Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Director of Housing Policy, Gavin Thornton, breaks down some of the Charter Amendment ballot questions

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Director of Housing Policy, Gavin Thornton, breaks down some of the Charter Amendment ballot questions · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:14
  Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
• 0:16
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa.
• 0:17
  And this week we're sitting down
• 0:19
  with Gavin Thornton, the city's director of housing policy.
• 0:23
  Gavin, thanks for making some time for me.
• 0:25
  Yeah, thanks for the invite.
• 0:27
  Happy to be here.
• 0:27
  And this is our first time sitting down with you, right?
• 0:30
  It is.
• 0:31
  So for those who aren't familiar, you tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 0:34
  So where you grew up, where you were before coming to the city.
• 0:38
  And what do you think prepared you for this role?
• 0:41
  Oh, shucks.
• 0:41
  All right.
• 0:43
  I grew up kind of all over the place.
• 0:45
  My dad was in the Air Force, so traveling around a bunch,
• 0:48
  moved to, Hawaii.
• 0:51
  Right out of law school, moved to Kona
• 0:53
  to go to work at Legal Aid Society of Hawaii.
• 0:57
  And, started representing,
• 1:00
  like, low income tenants that were at risk of losing their housing.
• 1:04
  And then that led me on a
• 1:07
  what had been 24, year path to be here at the city.
• 1:12
  So long journey.
• 1:14
  But an exciting one.
• 1:15
  And really happy to be here now.
• 1:17
  Well, we're glad to have you.
• 1:18
  And we thought it would be an appropriate time to sit down with you,
• 1:20
  because the general election is less than two weeks away now.
• 1:24
  And we wanted to break down some of the charter amendment questions
• 1:27
  or Oahu voters have 20 proposed amendments to consider
• 1:30
  to the revised charter of the City and County of Honolulu.
• 1:33
  Five of them relate directly to housing policy.
• 1:36
  Your wheelhouse.
• 1:38
  So, Gavin, if I'm being honest, some of the questions can get
• 1:41
  kind of wordy.
• 1:42
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:42
  If you if you
• 1:43
  if you're not following along closely, you may not know what you're voting on.
• 1:46
  Exactly.
• 1:47
  That's right.
• 1:47
  So so let's break down some of these.
• 1:48
  Let's dive into first question seven, which proposes
• 1:52
  adding language to the charter recognizing housing availability as a city priority.
• 1:57
  What would a yes vote here mean?
• 1:59
  I mean, question seven is basically just a policy statement.
• 2:04
  Just a recognition that housing is an important issue
• 2:10
  that, we need to be focused on preservation of housing.
• 2:15
  I actually think at this particular
• 2:18
  moment, it's not really an issue.
• 2:21
  Like, everybody is laser focused on
• 2:24
  trying to figure out housing solutions.
• 2:27
  It's a priority for the mayor.
• 2:29
  It's a priority for for the governor and for Hawaii.
• 2:33
  Was at the forefront, I think, of the housing crisis
• 2:37
  that's now at a national and even global crisis.
• 2:40
  So, everybody's really focused on it.
• 2:44
  The charter having this to the charter would just be, I guess, official codified
• 2:49
  recognition, that we need to be focused on addressing this housing issue.
• 2:56
  So what would this mean with this?
• 2:57
  Establish any type of new program funding source.
• 3:00
  What does that mean exactly?
• 3:01
  Now it's it's really just, policy statement.
• 3:05
  Just saying this matters, and we should be paying attention to it.
• 3:09
  if folks maybe get lost, there's a lot of these questions on the ballot.
• 3:12
  If they get lost and choose not to vote.
• 3:15
  So a blank vote. Yeah. What does that mean.
• 3:18
  Yeah. My understanding is a blank vote.
• 3:20
  Just doesn't count an okay.
• 3:22
  So it's not a no vote. It's right.
• 3:24
  So unlike the state constitution, if you don't vote
• 3:28
  on, a constitution proposal, that is a
• 3:32
  no vote, for the charter, blank vote is just not a vote.
• 3:37
  It's not counted.
• 3:38
  Question eight relates
• 3:39
  to increasing the flexibility of the affordable housing fund.
• 3:43
  For those that aren't familiar, what is the affordable housing fund?
• 3:45
  the affordable housing fund is, a fund that receives
• 3:50
  0.05% of property tax revenues
• 3:54
  each year, which adds up to between 8 and $9 million.
• 3:58
  And then we're able to, allocate that funding
• 4:01
  toward developing affordable housing projects.
• 4:05
  And so how has that fund been used so far up to this point?
