Bagot pointed out that at least a dozen other affordable developments in the Islands, and several th

From left, Lofty Lam, Yuk Lin Marr, Carol Anzai, president of the resident association, and Kelly Arrington discuss their concerns over the pending sale of their home, Kukui Gardens. The affordable-housing complex cruises to panama canal has a good chance of being partly or wholly preserved.
Moreover, experts say the grass-roots campaign residents employed to save their homes from redevelopment could well become a national template as federally subsidized housing developments nationwide lose their deed restrictions.
Kukui Gardens residents say they never expected their fight would rise to such prominence, becoming a statewide call to preserve affordable housing and giving cruises to panama canal a voice to thousands of working-class cruises to panama canal families who lost out in the booming housing market.
Anzai, president of the Kukui Gardens Resident cruises to panama canal Association, was key to spotlighting the issue. When she heard of the impending sale in January 2006, she called Councilman Rod Tam, whom she had worked with during his time in the Legislature. Tam pledged to come to a tenant meeting.
Before the gathering, Tam bumped into the Rev. Bob Nakata and Drew Astolfi, leaders in Faith Action for Community Equity, at Zippy's on Beretania Street. "I said, 'Bob, you're an advocate for affordable housing, and I need your help,' " Tam said.
Anzai remembers the first meeting she had with residents after the sale was announced � the one Astolfi, Tam and Nakata attended. About 40 people crowded into the community center at Kukui Gardens. cruises to panama canal Tenants were worried about becoming homeless. Many said they had no place to go.
In some ways, the strategy for their campaign was developed at that first meeting � essentially, residents pledged to appeal to anyone who would listen. With FACE, they sent out news releases, set up press conferences and held community meetings.
Anzai scheduled resident meetings nearly monthly, calling on state representatives and senators, and members of Hawai'i's congressional delegation to attend. cruises to panama canal Before every meeting, Anzai would call her friends � and they would call theirs � reminding them to attend. Hundreds of people cruises to panama canal turned out for a meeting early on with Ching Foundation and Carmel Partners officials.
But the campaign really started gaining momentum, Anzai said, when concerned citizens outside of Kukui Gardens cruises to panama canal got involved. They were fighting to keep the project affordable for the principle of it � to send a message that Hawai'i's working people need affordable homes.
As it stands, Kukui Gardens is poised to become partly or wholly affordable in perpetuity. The state is pursuing eminent domain proceedings to purchase the property, but private, San Francisco-based developer Carmel Partners also is trying to work out a deal to buy half of the project and allow the other half to be purchased by a nonprofit entity.
The deal would require about $55 million in state funding and about $30 million in private financing, which includes plans for the renovation of existing units and construction of at least 200 additional apartments. Representatives from Carmel Partners and the Kukui Gardens Corp., which owns the project, did not return calls for comment.
Originally, Kukui Gardens Corp. planned to sell the project to Carmel Partners for $131 million. Though Astolfi cruises to panama canal and others are not yet claiming victory in their fight, they are now confident a significant portion of the project will remain affordable.
"It's going to be the template for thousands of other developments all over the nation," said Bagot, cruises to panama canal who lives in San Francisco. "Because if we can win in a hot market in Hawai'i, we can win anyplace."
Bagot pointed out that at least a dozen other affordable developments in the Islands, and several thousand nationwide, are subject to the same restrictions, many of which are set to expire over the next few years.
The deed restrictions are all expiring around the same time because so many affordable-housing cruises to panama canal projects were built with federal funds around the same time � in the 1970s and '80s, during a nationwide push to provide more housing for low- and moderate-income cruises to panama canal families.
Tam, who is chairman of the City Council's newly created affordable-housing committee, said he expects the Kukui Gardens fight will inspire other residents cruises to panama canal in the Islands faced with the loss of their affordable rentals. And FACE-Hawai'i President Alan Mark said those tenants will likely have an easier time getting support for their cause early on, thanks to Kukui Gardens.
cruises to panama canal Though they've been told they don't have to, Kukui Gardens residents still worry about whether their homes will be saved. Some say they won't rest until they have it in writing that the project will be kept affordable.
"It's one of the things that we could do in the area of homelessness is prevent more homelessness," Mark said. "This was natural in the sense we were looking at 857 families who would likely be homeless in 2011. So we decided to take that on, never thinking this would take a year and a half to fight and still not be finished."
Nakata, also of FACE, said the organization was small and largely ill-prepared when it took on the Kukui Gardens fight. He had just joined cruises to panama canal the organization when it got involved in the issue. Earlier, he had been involved in bringing attention to the growing number of homeless people in Hawai'i.