The Kauaʻi County Council wants to put more money toward building housing.
The Council passed the measure at its meeting Wednesday. It would require at least 2% of real property tax revenues to go into the Housing Development Fund annually. In fiscal year 2023, that would have allocated around $3.7 million into this fund.
Councilmember Luke Evslin introduced the bill. He said the 2% minimum ensures money is going toward housing.
"We are going to ensure that the housing agency has this regular flow of money, so that they can plan into the future saying, 'We are going to make these infrastructure improvements in the future,'" Evslin said.
The bill also would allow the county to use revenue bonds when building affordable housing, which could incentivize investors.
"And developers, you will have the consistency to you know, if we can set the mechanism to do it … come in for a revenue bond, which we can do on a project by project basis and help these projects pencil out," he added.
The bill now goes to Mayor Derek Kawakami, who will have 10 days to decide whether or not he will sign the legislation.
