DHHL commissioners approve Nanakuli lease terms and mortgage amendment amid calls for association review

The Hawaiian Homes Commission voted July 22 to approve changes to lease terms for the Nanakuli Village Center and to allow an amendment to a mortgage with American Savings Bank, moving forward despite multiple public speakers who asked the Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead Association to first hold a community review of its bylaws and finances.

The vote followed a long public discussion in which residents and association leaders described the Nanakuli Village Center and Hale Makana affordable housing as local economic development intended to provide jobs, cultural programming and low‑cost housing, while several beneficiaries said the association had not kept the wider community adequately informed.

Kamaki Kanahhele, identified in testimony as president of the Nanakuli Hawaiian Homestead Association, described the Village Center and Hale Makana as a long‑standing community effort and an economic model. "This Nanakuli Village Center . . . is the only center of its kind statewide on Hawaiian homestead lands," Kanahhele said, and he detailed financing sources used for the project, naming New Market Tax Credits, American Savings Bank, and private guarantees from two individuals that he said were necessary to complete the development.

Kanahhele and other presenters said the development produced both commercial space and 48 rental housing units (primarily three‑bedroom units) funded with an approximately $14.5 million financing package that Kanahhele…