Patricia Morrissey, Phd, Director (, 808-956-2065)
The following comments on the draft revision of the Oʻahu General Plan are respectfully submitted by:
Patricia Morrissey, PhD, Director (, 808-956-2065)
David Leake, PhD, MPH, Specialist (, 808-956-0820)
Center on Disability Studies
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
1410 Lower Campus Rd., 171F
Honolulu,HI96822
Last year, our Center on Disability Studies (CDS) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoacompleted a study through an MOA with a consortium of nine State and County agencies involved in housing issues. This study met a requirement of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development that jurisdictions receiving Federal funds for housing must regularly report on impediments to fair housing choice and describe steps to be taken to reduce those impediments.
The nine agencies decided that this report should focus on people with disabilities, because for quite a few years “disability” has been the most common basis for complaints of housing discrimination in Hawaiʻi. This study is entitled “Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice with a Focus on People with Disabilities” and is available as a free download at
We believe that the revision of the Oʻahu General Plan should take into consideration the impediments identified and the proposed steps to remedy them, as described below. These comments are based on CDS’s analysis of the available information but should not be considered the position of the University of Hawaiʻi or its College of Education (where CDS is located).
The most substantial impediment to fair housing choice for people with disabilities identified by our study is the severe lack of housing that is both affordable and accessible to people with mobility difficulties. People with disabilities tend to be highly overrepresented at the lower income levels, and it is commendable that the current draft revision of the Oʻahu General Plan strongly promotes increasing the stock of affordable housing. However, the current draftcould take a stronger positionon accessible housing.
Rather than “accessible housing” our report used the term “visitable housing” in line with a national trend away from viewing housing solely as a domicile for individual households and towards a broader perspective that gives priority to promoting strong interpersonal relationships within communities. From this perspective, everyone, including people with mobility challenges, should be able to easily visit each other in their homes. Currently, many people with mobility challenges are unable to visit or be welcomed by their neighbors and suffer from social isolation as a result.
Another major social problem addressed by visitable housing is the all too frequent need for people to be placed in institutions as they age and become unable to fully care for themselves. The preferred alternative for most elderly people is be able to age-in-place, which they are more likely to be able to do in a home they can easily navigate with a wheelchair, walker, or cane, and which has an accessible bathroom with grab bars so they can bathe and use the toilet on their own.
The following six home features are needed to be certified at the lowest level of accessibility (called Type C) according to theInternational Code Council ("ICC")/American National Standards Institute ("ANSI") A117.1 Standard on Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities:
at least one zero-step entrance
interior doors with at least 32 inches of clear passage space
at least a half bath (preferably a full bath) that is accessible on the main floor
reinforcement in bathroom walls for future grab bar installation
space to maneuver a wheelchair in food preparation areas
light switches and electrical outlets within comfortable reach for all.
It has been estimated that over the lifetime of new homes up to 70% will be inhabited by at least one person with mobility challenges. The costs of modifying homes to be visitable is high, costing an estimated $3,000 to $10,000 to add a wheelchair ramp to an outside entrance and $8,000 to $20,000 to make a bathroom wheelchair accessible. Thus visitable homes are likely to save money over the long term.
These considerations led to a visitability resolution that was passed on May 4, 2017 by the Zoning and Housing Committee of the Honolulu City Council and is scheduled to be considered by the full Council on May 10, 2017. Resolution 17-113is entitled “Urging the City Administration to Incorporate Visitability Standards in the City's Building Code for New Residential Construction.”
The Oʻahu General Plan Should Add the Concept of “Visitability” to the Term “Affordable Housing”
A general recommendation is that the term “affordable housing” be replaced throughout the Oʻahu General Plan by a term that adds the concept of visitability. Our preferred term is “visitable affordable housing” (or “affordable visitable housing”).If it is determined that “accessible” is more readily known and understood, an alternative might be“accessible affordable housing”which is used by the non-profit Housing Hawaii organization in the introduction to its platform statements (available at as follows: “Housing Hawaii is a broad coalition of public, private, and nonprofit organizations dedicated to creating, preserving, and supporting accessible affordable housing for all through advocacy, education, and development.”The same term is used in the Housing Oahu: Islandwide Housing Strategy draft of 2015 (available for download at where one of the sections on updating policies and regulations is entitled “Improve the 201H Process to Create More Accessible Affordable Housing” (page 24).
Our suggested revisions for specific sections of the Oʻahu General Plan are indicated below with double underlines and double strikethroughs.
PREAMBLE
19.HOUSING AND COMMUNITIES
Obtaining decent, reasonably priced homes that are visitable and locatedin safe and attractive neighborhoodshas been a perennial problem for the residents of O‘ahu, and is a primaryconcern of the General Plan. This section recognizes the importance ofdeveloping whole communities that are well integrated with the surrounding landuses and natural environment.
