8/11/22 #kihei

At 11:30 am at the Kaiwahine Village center, the lottery for the new housing project from Ikaika Ohana, Kaiaulu o Halele’a Affordable Housing Project at the R & T park, was held. We captured almost all of the winners who were present here.

This is an equal opportunity privately owned apartment complex offering affordable housing in two, three and four-bedroom units.

The first phase of the development will provide 64 garden-style rental apartments, consisting of 8 residential buildings with 32 two bedroom units, 24 three bedroom units and 8 four bedroom units. The second phase will consist of 7 residential buildings and will provide an additional 56 units ? 28 two bedroom units, 21 three bedroom units and 7 four bedroom units. All the housing units will provide rents affordable for low income families with 30%-60% of the area median income (AMI).                

The units will have energy star appliances, LED energy star lighting, hard surface flooring, water sense certified plumbing fixtures, air conditioning, ceiling fans throughout and solar hot water heating.

On-site amenities will include a community center with outdoor dining and BBQ area, children?s playground, community gardens, laundry facilities, management offices and a range of on-site social services, i.e., health services, after-school programs, job training and financial counseling. 

From county government the lottery winners were pulled and announced by Mayor Victorino and S. Maui resident County Councilor Kelly King. Also in attendance was Lanai member Gabe Johnson’s (chair of the Affordable Housing committee) executive assistant, Kate Griffiths, representing the rest of the council.       

The entire event took just about one hour, as there were a lot on names to draw and announce. We expect more “winners” did not attend, but it was joyous for those who were present. All those who were selected still have to be screened to insure they qualify, so there is an extensive waiting list of applicants who will be notified if openings occur after examinations.

As best we could determine, all those who were present seemed to be Maui island residents, so concerns that off-island guys would swoop up the units seem unfounded. 

The actual rents for all the individual residents are difficult to specify at this time depending on the AMI formula, but they promise to be reasonable.     

Reading a Council Resolution for Doug Bigley and Ikaika Ohana passed unanimously by Council. The site of this lottery was held at Kaiwahine Village, the first of Ikaika Ohana’s affordable rental project. This lottery was for their second project in the R&T park.