Kauai County, HI Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Density Bonus Law (2026)

Kaua'i's workforce housing density bonus sits in Article 2 of Chapter 7A, the county's Housing Policy, which requires most residential and resort projects to set aside workforce units in the first place: § 7A-2.1(a) assesses a 20% workforce housing requirement on residential developments of 10 units or more, sold to households earning 80% to 120% of Kaua'i's median household income. Section 7A-2.3(a), added by Ord. No. 860 on November 20, 2007, layers a reward on top of that baseline: notwithstanding any other County ordinance to the contrary, a developer who integrates every required workforce unit with the market-rate units, so the two are interspersed rather than segregated, may build 10% more residential units on the site and shrink the minimum lot size by 10%, once the Housing Agency has evaluated the project's actual unit count and lot sizes against what the comprehensive zoning ordinance would otherwise allow.

That integration condition mirrors the separate incentive in § 7A-2.2(a), which cuts the underlying 20% workforce requirement itself by 25% for full integration, so an integrated project can qualify for both a smaller set-aside and the extra density in the same application. Section 7A-2.3(b) draws a hard line around where the bonus can apply: it is unavailable in the State land use agricultural district or in rural zoning districts, regardless of how the workforce units are configured, keeping the extra density confined to residential and resort-zoned land.