When Hawaii families talk, older and younger generations often have different perspectives. But they unfortunately agree on one topic: despair and desperation about finding decent, affordable housing in Hawaii.

Hawaii’s housing shortage is splitting families — younger residents are leaving the islands because they can’t afford to buy or rent homes and kupuna are finding it harder to age in place in communities where they feel at home.

We can blame our lack of options on outdated planning and permitting systems, which favor either sprawling, low-density single-detached houses or tall high-rises.

Under the status quo, one of the best options for young families and downsizing seniors — backyard accessory dwelling units, small neighborhood duplexes, or modest fourplexes, are either too difficult to get permitted or banned outright. This “missing middle housing” is compatible with single-family homes and affordable, so it is baffling that regulations ban these vital housing options.

With Hawaii’s median home price among the highest in the nation and limited land on which to build new housing, we need diverse and affordable housing options.

For Future Generations

Missing middle housing provides options that are lacking for young professionals, families, and kupuna. Duplexes, triplexes, townhomes and accessory dwelling units offer a middle ground between single-family homes and large apartment buildings. But to build them, we need to allow and permit them.

At Housing Hawaii’s Future, advocating for missing middle housing is an important step in ensuring that future generations can call Hawaii home. As long as housing costs continue to outpace income, young people will be priced out of the communities they grew up in.

Housing like triplexes and townhomes allow our diverse and often multi-generational families to live close to each other and give all residents more pathways to affordable homeownership and rentals. Allowing homeowners to build additional housing helps them cover the costs of their mortgages while creating much needed rental stock.

Housing options like accessory dwelling units and small complexes can accommodate the changing needs of kupuna who may want to downsize from a larger home but still remain in the neighborhoods they know and feel comfortable in. It would allow kupuna to build multigenerational homes, so they can live with their children and grandchildren. It would also allow them to build a unit for a caregiver.

This legislative session, our legislators can pass “Missing Middle Housing” legislation, House Bill 1630 and its Senate companion Senate Bill 3202. The bills allow smaller, more affordable homes in our neighborhoods where they fit in, preserving all existing county regulations on building size and infrastructure capacity.

The bill is limited to the urban land use district, reducing the pressure to sprawl into agricultural and conservation land. As Daniel Orodenker, the head of the Land Use Commission, said in his supportive testimony, these bills will “protect agricultural lands by removing some of the development pressures on those areas.”

By allowing homes on smaller plots of land and allowing several homes to a lot, SB 3202 and HB 1630 lower the cost of buying a home in our neighborhoods and empower multiple generations to remain together, keeping our local families in Hawaii.

This affordable housing solution doesn’t require hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Families can create their own affordable housing with their own money. But government has to get out of the way and allow it to happen.