A key Senate committee has advanced Gov. Josh Green’s nominee to head the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
Affordable housing developer Kali Watson won the approval of the Senate Hawaiian Affairs Committee, and now awaits a vote by the full Senate.
Watson has several innovative approaches to tackle the more than 28,000 native Hawaiians on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands’ waitlist.
They include everything from mandating developers to meet the financial needs of beneficiaries to creating a permitting division to streamline projects. But the lowest hanging fruit said Watson are homestead lots that have never been built on.
"Why aren’t they awarded? I mean that’s a slam dunk. Award em out. It goes back to the lack of sufficient staff as well as the process. And that I gotta change," Watson said during his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
Watson, who spent three years as DHHL director, said affordability is one of the main reasons people remain on the waitlist. To get lower income families onto the land, he’s proposing a "rent-with-option-to-purchase" approach that includes receiving a homestead lease upfront.
"They don’t have to wait 15 years to have a homestead interest which they can pass on their successors. By doing it that way we’ll help those on the bottom of the list that have typically been bypassed," Watson said.
Watson received overwhelming support from Hawaiian homes beneficiaries, the building industry, and other state agency heads at Thursday’s hearing. But his potential return to DHHL after two decades in the affordable housing industry did raise questions of conflicts of interest.
"If there’s any slight indication or connection that might create that conflict, I would definitely recuse myself, as well make a full disclosure of any and everything that might be possibly perceived as a conflict, even though it may not be," he said.
Watson said he’s already met with financial institutions to discuss different funding approaches and ali’i trust representatives to discuss potential land acquisitions.
Watson’s nomination now awaits a vote by the full Senate.
