Principal Investigator: Colin Moore PhD, Associate Professor, Center for Public Policy
Project Specialist: Kenna Stormogipson
Graduate Student Assistant: Joy Agner

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a complex process that requires collaboration among a wide variety of stakeholders, both public and private. The need for ongoing coordination prompted the establishment of the Hawaiʻi Inter-Agency Council for Transit Oriented Development (TOD Council) in 2016 under the leadership of Governor David Ige. While the TOD Council has made significant gains in developing a collective vision for smart growth in Hawaiʻi, challenges remain in establishing effective multisector collaboration. The goal of this project was to gather and analyze key state and county agency perspectives on TOD collaboration, and to offer ideas for process improvement.

Principal Investigator: Daniele Spirandelli PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban & Regional Planning
Graduate Student Assistants: Imelda Carlos, Sara Doermann, Yusraa Tadj
Course integration: PLAN 620 Fall 2017
PLAN 620 Students: Wesley Bradshaw, Trevor Fitzpatrick, Sameer Saraswat, Malachi Krishok, Courtney Payne and Cody Winchester, Erin “Bear” Braich, Imelda Carlos, Matt Fernandez, Umeyo Momotaro, Aarthi Padmanabhan, Brandon Soo, Kialoa Mossman, Daesza Tomas, & Sky Uyehara, Lara, Mukai, and Nishioka, Britta Johnson, Marc Malate, Grace Wolff, Emily Odell, Mio Shimada, and Navin Tagore-Erwin

Principal Investigator: Priyam Das PhD, Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Urban & Regional Planning
Course integration: PLAN 678 Fall 2017
PLAN 678 Students: Aida Arik, Bear Braich, Laura Mo, Amanda Rothschild, Brandon Soo, Grace Wolff, Britta Johnson, Cody Winchester, Luke Sarvis, Malachi Krishok, Miles Nishioka, Sameer Saraswat, Trevor Fitzpatrick, Marc Malate, Umeyo Momotaro, Wesley Bradshaw, Matthew Fernandez, and Rocco Tramontano

Students conducted stakeholder interviews, site visits, and planning research to support site selection, program development, site analysis, and conceptual site designs for the 5 state land parcels surrounding the Waipahu transit station.

Principal Investigator: Priyam Das PhD, Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Urban & Regional Planning
Teaching Assistant: Yusraa Tadj
Course integration: PLAN 751 Spring 2018
PLAN 751 Students: Wesley Bradshaw, Erin Braich, Trevor Fitzpatrick, Britta Johnson, Malachi Krishok, Laura Mo, Umeyo Momotaro, Kelsey Morfitt, Samuel Mukai, Amanda Rothschild, Sameer Saraswat, Brandon Soo, Jennifer Wheeler, and Grace Wolff

Practicum students further developed the baseline research generated in PLAN 678 and 620 to provide a comprehensive planning report. There was a share and learn event. Student groups shared their current research on different issues associated with transit-oriented development such as climate change, placemaking, affordable housing, transportation, and community economic development, and learned from community members how these might be contextualized to meet their needs and priorities. The event was free and open to the public with pupus, giveaways, and a co-designing activity. Among the attendees were Leo Asuncion, Director, Office of Planning, representatives from various state agencies, Department of Planning and Permitting, SHADE, and Senator Clarence Nishihara who engaged students in a Q & A session.

Principal Investigator: Suwan Shen PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Urban & Regional Planning
Graduate Student Assistant: Imelda Carlos
Course integration: PLAN 642 Spring 2018
PLAN 642 Students: John Canner, Elizabeth Dionne, Matthew Fernandez, Miles Nishioka, Silvia Sulis, Rafaela De Melo Barros, Kishor Bhatta, Wesley Bradshaw, Mintu Miah, and Brandon Soo

This project particularly addresses the infrastructure concerns for the statewide TOD development using Waipahu as a case study. The project is organized into three phases; review of the existing condition and community needs, future demand analysis, and policy recommendations. In the first phase, students evaluate the existing condition in field trips under the guidance of practitioners from State and City and County agencies. To understand the community’s perception and needs for infrastructure improvements, they also conducted a community survey during the field trip. In the second phase, students and graduate assistants collected data, interviewed key stakeholders, and applied the analytical methods learned in PLAN 642 to estimate the future travel demand, stormwater runoff, and sewer discharge for the build-out scenario. Lastly, to address the problems identified, best practices are reviewed to make suggestions for the study area. Suitability studies are conducted using geographical information system to find the most suitable areas for implementing the suggestions.

Principal Investigator: Wendy Meguro AIA, Associate Professor, School of Architecture
UHCDC Staff: Rebecca Ogi Denzer
Course integration: ARCH 490 Coastal Communities and Flood Resilience

The purpose of this study is to examine flood mitigation design criteria for a new rail transit hub community that is undergoing rapid urban planning and development: the Waipahu Transit Oriented Development (TOD) area on Oahu. The process is a replicable methodology that may be applied to other future developments. This report identifies the extent of anticipated flooding; proposes proof-of-concept level design criteria to mitigate flood damage to roadways and buildings; presents built examples of proposed strategies; and identifies relevant flood design standards and emerging resilience rating systems.

The existing and proposed Transit Oriented Development (TOD) neighborhoods of Waipahu Transit Center Stations and WestLoch in Hawaiʻi are revisited by a proposed computational approach of Urban Network Analysis (UNA). The four measures of UNA: reach, gravity, closeness, and straightness are employed for investigating walkability in these given urban neighborhoods. In each measure, 1) accessibility to transportation, 2) intersections frequency, 3) residential building density, 4) commercial building density, and 5) industrial buildings density are delineated and proposed as vital factors for improving planning and design decisions on walkability patterns around the TOD neighborhoods.

Principal Investigator: Cathi Ho Schar FAIA Assistant Professor, School of Architecture
Project Staff: Mark Lombawa
Student Assistants: Shane Matsunaga, Gladys Razos, Ivy Tejada, Sho Tetsutani, Kristyn Yamamotoya

This study synthesizes findings from the DURP faculty partners who provided site planning, ecological hazards study, infrastructure assessment, a community workshop and planning report, and the work on the Waipahu tree canopy and flood mitigation studies, to provide a catalog of housing block typologies that work within the TOD urban and ecological context.

Principal Investigator: Cathi Ho Schar FAIA, Assistant Professor School of Architecture
Project Staff: Mark Lombawa, Rebecca Denzer, Nicole Biewenga
Student Assistants: Shane Matsunaga, Gladys Razos, Ivy Tejada, Sho Tetsutani, Kristyn Yamamotoya

The design considerations presented here synthesize the findings from each study into a set of diagrams, sections, close-ups, and case studies that visualize future scenarios. The visualizations do not represent proposed designs, and instead, should be engaged as vignettes that communicate site design, program, and density approaches shown to scale and in context.