Pana‘ewa Hawaiian Homestead hub secures funding for design, site prep
State money will pay for design and site prep for the Pana‘ewa hub, a project DHHL has carried in commission files since 2022.
A future Hawaiian homestead hub in Pana‘ewa has secured $350,000 in state funding for design and initial site preparation, giving the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands a first buildable step on a project that has been moving through commission records since 2022. For Native Hawaiian families on Hawai‘i Island, the money pays for the work that turns a concept into something that can be permitted, graded and eventually built.
The site is tied to the Pana‘ewa Resilience and Agricultural Innovation Hub, a 10-acre DHHL parcel across from Home Depot in Pana‘ewa. DHHL materials identify the hub with a farmers market, Hooulu Āina, Aloha Panaewa-Nā Kūpuna and COVID Response, pointing to a community-use facility rather than a single-purpose building.
The paper trail shows the project was not a one-off idea. A March 2023 DHHL agenda packet referenced a Keaukaha-Pana'ewa Farmer's Alliance Resiliency and Agricultural Innovation Hub Draft and an environmental assessment for TMK (3) 2-1-025:091 in Pana‘ewa. That same month, a DHHL orientation presentation said the hub had been created on 10 acres of DHHL land across Home Depot. The project was also referenced in commission materials in October 2022 and June 2023, showing a planning process that has stretched across multiple meetings and years.
The funding lands inside a much larger Pana‘ewa land-use framework. DHHL’s Pana‘ewa Regional Plan Update sets aside about 425 acres for residential homestead use, 1,500 acres for supplemental agriculture homestead, 446 acres for subsistence agriculture homestead, 40 acres for community use, 235 acres for commercial use and 365 acres for industrial use. That scale helps explain why even a small hub on 10 acres can matter: it sits inside a broader district planned for homes, farming, services and commercial activity.
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands says its current projects follow a multifaceted approach to housing options for beneficiaries. In Pana‘ewa, the practical test now is whether design work and initial site prep move the hub from a concept in commission files to a cleared, buildable site in East Hawai‘i.
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