Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s fifth State of the City address was filled with plans, announcements and highlights of his efforts to help residents and improve city services during his second four-year term.
The mayor punctuated his Tuesday evening address with some key announcements to deliver on that goal, perhaps most notably revealing that the second segment of the Skyline rail will open to the public on Oct. 1, and construction on the third segment will begin this year.
Next segment of Honolulu rail
“Our skyline system provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to create high-density, mixed-use communities where people will choose to live along the rail line,” he said. “But first, it's time to bring Skyline to Pearl Harbor. It's time to bring Skyline to the airport … It's time to bring Skyline to Lagoon Drive, where riders will be able to connect to Waikīkī and East Oʻahu. And it's time to bring Skyline all the way into Kalihi.”
Officials anticipate bringing the rail closer to Honolulu’s urban core and popular destinations like the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport will drive up ridership — and allow it to better serve residents as a viable alternative to driving.
When the first segment of the rail opened to the public in summer 2023, Honolulu Department of Transportation Services Director Roger Morton anticipated 8,000 to 10,000 daily riders by the end of that year — and 25,000 daily riders once the second segment became operational.
By those estimates, the rail so far has underperformed. The city’s ridership data show that daily ridership has consistently hovered between around 2,000 and 4,000.
Still, Morton was optimistic following Blangiardi’s announcement for the second segment.
“I'm confident that we're going to have significant increases because what we're doing is we're adding rail to a lot of places where there's a lot of jobs at Pearl Harbor, at the airport and in Kalihi. So, I'm confident that we're going to have a great increase in our ridership,” he told Hawaiʻi Public Radio.
Blangiardi reiterated that progress for the rail means progress for residents, noting that 90% of the island’s population lives within a 10-minute walking distance from a bus stop or a rail station.
He said the goal is now to ensure the construction and success of housing and businesses around the rail.
Affordable and mixed-use housing
Housing is one of Blangiardi’s top priorities and was the first topic he discussed during his address. He outlined his plans to change the financing and development of affordable housing to facilitate construction.
He’s proposing to combine the city’s Office of Housing with the Department of Land Management to form a Department of Housing and Land Management. He’s already brought staff together in anticipation of the new department that would be “ geared toward execution rather than policy, toward development rather than deliberation, and toward results rather than rhetoric.”
The city’s new housing plan includes forming a development division that would work with developers to “aggressively” construct affordable housing projects, and a financing division to address the financial challenges of those projects.
Blangiardi said there’s already been progress in financing affordable housing, specifically bringing up the Private Activity Bond Program that his administration resurrected in 2022.
He said $670 million in bond allocations have been awarded to developers in the three years since the program’s revival, and his housing team is “exploring the use of multi-family taxable revenue bonds and the provision of low-cost construction equity financing to determine if these alternative structures make sense for our development partners across the island.”
His administration has also identified 10 city properties — and is already moving toward development on five — that he said are “under-utilized” and could be used for housing instead. Blangiardi said those spaces could add 2,000 total housing units to Oʻahu’s supply.
Blangiardi’s proposed budget includes $100 million for mixed-used development, part of which will go toward transforming the 3.8-acre Iwilei Center into an affordable housing project. That project is set to break ground in 2028.
The center is currently being used as a homeless shelter, which Blangiardi and Gov. Josh Green unveiled last month and focuses on “behavioral health” and “restoring cognitive function.”
Blangiardi said humane solutions for homelessness are “paramount.” He touted the successes of recently opened facilities like the 30-bed Aʻala Respite. Dozens of patients have been treated and placed into permanent housing, and 15 patients have been reunited with their families, he reported.
His goal for the year is to treat and house 1,000 homeless individuals by offering similar services that couple medical care and transitional housing.
Support for lifeguards and first responders
In his address, Blangiardi also announced that a new facility on Kailua Bay would be constructed this year specifically for lifeguards with the newly created Honolulu Ocean Safety Department.
The city administration also intends to buy land near Shark’s Cove for a “first responder hub” to house lifeguards and ambulances, and is in negotiations for a location to place a new ambulance to serve the Kaimukī area and provide backup service to Waikīkī.
In response to the potential loss of federal funds, Blangiardi said his staff will propose an amendment to his budget to use the city’s fiscal stability fund to cover those losses. The fund is meant for emergency situations and economic downturns, and in 2024 had $169 million. Blangiardi is proposing $192 million for the fund in the upcoming fiscal year.
He also announced the state Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting has already reduced permitting times, and on Sept. 1 will have a fully operational artificial intelligence-based plan review assistant to cut down permit times even more.
To close, Blangiardi said his efforts to keep residents in Hawaiʻi — and solve what he referred to multiple times as "wicked" problems on Oʻahu — have been fruitful.
“ These are challenges that we are running toward, not running from, and there is clear evidence that our efforts are paying off," he said. "In a survey of Oʻahu residents published earlier this month, the number of people who said they were committed to staying here, to staying home instead of leaving for Vegas or Seattle or San Diego, was the highest it's been since 2012. And for the first time in years, our people have hope. They believe in this place for what it is and for what it can be.”
HPR's Ashley Mizuo contributed to this report.
