Could a pre-fab factory get more native Hawaiians into homes?
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is looking to build modular housing as a cheaper, quicker way to chip away at its waitlist of more than 29,000 applicants.
Lawmakers have proposed giving the department money to buy a 196,000-square-foot hangar in Kalaeloa, which would be converted into a manufacturing facility to produce modular housing units that are 10% to 15% less expensive than traditional construction. The hangar is currently owned by the University of Hawaiʻi and used to store helicopters for the police and fire departments.
Homes would be assembled at the facility and sold to beneficiaries when they are awarded a land lease.
Lawmakers still haven’t determined how much money to give DHHL to acquire the hangar. The land underneath the hangar currently has an assessed value of $4.4 million. Department Director Kali Watson estimated that it would cost another $4.8 million to refurbish the hangar.
DHHL, tasked with housing Native Hawaiians, has struggled for decades to provide enough housing lots to beneficiaries on its waitlist, many of whom have died before receiving a lease for land promised to them by a 100-year-old federal law.
When plots of DHHL land have become available, many Hawaiians have found it difficult to finance construction of a new home. The department believes that modular housing would offer a cheaper alternative and that an Oʻahu factory could produce up to 40 homes a month.
“It may be our go-to approach if we find the savings is tremendous,” Watson told lawmakers earlier this month.
The department plans to partner with Fading West, a company based in Colorado that specializes in off-site homebuilding. It’s already done work in Hawaiʻi, building 82 homes for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to place in Lahaina.
According to Eric Schaefer, the company’s chief business development officer, the homes were delivered from Fading West’s facility in Buena Vista, Colorado, and were ready for occupancy within about four months of FEMA’s order.
Home designs on Fading West’s website are meant to fit in with Colorado’s architecture, but DHHL would create its own designs that wouldn’t look out of place in a neighborhood in Hawaiʻi, Schaefer said.
Production of the modular homes runs a bit like an assembly line at a car facility. Schaefer said Fading West based its process off Toyota’s approach to building cars.
“Instead of building Corollas and Camrys, we’re building two- (and) three-bedroom homes,” Schaefer said.
Fading West and DHHL envision homes that are up to 15% cheaper than homes built on-site in Hawaiʻi. Right now, new homes in Honolulu cost upward of $500 per square foot to build, according to the construction cost calculator from the consulting firm Rider Levett Bucknall, meaning DHHL could save about $75,000 building a 1,000-square-foot modular home
Fading West plans to do a 24-home pilot project for DHHL on Maui. The homes would be built on the mainland and shipped here where Maui contractors would install things such as roofing, plumbing and electrical wiring.
Pre-fab housing previously faced opposition from the building industry over worries that constructing cheaper homes could reduce construction workers’ wages. But the rush to rehouse people after the Lahaina wildfire seems to have softened the industry’s stance.
DHHL was the only state agency that testified on Senate Bill 1553, the proposal to buy the hangar. The bill has received no opposition so far.
The agency received a historic cash infusion of $600 million three years ago. Most of that money has been allocated to homelands projects across the state, and the department is now seeking an additional $600 million from the Legislature this year.
SB 1553 cleared the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday and now moves to the full Senate for a vote.
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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.