• 4:11
  So I believe,
• 4:12
  it's been used primarily for grants.
• 4:15
  So just providing that money to projects,
• 4:20
  it is very difficult to build any kind of housing and why it's
• 4:25
  especially difficult to build housing that's affordable
• 4:29
  to lower income levels.
• 4:32
  And, and so that $8
• 4:36
  million alone doesn't get you that much, but it's usually added to what's
• 4:42
  called the capital stack, that allows,
• 4:46
  you know, to cobbling together resources.
• 4:49
  From anywhere folks can find them to actually be able
• 4:52
  to build the housing project.
• 4:54
  Yeah.
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  And in this question, the proposal refers to our revolving fund.
• 4:58
  What does that mean in plain English?
• 5:00
  Yeah.
• 5:00
  So a revolving fund instead of granting money?
• 5:03
  Yeah.
• 5:03
  The city would be lending money
• 5:07
  to the, developer, to the development.
• 5:10
  That money would be paid back over time.
• 5:13
  And one of the important things that this, charter amendment would do
• 5:16
  is it would clarify that as it's paid back.
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  And as, as the interest,
• 5:23
  is also paid back on those funds, it would go back into the pot
• 5:29
  so that we can reuse it again for another housing project.
• 5:33
  And so how would that approach maybe affect
• 5:37
  how the city finances these affordable housing projects?
• 5:39
  Yeah, it's just trying to squeeze
• 5:41
  a little more juice, out of the resources that we have.
• 5:45
  So it's really about being smarter,
• 5:48
  being more efficient with, limited resources.
• 5:52
  We've got, as I said, housing very complex.
• 5:56
  There's no silver bullet solution.
• 6:00
  No one thing that we're going to be able to do that's going to be a forever fix.
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  It needs to be a lot of like small,
• 6:08
  simple actions that result in something greater.
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  And this is just one of those like, small, kind of small tweaks
• 6:17
  that will help us, become more efficient and be able to use that money better.
• 6:22
  Question nine eliminate some redundancies when it comes to public hearings
• 6:25
  for city property transactions.
• 6:27
  Yeah, that kind of sounds like a no brainer.
• 6:29
  Like when you think about eliminating redundancies.
• 6:32
  But. But why?
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  How did we get here?
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  whenever there's a, transaction that is going to impact
• 6:38
  city lands, it needs to go through right now.
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  It needs to go through a process where it goes to, separate public hearing
• 6:45
  initially, and we have to advertise that, and, star-advertiser
• 6:50
  a couple of times it costs, something over $1,000 to, to do that,
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  we have to identify a venue
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  and in some cases, like rent out that venue to, to hold the hearing.
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  And then we
• 7:05
  have to have our staff, like, show up and attend to the hearing.
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  And, typically, the experience has been that no members
• 7:12
  of the public actually show up, maybe one,
• 7:16
  and, and so it's just not been useful.
• 7:21
  People haven't been testifying after the public hearing happens.
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  The, the issue always goes to council.
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  And once it goes to city council,
• 7:33
  it's heard in a resolution at least two times.
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  So in, a committee and then in front of full council
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  and both those times, the public has an opportunity to testify,
• 7:46
  they have an opportunity to, testify in person or online.
• 7:52
  And often in those cases,
• 7:55
  sadly, there's there's not a lot of testimony coming in there either.
• 8:00
  But this just eliminates that
• 8:02
  first that first hearing that hasn't
• 8:06
  really been generating any actual feedback anyway.
• 8:10
  So the public will still have a chance to testify But
• 8:14
  what does that mean, eliminating maybe that first step when it comes to,
• 8:18
  you know, the taxpayers and resources and things that they're footing?
• 8:21
  Yeah.
• 8:21
  It it just allows us here to focus our energies on things
• 8:26
  that we feel like are actually going to move the ball forward.
• 8:30
  mean, that's the that's the gist of it.
• 8:33
  Yeah.
• 8:33
  Question ten establishes a functional housing plan.
• 8:36
  Yeah, a functional housing plan.
• 8:38
  That's not something that already exists.
• 8:40
  that does not exist.
• 8:43
  So we have a strategic plan.
• 8:44
  DHL, the Department of Housing Land Management.
• 8:48
  And so that is guiding our work right now,
• 8:51
  a functional plan this this came from the community.
• 8:54
  This this was, wasn't, an idea that we put forward.
• 8:58
  rather than a strategic plan, which is just something
• 9:02
  adopted by our department, a functional housing plan.
• 9:07
  Would be more cross-cutting across departments.
