As a House member, I only interacted with then-Sen. Josh Green when our chambers met to discuss bills in conference committee. He approached the negotiations with all the slow-paced deliberation of an emergency room doctor – none. It’s why I was so excited to see him elected as our highest executive. We need a governor that’s not afraid to act quickly under pressure.

That’s exactly what he did with his July 2023 emergency proclamation on housing. Though I prefer his moderated revision, his initial decision to suspend most of our long-established regulations raised the heat in a conversation we’ve been having for decades. That alone could create change.

Most of us know the statistics well. Honolulu is the least affordable major U.S. housing market and ranks 91 out of 94 major global housing markets. London, New York and San Francisco were more affordable than us. Only Vancouver, Hong Kong and Sydney were more expensive.

As a result, our population is shrinking because our locally born population is leaving. We’ve seen a drastic increase in seniors pushed into homelessness. And, we’re still falling short of our housing production needs every year. Our shortage is an especially acute problem for Native Hawaiians, nearly 30,000 of whom are languishing, even dying, on the waiting list for Department of Hawaiian Home Lands housing.

It’s appalling really. Housing is a globally recognized human right. Yet in Hawaii, where we pride ourselves on our progressive bonafides, we never seem to treat homelessness and our lack of affordable housing as the crisis that it is. In lieu of meaningful action, the idea that foreign investors and wealthy vacationers will eventually push us out of the state was starting to feel like an inevitability.

Then, Green decided to grab the third rail of Hawaii politics – land use regulations.

A 2022 UHERO study found that Hawaii has the most restrictive land use regulations in the nation. Our affordable housing requirements for new construction are almost seven times stricter than the national average. Our court, state, and local community involvement in housing approvals is also higher, which undoubtedly contributes to our more frequent than average approval delays. The governor estimates these restrictions could add as much as $233,000 to the cost of a new home.

Hawaii’s politicians have been discussing regulatory burdens, at least, since Gov. John A. Burns’ promised his 1970 housing committee would conduct a “’serious review’ of zoning laws to see how regulations impacted the cost of housing.”

But that seems to be as far as we get. We’ve conducted studies and created working groups. We established housing authorities and redevelopment agencies. This year, the Legislature added another $300 million to the $1 billion it allocated for housing and development solutions in 2022.

They’re trying. But the solutions always seem to be too little and too late. I guess that’s why I’m glad Gov. Green took a different approach, even if it was too much, too fast.

His original emergency proclamation was a blunt instrument, suspending many of our state’s regulations designed to preserve Hawaii’s environment and unique cultural history.  We do need to balance the needs of the present with preservation of the future. We shouldn’t scrap our environmental reviews. We have a moral responsibility to Native Hawaiians to protect their burial sites. And exempting his proposed process from the Sunshine Law seemed unnecessary.

While I’m glad his amended proclamation no longer bypasses those laws, his willingness to take a bold, controversial approach showed me that he’s serious, that he understands the problem, and that he’s treating the issue with the urgency it deserves. Hopefully, that trickles down to everyone else in a position to make sure the Build Beyond Barriers working group doesn’t become just another attempt in our long list of attempts.

In Hawaii, where we pride ourselves on our progressive bonafides, we never seem to treat homelessness and our lack of affordable housing as the crisis that it is.

As a legislator, I spent a lot of time talking to developers and construction companies and regulatory agencies to attempt to understand the problem. No one could ever agree on where the bottlenecks were, or which agency was responsible for fixing them. But it really doesn’t matter whose fault it is.

With all the key regulations firmly back in place, the Build Beyond Barriers working group has an opportunity to bring all the major stakeholders to the table. Every agency knows where their own bottlenecks are. Historic preservationists, environmental advocates and Native Hawaiian rights organizations know what needs to be protected. And the business community knows what it’s going to take to build housing for a moderate not exorbitant profit.

If each of those stakeholders works together to apply their individual experiences and expertise to solving the housing crisis, I have no doubt they can find a way to balance the competing needs and values that make Hawaii the incomparable place it is.