The following testimony was submitted by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii for consideration by the Honolulu City Council on Nov. 5, 2025.
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Nov. 5, 2025, 10 a.m.
Honolulu Hale
To: Honolulu City Council
Tommy Waters, Chair
Andria Tupola, Vice Chair
From: Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
Ted Kefalas, Director of Strategic Campaigns
RE: Bill 72 (2025) — RELATING TO AFFORDABLE RENTAL HOUSING
Aloha Chair Waters, Vice Chair Tupola and other members of the Council,
The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii supports — and offers one amendment to — Bill 72 (2025), which would expand the city’s Bill 7 affordable rental housing incentive program.
This program has already helped get more than 500 units approved since its creation in 2019,[1] and there are even more projects in the permitting queue.
Currently, Honolulu’s Bill 7 program offers homebuilders relaxed zoning rules, property tax breaks, fee waivers and other financial incentives in exchange for building multiple housing units, at least 80% of which are supposed to be rented for at least 15 years at rents affordable to those making 100% or less of the area median income.[2]
Bill 72 (2025) would expand on those benefits by allowing Bill 7 projects to be built in business zoning districts; repealing the program’s 20,000 square-feet maximum lot requirement and its rule that buildings must take up no more than 80% of the lot area; repealing the program’s maximum size limits for units and relaxing its restriction on the maximum number of units that can be built on a lot; and allowing more Bill 7 units to be built on parcels that are near high-service bus stops.
Speaking more broadly about Honolulu’s housing crisis, the Council should view Bill 7 as a sandbox of sorts. It has helped many projects advance via relaxed regulations, so the Council would do well to extend many of these same incentives to homebuilders in general, not to just those participating in the Bill 7 program.
But this proposal as it stands still is commendable, and Grassroot applauds that this is being considered.
In addition to these changes proposed in Bill 72, Grassroot would like the Council to add one amendment when the bill reaches committee: Increase the Bill 7 program’s building height limits.
Bill 7 projects face height limits that are often lower than the height limits for other projects in the same zones. For example, there are several A-2 medium-density apartment zones where the maximum height is 150 feet.[3]
Allowing Bill 7 projects to use the height limits established by a given zoning map or the current 60-foot limit could create even more housing.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Ted Kefalas
Director of Strategic Campaigns
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
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[1] Christina Jedra, “Honolulu’s Effort to Fast-Track Affordable Housing Projects Hasn’t Worked,” Honolulu Civil Beat, June 19, 2025.
[2] § 32-1.1 Definitions., Revised Ordinances of Honolulu, accessed Oct. 31, 2025.
[3] “Parcels & Zoning Information App,” Honolulu GIS, accessed Oct. 31, 2025.
