Above photo: Mark Meyer of RCFC (right) and the company’s attorney, William Yuen (left).
Mark Meyer, a representative of RCFC Kaloko Heights, LLC, has told the Land Use Commission that the company will not be making use of the Hawaiʻi County affordable housing credits that it purchased in 2015 from one of the companies associated with former county Housing employee Alan Rudo, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges of fraud. Not at Kaloko, anyway.
As Environment Hawaʻi has reported, RCFC purchased the four credits from the fraudulent Luna Loa Development, LLC, for $50,000 each. Affordable Housing Agreements worked out with the county Office of Housing and Community Development for the Kaloko Heights development stated that by using these four credits, RCFC satisfied requirements for 40 units of affordable housing.
Commission Chair Nancy Cabral asked Meyer if he was “aware of some controversy involved with that, that this may have been part of something else going on in the bigger picture of Hawaiʻi County, with problems with those transfers or those housing credits?”
Meyer replied: “I think I know what you’re talking about. We had purchased like three credits or something like that early on from somebody. I read about it recently. Bill [Yuen] brought me up to speed with it. Somebody was selling credits who is now in some legal hot water.
“We’re not actually relying on those credits for this development, okay? So that those, whatever those credits may or may not be, whether they are valid or not valid, it doesn’t affect this project.
“I think originally those were bought when the group was looking at, ‘hey, maybe we can get out and get started right away if we have some credits.’”
But, he continued, “we really determined as we looked at it that what we really needed was to find a partner to develop all the units so that we weren’t trying to piecemeal our way through this thing, okay?”
There has been no updated Affordable Housing Agreement with the county that deletes the use of the four housing credits.
County Office of Housing and Community Development administrator Susan Kunz was asked whether she had been notified by RCFC it would not be using the credits. She replied: “OHCD is not aware of RCFC’s intentions regarding its obtained housing credits. It would be inappropriate for OHCD to comment on that.”
But just because RCFC will not be using the credits for the Kaloko Heights project does not mean they won’t be using them at all. William Yuen, attorney for RCFC, was asked if RCFC had surrendered the credits to the county. Here’s what Yuen told Environment Hawaiʻi:
“The Land Use Commission and the county have differing affordable housing conditions and differing standards of how their respective affordable housing conditions [are met]. Mark Meyer told the commission RCFC would not use the county credits to satisfy the commission’s affordable housing requirement. That statement does not preclude use of the credits for other purposes.”
— Patricia Tummons
For more information, see “Affordble Housing Agreements May Violate Condition Set by LUC” in the April 2023 edition of Environment Hawaiʻi.
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