• 9:10
  So across the city, so that housing goals
• 9:15
  and objectives could be incorporated, in the budget as,
• 9:21
  as part of the budget, budgeting process.
• 9:24
  and it has the potential to just foster greater collaboration and focus
• 9:30
  on housing, And question 12 would expand funding sources for affordable housing.
• 9:35
  What what's the funding situation now and what would a yes vote mean here.
• 9:39
  So this one again relates to the Affordable Housing Fund.
• 9:44
  But it clarifies that in addition to those property tax revenues
• 9:50
  that are the currently the sole source of,
• 9:54
  of the funding there, other funds could be added.
• 9:57
  So federal funds, state funds could be added in that pot.
• 10:01
  And, it would just be a mechanism for,
• 10:05
  basically allocating those resources, like restricting them
• 10:11
  to be used for affordable housing development.
• 10:15
  So what exactly is the difference between 8 and 12 then.
• 10:19
  So eight and
• 10:20
  12 both touch the affordable housing fund.
• 10:23
  But there are multiple provisions
• 10:26
  in the charter that, kind of describe
• 10:30
  what the affordable housing fund is, what it can be used for.
• 10:36
  And so it just it just hits different provisions.
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  So the question eight is,
• 10:44
  really about adding flexibility to what the fund can be used for
• 10:50
  as a revolving fund that also allows
• 10:52
  some additional flexibility around,
• 10:55
  mixed use and mixed income developments.
• 10:59
  And I'd love to talk about that more in a second.
• 11:02
  Question 12 is about what money goes into the fund.
• 11:06
  Okay.
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  So eight what can the fund be used for?
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  1212 what money goes into the fund?
• 11:12
  Okay.
• 11:13
  Back to to eight.
• 11:16
  And that additional flexibility around mixed income, mixed use.
• 11:21
  So traditionally, for a long time,
• 11:24
  the prevailing approach for government was to fund, like, kind of public
• 11:30
  housing projects, which were just projects that were concentrated housing,
• 11:36
  for just low income folks.
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  And over time, it became apparent that that strategy
• 11:44
  wasn't working out super well.
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  Much better to have income mixing,
• 11:52
  just allows for more
• 11:54
  social mobility and healthier communities generally.
• 11:58
  And then also, much better to have walkable communities,
• 12:01
  communities that aren't solely housing.
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  And then you have to drive, to do anything or get anywhere.
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  And so this, additional flexibility would just allow us to adapt to,
• 12:15
  this new model that just learning from our past mistakes.
• 12:20
  And so all of these proposals, how do they relate to the city's
• 12:23
  your jobs or the broader efforts to address housing affordability?
• 12:28
  I don't love to point back to this 1970 report.
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  But I do often there was a report
• 12:34
  issued by the State of Hawai'i in 1970 that said something along
• 12:39
  the lines of Hawai'i has been experiencing housing challenges for many years.
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  It has now become a crisis.
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  That was 1970.
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  That was 56 years ago.
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  And stuff hasn't gotten better since 1970.
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  It's progressively gotten worse.
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  And I wish that there was just some lever
• 12:59
  that we could pull to make everything good.
• 13:02
  But the reality is, I think it's just going to take a lot of work
• 13:08
  and a lot of effort by a lot of people, and progress over time.
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  So, one of the reasons why I'm thrilled to be here is
• 13:16
  this department is one of those things.
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  The city hasn't had a housing department for 30 years,
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  which I don't entirely understand, given
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  that we proclaimed the housing crisis 50, 56 years ago.
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  So just the fact that this exists now and that I can be here talking to you
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  and I have an amazing team that I get to work with every day
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  that's thinking about, okay, what are those changes
• 13:45
  that we need to make to get us to a better place?
• 13:50
  Is, I think, really
• 13:51
  special and, just grateful to be a part of that.
• 13:55
  Do you have kids?
• 13:56
  I do, I have three daughters.
• 13:58
  And, getting close to being empty nester.
• 14:03
  What do they think you do for?
• 14:08
  I don't think they, have much of an idea.
• 14:11
  It is really hard to explain exactly what this work is.
• 14:16
  So even for my kids, I don't know.
• 14:18
  They know that I'm, like, out there trying to, help people in the community.
• 14:24
  Yeah, I, in my prior life,
• 14:27
  at a nonprofit, would get TV interviews every once in a while.
• 14:31
  And, my daughter came home from middle school one day and, told us
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  how, oh, for current events, like they show this,
• 14:40
  this news clip, and
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  and you were on it and she kind of hid and didn't want anybody to know.
