD is a "compact, mixed-use development" located within a five- to 10-minute walk of a rail station," the cityʻs website notes.
The mayor said the cityʻs Skyline rail system — the first segment of which began running between Aloha Stadium and East Kapolei in June 2023 — provides the city "with an unprecedented opportunity to create high-density, mixed-use communities, where people will choose to live along the rail line."
That segued into an announcement that the second segment of the Skyline rail system is set to begin passenger operations on Oct. 1. You can read more about that here.
"Construction on the third and final rail segment through Downtown Honolulu and into Kaka‘ako will start this year, with the entire system slated to open in 2031," Blangiardi said. "So our job now is to ensure that the housing developments, the new businesses and the new public spaces we have planned for communities along the rail line keep up with, if not beat, the pace of rail construction."
— That includes the city's vision to redevelop the Iwilei Center into a mixed-use community with at least 2,000 new housing units.
In December 2023, the city acquired the former First Hawaiian Bank building at 445 N. King St. for $8.4 million and in January 2024 it acquired the Iwilei Center for $51.5 million.
The city's recently unveiled three-year strategic housing plan says these acquisitions, which total nearly five acres of land, "will form the catalyst of its redevelopment and revitalization efforts around the Kūwili Rail Station in Iwilei, consistent with the Downtown TOD Neighborhood Plan."
Earlier this month, the city's Department of Land Management, in partnership with the mayor's Office of Housing, issued a request for qualifications for the redevelopment of the Iwilei Center.
"Simply put, we are making good on our promise to build an equitable community where all residents, regardless of income, have the same opportunities to live, work, shop, learn and play as everyone else," Blangiardi said.
With $100 million in funding for mixed-use development included in this year's proposed budget, the mayor says the city has "set the stage to break ground on this transformative project by 2028."
— Earlier this year, the city began working with the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization to review "anything developers might call 'red tape,'" so that the city has the chance to address any opportunities to reduce the burden of regulations, the mayor said.
"Knowing that 'time is money,' and in real estate, development is big money, we believe every decision we make about housing regulations — including whether or not theyʻre even necessary — should be data-driven," he said. "As a facilitator, the sooner we address the systemic issues hindering development, the bigger impact we can make."
— Among the efforts to address homelessness, Blangiardi spoke of the Crisis, Outreach, Response and Engagement team, known as CORE, which is a team the mayor says was designed to help reduce the thousands of 911 calls made each year involving homelessness — calls that tax emergency medical services, the police department and local emergency rooms.
"This mobile crisis team is growing, and we will establish a second base of operations in Waipahu later this year to better serve our homeless population on the west side and in Central O‘ahu."
— Public safety was another key talking point in Blangiardi's address.
He said that the decision to stand up Ocean Safety as an independent department last summer "has breathed new life into the day-to-day working lives of our incredible lifeguards."
Later this year, on land overlooking Kailua Bay, the mayor said the city will finish construction on the first new facility built specifically for Ocean Safety in its 107-year history.
And in addition to the new Windward Operations Center, Blangiardi says the city expects to spend millions over the next four years on the planning, design and construction of improvements to existing Ocean Safety facilities — and the construction of new ones.
This is when Blangiardi made another notable announcement:
"After countless conversations with community members, public safety officials and [Honolulu City Council] Vice Chair Matt Weyer, we are announcing tonight our intent to purchase a highly-coveted piece of land across the street from Shark's Cove for the creation of a world-class first responder hub," he said. "These plans are subject to a negotiated sale price with the current landowner, but this facility will be transformative for our North Shore communities."
According to Blangiardi, the proposed facility will serve as the base of operations for North Shore lifeguards and will have a new ambulance station, which he says will "dramatically reduce emergency response times."
— Blangiardi said reorganization made "great sense for Ocean Safety, and it's time to find out if it makes sense for EMS."
"Our administration has already begun to establish a task force to determine whether the Honolulu Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services, which operates our ambulance units, would be better off as a single, integrated department," he said. "Fire-based EMS programs can be found all over the country, and with the number of 911 calls for emergency treatment on O‘ahu skyrocketing, we need to find out whether a consolidation of fire and EMS can improve response times."
The mayor says it's equally important, though, to study the impact that would have on the morale of first responders.
Blangiardi's speech covered a range of other topics, as well. His full address can be read here.
Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
