Gary Pacheco has lived in Kīlauea, Hawai‘i’, his entire life and has seen it grow from its sugar plantation roots to a now blossoming mix of local residences, small-scale agriculture and commercial centers.

Despite that change, this town on Kauai’s North Shore still maintains its tight-knit, rural charm, where residents constantly check in on one another and are active in neighborhood happenings.

But as more newcomers have moved to the area and land values have risen, Pacheco has seen his children’s and their children’s generations leave because they can’t find affordable homes in the community they grew up in. Kīlauea’s 96754 zip code has the highest home prices in Hawai‘i, according to a ranking by Realtor.com.

Active in numerous Kīlauea groups, Pacheco joined the community advisory committee for the Kaua‘i County Housing Agency’s planned Kīlauea Town Expansion, which will encompass 310 affordable housing units on 46 acres.

“We want to keep the community [intact],” says Pacheco, who is often considered Kīlauea’s unofficial mayor because of his concern for the well-being of the town and its residents. “We want the young people to stay.”

For over a decade, Kaua‘i has followed an extensive model for involving residents in the initial design and concept stages for its county-led, master-planned affordable housing communities. In addition to advisory committees, residents are consulted through a series of surveys and public meetings to help shape overall layouts, housing types, community amenities and streetscapes.

Other Hawai‘i counties also involve residents in their affordable housing projects, which often only encompass a single building or complex, making them different in scope than master-planned communities. Even so, a housing advocate notes that Kaua‘i’s approach is particularly extensive and collaborative, rather than a box-checking exercise.

“If your goal is you want to deliver affordable housing and a livable, like, community area for your residents, then the Kaua‘i route, you know, it’s worth the cost, right, because you also have the community on board and understanding why you’re doing certain things,” says Arjuna Heim, director of housing policy at the Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.

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In addition to the Kīlauea Town Expansion, the Housing Agency earlier this year wrapped up master planning for its Waimea 400 Affordable Housing Project, which will encompass nearly 400 units on 60 acres on the island’s west side.

Shaping future communities

Over the last two years, community members in Kīlauea and Waimea weighed in on a variety of topics, from the location of roundabouts to how the new developments connect to existing roads, the mix of single-family versus multi-family housing units, the inclusion of dog parks and other shared facilities, and what buffers should be used around wastewater treatment plants.

Waimea, for example, is a historic seaport town with a rich agricultural heritage, and residential areas are largely comprised of single-family homes. There, the Housing Agency scaled back the number of planned multi-family units at the community’s request, says Steve Franco. He’s the agency’s housing development coordinator and lives in West Kaua‘i.

The agency also presented single-family home floor plans in both communities. Franco says that costs were included to help show that smaller lot sizes increased affordability. In Waimea, in particular, the single-family homes and lots in the planned development would be smaller than the surrounding town.

“It wasn’t like we got overwhelming support for it, but at least you’re being upfront with them and just, kind of, being transparent with them that this is the reality of it right now,” he says.

Community members even got a say about driveways and streetscapes. In Waimea, residents asked that houses on certain lots have their own driveways, rather than be shared with their neighbors. In Kīlauea, community input helped guide whether residential streets would have a more rural look with grass swales or an urban look with on-street parking and sidewalks with curbs and gutters.

The single-family homes in the two communities will be sold under the county’s Limited Equity Leasehold Program, which restricts the prices that homes can be sold and resold for.

Twenty years ago, the Kīlauea community asked that planned affordable homes be permanently affordable for future generations; similar requests resurfaced during the 2025 public meetings. Beryl Blaich, a who has lived in Kīlauea for over 40 years, says she’s glad the county is using this model. She was a member of the 12-member Town Expansion community advisory committee.

The Kaua‘i County Housing Agency’s master-planned communities comprise a mix of single- and multi-family homes for households earning 120% of the area median income or below. Of the 4,900 new housing units the island needs by 2027, about 3,600 are for this income group, according to a 2024 state report.

The engagement processes for the two projects resulted in concept plans that laid out broad parameters for each so studies can be done on water, electrical, wastewater and traffic use. Those studies are then used for 201H applications, which grants certain affordable housing projects exemptions and expedited processing.

