Mayor Blangiardi approves aid to small and medium-sized businesses affected by railway damage

Along busy Dillingham Boulevard, in front of a Korean fried chicken restaurant and next to an ongoing railroad-related construction zone, Mayor Rick Blangiardi said Friday that Skyline is the subject of a struggle to stay open. Officially signed a bill allowing the city to provide financial assistance to small businesses. Fixed guided track systems are coming.

Measure 40, adopted by the City Council in January, aims to provide grants of up to $10,000 to eligible businesses that opened before January 1, 2022. Eligible companies will receive subsidies annually, but only as long as construction is active. His nearly $10 billion rail line, the Honolulu Rapid Transit Authority, remains in the region.

Scheduled to go into effect on July 1, the measure would apply to railroad projects that are majority owned by residents, have 15 or fewer employees, and have annual revenues of less than $750,000 before full-scale construction begins. Applicable only to small and medium-sized enterprises that have opened their own businesses. In the same block as the business office.

Bill 40 would also include a community service element under city agencies not yet designated by the mayor’s office.

Before signing the bill, Blangiardi noted that the early stages of construction of the East Kapolei-Halawa line were causing many small businesses to go out of business, “especially in Waipahu,” the mayor said.

“And despite the fact that the most difficult part of rail construction down the Dillingham Corridor is about to begin, and despite what we will be doing for many years to come, We are determined to ensure that such a thing never happens again.”

“So I think this is a really good thing because, as we all know, small businesses are…the backbone of our communities,” he said.

One small business owner also attended the bill signing.

“We definitely need a little help,” says Yudai Fukuda of You Kitchen, a Japanese fusion restaurant located at 565 Kokea Street on the Makai side of Dillingham Boulevard. “We still have to pay (rent), we still have to retain our employees, and we have nowhere to go right now.”

Fukuda said this is not necessarily the case at a company that employs 14 people.

When the restaurant opened two years ago, about 1,200 customers visited each day. Fukuda said he is now lucky to see 500 regular customers a day.

“So, when we first started the business, it was pretty good, but since this construction happened, sales have gone down about 60%,” he said, noting that railroad construction has restricted vehicular access to the business. However, he said. “Some of our customers told us straight up that they couldn’t turn left or that they couldn’t come in during their lunch break.”

Bill 40, introduced by City Council members Tyler dos Santos Tam and Radiant Cordero, who represent portions of Kalihi, effectively defunds the city’s existing but dormant Traffic Construction Mitigation Fund. It is something that activates the body.

Established by city law in 2018 under then-Mayor Kirk Caldwell, the fund received funds to mitigate the negative economic impacts of construction of the Honolulu Mass Transit Project, now known as Skyline. , was planning to spend.

That same year, the Council allocated $2 million to provide real estate tax relief to eligible businesses. And the following year, the council added $750,000 to the mitigation fund.

In 2019, Caldwell issued a message saying that HART should now be “responsible for transit construction mitigation measures” and cover related costs.

But in early 2023, HART’s board of directors voted unanimously to remove the railroad authority from any mention of stewardship of that fund.

And a program to distribute funds to the mitigation fund has never been established, leaving affected businesses empty-handed. City officials claim that the fund itself is currently completely inactive.

Under the 2018 law, spending from that fund was supposed to include subsidies for businesses forced to relocate due to rail construction. Business interruption subsidy to compensate roadside residents for loss of income due to construction impacts. Working Capital Advance – A loan to cover the operating costs necessary to keep a railway open during the construction phase.

Hart has awarded Nunn a $496 million contract to carry out utility relocation work along Dillingham Boulevard by 2022 as the railroad moves toward downtown. The work, called the City Center Public Works Relocation Project, will include, among other things, the installation of one of two 138-kilovolt power lines underground.

Construction along Nan’s Dillingham Corridor is expected to continue until 2026, but the railway is not expected to be completed until 2031.

Before signing the bill, Dos Santos Tam answered questions from reporters, including how many businesses had closed due to past railroad construction through West Oahu towns like Waipahu. It was

“I would have liked to know the number. I wish the number was zero, but we know there were some, and we didn’t want to see something like that here.” , he said outside Soul Chicken at 1095 Dillingham Blvd. Its owner, Anthony Hung, previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that business was suffering because of railroad construction. “We wanted to make sure there was some lifeline for these businesses here in Dillingham and for years to come.”

But Dos Santos Tam added that “many other municipalities across the country have similar programs in place.” We are not the first. ”

“We said, if this works in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Mesa, Arizona, and many other places, it will work here,” he said, adding that along Dillingham Boulevard, “there are probably several There will be a place for that,” he added. At least a dozen companies will qualify. ”

He added that the City Council will “work with the Mayor and his administration to develop final new rules regarding this project.”

The city says subsidies for businesses along the line will continue to be available as construction continues on the site of the proposed Civic Center station in Kakaako.