20. The objectives and policies for housing seek to ensure a wide range of housingopportunities and choices; to increase the availability of affordable housingthat is both affordable and visitable;higher-density housing via mixed use and transit-oriented developments; toincrease the use of sustainable building designs and techniques; to reducespeculation in land and housing; and address issues associated withhomelessness so that all people have shelter.
SECTION IV. HOUSING AND COMMUNITIES
157. OBJECTIVE A
To ensure a balanced mix of visitable housing opportunities and choices for all residents at prices they can afford.
158. Policy 1
Support programs, policies, and strategies which will provide decent visitable homes for local residents at the least possible cost.
163. Policy 6
Maximize local funding programs available for visitableaffordable housing.
165. Policy 7
Provide financial and other incentives to encourage the private sector to build visitable homes for low- and moderate-income residents.
166. Policy 8
Encourage and participate in joint public-private development of low- and moderate-income visitable housing.
170. Policy 11
Encourage the construction of visitableaffordable homes within established low-densityand rural communities by such means as ‘ohana’ units, duplex dwellings, andcluster development that embraces the ohana concept by maintaining multigenerationalproximity for local families.
171. Policy 12
Promote higher-density, mixed use development, including transit orienteddevelopment, to increase the supply of visitableaffordable and visitablemarket homes convenientto jobs, shops and public transit.
172. Policy 13
Encourage the production and maintenance of visitableaffordable rental housing, ohanahousing, and accessory dwelling units.
173. Policy 14
Encourage the provision of visitableaffordable housing designed for the elderly andpeople with disabilities in locations convenient to critical services and to publictransit. the handicapped.
176. Policy 17
Support programs to address all facets of homelessness, so that every homeless person has a visitable place to stay, along with the infrastructure and support services that are needed.
177. OBJECTIVE B
To minimize reduce speculation in land and housing.
181. Policy 4
Require government-assisted subsidized housing to be visitable and to be delivered to qualified
appropriate purchasers and renters.
184. OBJECTIVE C
To provide residents with a choice of living environments which are reasonably close to employment, recreation, and commercial centers and which are adequately served by transportation networks and public utilities.
185. Policy 1
Ensure that residential developments offer a variety of visitable homes to people of different income levels and to families of various sizes to reduce large household sizes and alleviate the existing condition of overcrowding.
186. Policy 2
Encourage the fair distribution of low- and moderate-income visitablehousing throughout the island.
194. Policy 8
Encourage the military to provide visitablehousing for active duty personnel and their families on military bases and in areas turned over to military housing contractors.
SECTION VII. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT AND URBAN DESIGN
314. OBJECTIVE E
To maintain those development characteristics in the urban-fringe and rural areas which make them desirable places to live.
319. Policy 5
Encourage the development of a variety housing choices including visitableaffordablehousing in rural communities to replace lost housing inventory, and give peoplethe choice to continue to live in the community that they were raised in.
321. OBJECTIVE F
To create and maintain attractive, meaningful, and stimulating environments throughout O‘ahu.
325. Policy 2
Require the consideration of urban design and universal design principles in all development projects.
NOTE: “Universal design” refers to making environment and structures as usable as possible by people of all ages and abilities. A well-known universal design feature is the curb cut, a sloping break in a concrete street curb that enables baby strollers, roller blades, bicycles, and wheelchairs to move smoothly between roads and sidewalks. Visitable housing also adheres to universal design principles.
336. OBJECTIVE G
To promote and enhance the social and physical character of O‘ahu's older towns and neighborhoods.
338. Policy 2
Encourage, wherever desirable, the rehabilitation of existing substandard structures, including the addition of visitability features when feasible.
342. Policy 6
Support and encourage cohesive neighborhoods which foster interactions among
neighbors, promote vibrant community life, and enhance livability, all of which will be promoted through increasing the proportion of homes that are visitable.
378. Policy 8
Support becoming an age-friendly city that provides people of all ages with user-friendly
parks and other public gathering places, that offers safe streets and multimodaltransportation options, that provides an adequate supply of visitableaffordablehousing, that encourages growth in needed and desirable jobs, that providesquality health care and support services, and that encourages civic participation,social inclusion, and respect between interest groups.
NOTE: An action plan currently being implemented to make Honolulu an age-friendly city (available for download atincludes the recommendation “Promote basic accessibility requirements” through the action “Adopt ‘visitability’ regulations in new construction” (page A15). An age-friendly city will also support aging in place. A report issued in 2011 by the State Legislature’s Home for Life Task Force identified visitable housing as critical for enabling the aging-in-place for Hawaiʻi’s seniors, who are growing at such a fast pace that it has been described as a “silver tsunami” that threatens to overwhelm the state’s health and social service systems. This report (available for download at clearly explains the social and financial benefits of investing in visitable housing.