State agency offers apartments to private investors ADVERTISING State agency offers apartments to private investors HONOLULU (AP) — A state agency decided to lease six of its apartment properties to a private investor, prompting affordable-housing advocates to worry that the
State agency offers apartments to private investors
HONOLULU (AP) — A state agency decided to lease six of its apartment properties to a private investor, prompting affordable-housing advocates to worry that the state’s shortage of space for low-income families could become worse.
The properties include a total of 1,221 rental units on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island, which are currently occupied by hundreds of low-income tenants who rely on state and federal rent subsidies.
The Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. is soliciting bids for the properties until today. The properties are being offered without an asking price under what would be long-term ground leases — up to 75 years for five of the properties and 40 years for one property.
The six projects were developed in the early 1990s to cater to moderate-income families earning up to 80 and 100 percent of so-called area median income. And while the agency has a mission statement “to increase and preserve the supply of workforce and affordable housing statewide,” it stated that owning and managing affordable housing is not part of its core function.
The agency stated it is making an effort to minimize displacement, though. It will impose affordability requirements on any new owner, capping annual rent increases at 2 percent for the first five years for current tenants. But after that, rent could increase up to the maximum income caps for five of the six properties.
The agency plans to pay off $76 million in bond debt that was used to develop the properties. Any net proceeds will be used to fund rental assistance subsidy programs.
Just fewer than half of the tenants at the six properties, or 581 units, are receiving state-funded rental assistance subsidies of $175 a month. Some 140 tenants receive Section 8 housing vouchers that assist low-income families with rent.
Woman sentenced for attempting to smuggle drugs
WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — A Maui woman was ordered to serve 18 months in jail for attempting to smuggle drugs to her inmate nephew who was convicted of second-degree murder.
Susan Capobianco, 50, was sentenced Tuesday. She also received four years of probation.
A Maui Community Correctional Center guard saw Capobianco pass her nephew a package during visiting hours in February, Maui Deputy Prosecutor Tracy Jones said. The package contained 12 cigarettes, about 0.3 of a gram of methamphetamine, marijuana, hash oil and rolling papers.
Capobianco acknowledged to guards that she passed the package but said she thought it contained just cigarettes to be traded for food, Jones said.
Her nephew, Steven Capobianco, 27, was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Carly Scott, and second-degree arson of her vehicle. He was sentenced in March to life in prison with the possibility of parole for murder plus 10 years for arson.