• 14:49
  So, yeah.
• 14:50
  with that said, you know, you see, you mentioned housing projects
• 14:55
  and you kind of see them through from literally like beginning to, to end
• 14:59
  when you see folks testifying, the final product saying,
• 15:03
  I would have never been able to have an opportunity like this.
• 15:07
  Yeah.
• 15:07
  When you hear that, when you see that, I mean, what does that mean for you?
• 15:11
  Yeah, I mean, it's everything.
• 15:13
  It's that's why we're here.
• 15:15
  So at the beginning of the of my career,
• 15:17
  I worked very closely with people.
• 15:21
  I mean, people that were facing eviction that were about, to lose their housing,
• 15:25
  people that were living in, horrible conditions in government housing,
• 15:30
  and, and, trying to support them and in improving those conditions.
• 15:37
  And, so you just see it there, right
• 15:39
  there, like you, have a very clear sense of,
• 15:45
  How the housing system is
• 15:48
  impacting people on a daily basis.
• 15:51
  Here we tend to be a little more removed from that impact.
• 15:57
  And so there's moments where we get to attend,
• 16:01
  the opening of, and new housing development, and we get to hear
• 16:06
  from people who are so grateful, to have a place to live.
• 16:11
  It's just it's really powerful.
• 16:13
  And it's something that, you know, even though we are, like, thinking about this
• 16:18
  high level, like looking at the the entire ecosystem.
• 16:22
  Every day I try to start my day, like,
• 16:26
  thinking about the people that this is going to impact.
• 16:29
  So, yeah, it's really meaningful when I get to hear from them.
• 16:32
  But there are a lot of people that fall into that category that need help.
• 16:36
  And like you mentioned, some 50 plus year crisis
• 16:39
  that we've been dealing with, and we've really only kind of
• 16:42
  made a small dent in it.
• 16:43
  So for you personally, you know, when you go home at night or as we record,
• 16:49
  you have all kinds of like, oh, that sounds like, you know.
• 16:57
  And I needed a prop.
• 16:57
  So I use your hot relax book, to prop up your mic.
• 17:01
  But, like, how do you find balance?
• 17:02
  What's the secret? What?
• 17:04
  Yeah.
• 17:04
  I'm a person of faith.
• 17:06
  That's really important to me.
• 17:09
  So. So that has a lot to do with it.
• 17:12
  Also, I, I think that, it's just important
• 17:17
  to to be that person for every you show up.
• 17:20
  So even here at work, I feel like it's really important.
• 17:24
  Hopefully, I don't know, you should talk to my team about this.
• 17:27
  Hopefully it comes through.
• 17:28
  But we're not doing anybody any favors if we're,
• 17:32
  ruining ourselves, like, killing ourselves here.
• 17:35
  you know, there's that there's that quote, that says, like, be the change.
• 17:40
  You want to see in the world.
• 17:43
  And for a long time, I thought that was,
• 17:46
  being a martyr and suffering.
• 17:49
  To make a good impact in the world.
• 17:53
  And it took me a long time to understand how that really means.
• 17:57
  Like, if I want people to experience, joy and a good life,
• 18:04
  and I'm not doing that for myself, then I'm not really walking the walk.
• 18:09
  So I just think
• 18:10
  it's important to, to try and experience that, like here
• 18:14
  and at home and in our community, like, just everywhere, I don't know.
• 18:19
  Good answer.
• 18:20
  Well, Gavin, is there anything that we missed?
• 18:22
  Now, just, like, grateful for this opportunity.
• 18:26
  Really grateful to be here.
• 18:28
  It's been so interesting to come to the city
• 18:33
  and just experience what that is firsthand after spending so long,
• 18:38
  you know, working on issues that were relevant to what happens here.
• 18:44
  And I just feel so fortunate
• 18:47
  to be able to work with a bunch of great people here,
• 18:51
  have an earnest desire to serve, and, and be a part
• 18:57
  of our community and, and improve that community where we can heal.
• 19:01
  Gavin, thank you for your time. Yeah. Mahalo.
• 19:03
  And you can visit the Honolulu Charter Commission's
• 19:06
  Oahu Votes website to review all 20 proposed amendments,
• 19:10
  including the official ballot questions and any supporting materials.
• 19:13
  Next week, we'll be back with Mayor Blangiardi
• 19:15
  right here on the One Oahu Podcast.
• 19:17
  Mahalo for listening. And until next time, Aloha.
• 19:19
  Mahalo for listening. And until next time, Aloha.
• 19:22
  You. You. Do.