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Hawaii News Now: Oahu housing tour gives young locals inside look at challenges of building affordable homes

September 4, 2026

By Annalisa Burgos

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A unique city tour on Friday showed a group of young professionals what it takes to build and buy a home in Hawaii and empowered them to create their own vision for affordable housing.

Nonprofit Housing Hawaii’s Future and the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii’s Young Professionals organized the tour for 50 young locals to bring transparency to the homebuilding and buying experience.

It offered an inside look into some of the new affordable housing developments on Oahu, including D.R. Horton’s master-planned community Hoopili in Ewa and Nan Inc.’s transit-oriented development The Park on Keeaumoku.

They also visited the offices of the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation (HHFDC) and Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA) to learn about the state agencies’ roles in housing creation.

At Hoopili, the group toured model homes, such as a new one-bedroom condo that starts around $500,000, and buildings that offer both residential and commercial use.

“It’s really cool to see the different uses of zoning that they have at Hoopili, just to see how there is like the flex use,” said Angie Knight, who does housing advocacy work. “Through these open houses, more people are able to see the different obstacles that the developers are facing.”

“I’m just here to learn, educate myself and not make assumptions,” said architect Chretien Macutay, who laments the outmigration of so many locals to the continental U.S. “We just have a lack of land that’s allowed to be developed to create housing compared to somewhere like Texas where my sister actually lives.”

Participants said they looked forward to learning about the challenges the state and developers face in building affordable housing and offer their ideas for solutions.

“I think they’re disconnected, but I don’t think it’s because they’re not listening. It’s because there just isn’t a bridge between young people and the people who are in charge, and we need to create that bridge,” said housing advocate Richmond Luzar, 27, who rents his home. “It is simply unaffordable and friends, family are constantly leaving Hawaii and we need to solve that.”

“I live at home with my parents still… it’s tough,” said Kaya Ishimine, 24, executive director of the Chamber’s Young Professionals Program. “I feel like there’s not enough education in our school systems for young people to feel confident going into buying homes.”

“This just gives us an opportunity for young people to look at what those problems are, what’s being done currently and how can we help,” she added.

“A lot of the housing decisions that are getting made have been made by generations before us,” said Lee Wang, executive director or Housing Hawaii’s Future. “There’s a lot of willpower and desire of places we’ve been and things that we like that can be infused and energy brought to this housing conversation.”

“It’s kind of on our generation to speak up and be part of that conversation so we can move some change forward,” he added.

The Chamber’s Young Professionals program will present a Kamaaina Housing Plan at its Cost of Living Summit on October 15. To register, click here.

See the story here.