APAHI Exclusive Preview: Hawaiʻi Zoning Atlas

A team of volunteers with expertise in software development, urban planning, and GIS is preparing to launch the Hawaii Zoning Atlas, an online, interactive map revealing how land use controls treat residential uses in every zone in the state of Hawai'i. The goal is to inform state and local policy decisions about housing, transportation, climate change, and public infrastructure.

APAHI members are encouraged to explore the pre-release version of the map at https://hawaiizoningatlas.com/, and to provide comments, suggestions, or corrections by email to hawaiizoningatlas@gmail.com.

To build the novel dataset that powers the map, volunteers and student interns read each County’s land use ordinance, extracted over 100 key data points per zone in each jurisdiction and validated them with planning staff. Although jurisdictions often make shapefiles available, using them requires GIS skills and a working understanding of land use law, and few regulatory details are included. After launch, this dataset will be freely available to government employees, academic researchers, the media, and the general public for use in planning, policymaking, and advocacy.

The Hawaii Zoning Atlas (or HZA) is affiliated with the National Zoning Atlas, a nationwide collaborative of researchers digitizing, demystifying, and democratizing ~30,000 zoning codes. Because all atlases use the same data standard, the project enables, for the first time, apples-to-apples comparisons of residential zoning among jurisdictions in 24 states (and counting). The NZA recently won the 2023 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability.

HZA was made possible by its partners, most especially Code with Aloha, a service organization for technology professionals, which provided pro bono data analysis, user experience, and software development assistance. The project was funded in part by a grant from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, with administrative support from Faith Action for Community Equity and Code for America. It is led by Trey Gordner, M.U.R.P., who also works as a technology fellow for the Federal government and serves on the Ewa Neighborhood Board. Many thanks to our advisors and volunteers, who gave their time generously for a good cause.