The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is offering 832 homestead leases to beneficiaries on Kauaʻi, a batch that includes 750 single-family house lots in a new Līhuʻe subdivision and 82 leases for a second phase of an existing Hanapepe community. The offering, scheduled for Saturday, marks one of the island's largest rounds of Hawaiian homestead awards in years.
Of the 832 leases, the bulk — 750 — are tied to the planned Līhuʻe Homestead development, while the remaining 82 extend an already-established Hanapepe community, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The Līhuʻe project has changed shape since it was first planned: DHHL enlarged the size of the individual lots and, in doing so, cut the number of residential parcels from 1,000 down to 750. Initial homes in that subdivision aren't expected to be ready until 2031, the newspaper reports.
Grove Farm previously sold DHHL roughly 300 acres in Līhuʻe for the project, with the land purchase funded in part by a $21 million appropriation, per the Star-Advertiser's reporting.
Who Qualifies, and What It Costs
To receive a homestead lease from DHHL, beneficiaries must be at least 50% Hawaiian. Those who qualify pay just $1 a year for the land lease, the Star-Advertiser notes. The Līhuʻe project itself spans roughly 260 acres and is designed to eventually include 750 single-family homes alongside 100 subsistence agricultural lots, according to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
A Statewide Push, and a Waitlist That Keeps Growing
The Kauaʻi offering is part of a broader acceleration across the islands. DHHL is aiming to award more than 6,000 project leases over the next two years, and the agency projects nearly 3,000 leases will be issued by the end of 2026 — which would set a record for a single year, per Hawaii News Now. So far in 2026, the department had issued 82 residential project leases on Kauaʻi before this latest offering, and more awards are planned for Hawaiʻi Island, Molokaʻi and Oʻahu later this year, the station reports.
Despite that record pace, the agency's waitlist remains enormous: about 29,000 people statewide are still waiting for a homestead award, including roughly 1,700 on Kauaʻi alone, according to the same Hawaii News Now report. The numbers mark a dramatic shift from recent history — DHHL awarded approximately 2,600 homesteads in 2025, compared with just 84 the year before, the station reported in a separate account of the agency's leasing surge.
How Kauaʻi Compares to Other Islands
Other parts of the state have seen similarly large batches of awards this year. In July, DHHL offered more than 1,000 project leases across multiple homestead communities on Hawaiʻi Island and Oʻahu, according to the Office of the Governor. That same push included 824 project leases for communities in Waimānalo, ʻEwa and Nānākuli. In 2025, the department awarded 665 project leases for West Oʻahu's Kaʻuluokahaʻi and Kaupeʻa developments, plus 91 homestead awards tied to Puʻuhona Phase II and 390 more for Laʻi ʻŌpua and Kailapa on Hawaiʻi Island, according to Kauai Now's reporting on the agency's 2025 totals.
