The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands broke ground Wednesday on a 125-lot subdivision in Kealakehe on Hawaiʻi Island.
The $13.8 million project is expected to take approximately 14 months to complete and will include grading, road construction, and utility improvements.
This is the second phase of the Villages of Laʻi ʻŌpua master-planned community, which currently houses 284 Native Hawaiian families and is expected to have nearly 600 at final build-out.
DHHL Deputy to the Chair Tyler Iokepa Gomes says the groundbreaking was especially significant given the agency’s history.
"Here we are 100 years into the mission of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. We are looking at Prince Kūhiō’s birthday this Saturday. And with those two hallmarks sort of in front of us as a reminder of where we are and what we’re doing, it’s so critically important to continue to push forward as a department and make sure we’re addressing a waitlist of nearly 28,000 Native Hawaiians waiting for that promise that Prince Kūhiō came up with one hundred years ago," he said.
The department offered homestead lots last year to beneficiaries on Hawaiʻi Island in Laʻi ʻŌpua and in Discovery Harbour in Kaʻū.
DHHL expects to break ground on two additional projects next month on Hawaiʻi Island, including 16 subsistence agricultural lots in Honomū and a new water tank for pastoral lessees in Kaʻū.
