A newly established department within the City and County of Honolulu aims to "centralize and accelerate" city-led housing initiatives.
The creation of the Department of Housing and Land Management — which the city says "consolidates key housing and land functions" from the Department of Land Management, the Mayor's Office of Housing, Department of Planning and Permitting and the Department of Community Services — was given the green light this week by the Honolulu City County.
The department is led by Director designate Kevin Auger, who served as the executive director of the Office of Housing, with Catherine Taschner, director designate of the Department of Land Management, serving as deputy director.
According to the city, DHLM will serve as the central hub for coordinating land use, development and housing delivery.
The department will have six core divisions, the city says:
— Housing Development Division, which will lead the development of affordable and mixed-use housing projects with a focus on city-owned land and public-private partnerships, especially in transit-oriented areas.
— Housing Finance, which will administer city housing funds, supports project financing, manages incentives and partners with finance agencies to expand funding.
— Housing Policy, which will lead interagency coordination on housing policy and related legislative efforts.
— Housing Property and Asset Management, which will manage the city's residential real estate portfolio.
— Land Transactions, which will oversee the negotiation and execution of real estate transactions affecting city-owned land.
— Conservation, which will manage the Clean Water and Natural Lands program and advisory commission, and acquire and steward lands for conservation.
Auger told Aloha State Daily on Friday that Honolulu hasn't had centralized housing functions for nearly three decades, "and obviously we can see the effects of that."
When Mayor Rick Blangiardi came into office, there was one person working in the Mayor's Office of Housing and they were coordinating both housing and homeless efforts for the city, he said.
"Ever since 1998, the housing functions in the city have been dispersed among various departments," Auger explained. "Without that centralized, coordinated effort, it's really just been — I hate to use the word — but kind of a hodgepodge of policies and programs and what have you. It hasn't really been coordinated and focused. With this new reorganization, it's going to give us a platform that allows us to focus specifically on housing and housing needs."
The creation of the department aligns with a three-year strategic housing plan released by the city earlier this year.
According to the plan, which can be found in its entirety here, Blangiardi announced during his 2023 State of the City address that his administration would study a potential reorganization of the city's housing and homeless functions.
Recommendations to consolidate affordable housing functions under an expanded version of the existing Department of Land Management — which would be renamed the Department of Housing and Land Management — and to consolidate all homeless functions under the Department of Community Services, was approved by the mayor in December 2023 and announced during his 2024 State of the City address, the plan notes.
Housing in Hawai‘i — the affordability and availability of it, and how to build more — has long been discussed.
In addition to the creation of the newly established department and the strategic housing plan unveiled earlier, the city has taken several other steps to address housing issues in 2025.
Earlier this year, the city issued a request for qualifications, or RFQ, to redevelop four underutilized city-owned properties in Honolulu into affordable rental housing.
Auger said the city received 20 responses for the four properties and tentative letters of commitment will soon go out.
The city also issued an RFQ for the redevelopment of the Iwilei Center. Those proposals were due April 30, "and that was also successful," said Auger, although he could not disclose how many responses the city received from that request.
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 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."
The city is on track to select by the end of the year development partners for 10 or 11 properties in the city that can potentially deliver 2,600 to 2,700 units of housing, Auger says.
The city says DHLM will have 51 full-time positions. According to Auger, approximately 30 of the 51 are currently filled, "and we are actively and aggressively recruiting."
The department is currently on the hunt for the division heads, which will "help us set the tone about how we're going forward," he said.
They're looking for a head of the new Housing Finance Division, and new Housing Development Division.
"For the balance of the positions, we've got a good pipeline of potential candidates. Those are the two key [positions] we're trying to fill right now," Auger says.
DHLM has an operating budget of $12.2 million, according to a city spokesperson.
Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