It’s too early to say when construction on the two projects will begin, but the public will have further opportunities to provide input, such as for the projects’ environmental reports, during the 201H process and at county council meetings. The Kaua‘i Housing Agency also aims to hold public meetings to review architectural styles and potential Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions.

A long-used model for engagement

Kaua‘i’s Housing Agency emphasizes early, extensive community engagement largely because it works on master-planned community developments, which is different from the other Hawai‘i counties.

The first project the agency followed that model for was Lima Ola, a 550-unit workforce housing community under construction on 75 acres in ‘Ele‘ele, a town on the island’s west side. A seven-member community advisory group made up of residents with longstanding ties to and knowledge of ‘Ele‘ele and the neighboring town of Hanapēpē was convened to help with master planning in 2011 and 2012.

Two members were Keith Nitta, who is from Kalaheo and Hanapēpē, and Ed Justus, owner of Talk Story Bookstore (then located in Hanapēpē). Nitta was a county planner until he retired in 2006, and Justus brought the perspective of a small business owner.

Both say they felt like the Housing Agency was receptive to the advisory group’s ideas, which motivated them and other members to continue participating. They also never had the impression that the agency’s engagement efforts were just to check a box.

“Community engagement is time consuming [and] unpredictable,” Nitta say. “That’s why agencies, or even developers, they try to stay steer away as much as they can. I’m glad Kaua‘i Housing took it head on.”

Adam Roversi, who became Kaua‘i County’s housing director in 2019, says every housing project is required to get community feedback at some level, whether it’s through environmental reviews or the planning commission.

“You can qualitatively go through that process and just check boxes, or you can go through that process and take genuine interest in what the community’s input is and do your best to incorporate it where you can,” he says.

That doesn’t mean the community gets to make every decision. Some things just aren’t possible because of engineering perimeters or costs, for example. But Roversi and Franco say that taking the time to explain why something can’t be done makes all the difference in ensuring the community feels heard.

That also helps combat negative reactions to a project, Roversi says. While he knows that the Housing Agency will never be able to make everyone happy, he senses that the agency’s engagement efforts help the county’s master-planned communities get less pushback than private developer projects.

Lessons learned

Public meetings in Kīlauea drew over 100 people and saw higher engagement in its community advisory committee than Waimea. However, both communities saw fewer attendees as the public meetings progressed.

That may be due to the Housing Agency having meeting recordings and surveys available online. Additionally, Waimea just came off an extensive planning process for the entire Waimea 400 project—which will also agriculture, trails and paths, and wetland restoration on 420 acres—so community members may have had meeting fatigue.

Bill Chase, a resident of Kīlauea and long-time member of the Kīlauea Neighborhood Association, attended the North Shore public meetings. He says Kīlauea’s changing demographic—more wealthy newcomers moving in and long-time residents leaving—has created a greater sense of urgency and crisis.

That’s encouraged Kīlauea residents to stay engaged compared with 20 years ago when the town was undergoing its 2006 Town Plan, he says. The plan was on hold until the county secured 50 acres adjacent to the historic town in recent years, and the Housing Agency’s Town Expansion meetings were meant to check if the preferences had changed from that plan, Roversi says.

Still though, some Kīlauea community members say they hoped to see more likely future affordable housing residents at the meetings. They acknowledge that, as with many public meetings, attendance often leans toward older residents who have more available time.

Roversi, who resides in Kīlauea, says one lesson learned is that it’s difficult to reach every subgroup, even with extensive outreach such as notices sent through neighborhood associations, local media, flyers and banners.

In ‘Ele‘ele, the first families moved into Lima Ola earlier this year. Justus, one of the project’s community advisory group members, says he hopes residents enjoy living there.

“That to me would be the greatest outcome of whatever any of us did, is at least the people are there and they’re happy with their neighborhood and happy with their home, then what more can you ask?” he says.

Looking forward, the Housing agency will be repeating its engagement process for its fourth master-planned community in Līhu‘e, where the agency is looking to acquire 150 acres.