BYU-Hawaii President Steven C. Wheelwright [pictured at left] and Vice President of Administrative Services Michael B. Bliss met with interested faculty and staff on March 25 to answer questions about the university's recent decision canceling plans to demolish 26 homes on Moana Street in Laie and build 52 new replacement units on those lots.
President Wheelwright listed three reasons for the decision: "The first one was, we had seen HRI's [Hawaii Reserves, Inc.] project as our long-term solution... When their board determined they shouldn't proceed with what they were doing, they were told that they should instead focus on the needs of the university and the PCC."
He also explained that before asking Latter-day Saint Church officials for the millions of dollars the Moana St. project would cost, "we wanted to make sure we had a long-range plan that we believed in and knew what that was going to cost."
Second, President Wheelwright indicated BYUH was concerned with their development partners for the project. "You should also know that I consider HRI's capabilities as good or better than any of those that our partners were offering," he said.
"The third is, it was clear that a number of faculty had never been pleased with the fact that we were doing the project, that it was moving forward."
After studying all of the issues again, President Wheelwright said, "It was my decision that we weren't going to go forward with it; that instead, we were going to step back...and come up with another proposal that we want to be the first phase of a long-term solution that solved our long-term needs, as opposed to an interim step without having a long-term proposal."
He also said the university's Board of Trustees was supportive of the decision. "We don't feel like we undermined any of our opportunities with them. In fact, they felt that was appropriate when I explained what it was that led to this decision to stop."
President Wheelwright acknowledged the decision presented challenges, because families in 10 of the Moana St. houses had already moved into other rental units in expectation that the project would soon go forward. He also answered three types of questions he had been asked since notice of the decision went out on March 20:
He confirmed the proposed sale of university townhouses would proceed. "We're right where we were with that; nothing has changed," President Wheelwright said. He also confirmed BYUH would help secure Fannie Mae financing for those purchases. "That's what we'll be pursuing immediately...and expect within a couple of months we'll be closing on some of them."
For the third question, President Wheelwright said the university still plans to offer the Moana St. homes for sale. "We have not priced those homes yet," he added. "That's going to take a little longer."
Bliss pointed out that, starting with the vacant ones, BYUH will refurbish the Moana St. homes, which were mostly built by Latter-day Saint labor missionaries in the early 1960s and thereafter sometimes called faculty row. "We're going to try to start getting people to move back in by the first of May," he said.
"When we offer these homes for sale, the people who are in them will have the first opportunity to buy," President Wheelwright emphasized, noting those who don't want to buy can continue to rent. "Then we'll look at the process by which we offer unsold homes for sale to current faculty and staff who qualify."
He also explained between now and the Fall, BYUH would develop its long-range faculty and staff housing plan on university property and include it in the university's Plan Review Use (PRU) Permit application to the City and County of Honolulu. He said the PRU is "basically a wish list for the next 10 years of all that we might do on campus. They approve it once, and then we can go in and get quick approval for individual items."
"That will include three kinds of housing: Apartments — think of them as starter units for young married families; more townhouses and townhouse-like units, and we'll have more single family homes. Those may end up being homes we buy in the community, or they may involve new construction," he said.