Does the Ulana Ward HOA Include Water and Electricity?

No. At Ulana Ward Village, the 697-unit reserved-housing tower at 828 Auahi Street in Honolulu, water and electricity for the unit are billed to the owner and are not covered by the maintenance fee. The First Amended Developer's Public Report, given an effective date of August 29, 2023 by the Hawaii Real Estate Commission, checks four items in its table of utilities separately billed to unit owners: "Electricity for the Unit only," "Water (for Unit)," "TV Cable (for Unit)," and "Telephone; Internet (Units); master association dues." Sewer runs the other direction. The same page checks "Sewer (for the common elements and unit)" as included in the fee and leaves "Sewer/Septic System (for Unit)" unchecked.

One page of one filing settles that. The harder question, and the first thing worth ruling out before an offer goes in, is whether the maintenance fee printed in a listing is a figure the association ever adopted.

Which document actually sets the fee

Three kinds of document get confused with each other, and only one governs. The recorded ones define the framework. The Declaration of Condominium Property Regime of Ulana Ward Village is Document No. A-79200393 in the Hawaii Bureau of Conveyances; the Bylaws are Document No. A-79200395. Both numbers appear in the association's House Rules. Section 15 of those Bylaws, headed "Utility Expenses," puts water and electricity on the owner's side by mechanism rather than by name: the cost of service to any unit "separately metered, sub-metered or check metered shall be calculated based upon actual usage and shall be payable by the Owner of such Unit."

The developer's public report describes and estimates. It does not assess; Section E.22 of the purchase agreement warns that the developer "makes no warranty or promise regarding the accuracy of these amounts."

The number a buyer will actually pay comes from the association's adopted annual operating budget. Hawaii Revised Statutes §514B-144(a) states it in one sentence: "Assessments shall be made based on a budget adopted and distributed or made available to unit owners at least annually by the board." Section 18 of the Ulana Bylaws requires the approved budget to reach owners at least thirty calendar days before the fiscal year starts, and an annual report within ninety days after it ends. The Bylaws do not fix the fiscal year's calendar dates, so the budget itself is the document to ask for.

What $790.92 covers, and what stacks behind it

A three-bedroom, 878-square-foot unit listed in 2026 through Hokua Hawaii Realty, MLS 202613927 at $685,000, carries a maintenance fee of $790.92 a month. The listing says the fee covers "common area maintenance, sewer & master insurance," adds "$49.71 for cable/internet," notes that "water & electricity submetered & charged to the owner," and puts Ward Village community association dues at $35 a month.

That $790.92 is worth checking against the filings, because it appears there twice. Exhibit "H" of the October 2021 public report lists $790.92 monthly and $9,491.08 annually for unit type 5, at a residential class common interest of 0.202 per cent. Exhibit "H" of the August 2023 amended report repeats all three figures exactly. Nearly two years of construction passed between the filings, and a reserve study was added in the interval, yet the estimate did not move by a cent. The same holds at $477.69 for the one-bedroom type and $262.34 for the studio.

The certified budget behind that estimate shows what the fee line leaves out. Associa Hawaii, the managing agent, projected these residential collections for the year beginning August 2023:

| Assessment stream | Per year | Per unit, per month | Inside the maintenance fee? | |---|---|---|---| | Residential assessments (the maintenance fee) | $4,698,552 | $561.76 | — | | Electricity assessments | $1,095,180 | $130.94 | No | | Internet and cable assessments | $401,556 | $48.01 | No | | Water reimbursement | $249,144 | $29.79 | No | | Master association dues | $242,208 | $28.96 | The filing says both | | Total residential assessments | $6,686,640 | $799.46 | |

Per-unit figures divide budget totals across 697 residential units and twelve months; actual charges vary.

Total residential collections run 42.3 per cent above the maintenance-fee pool. The derived internet and cable figure of $48.01 sits close to the $49.71 the listing quotes, which is what Bylaws Section 15.B predicts: bundled cable, internet and digital telephone bought "at a negotiated but adjustable flat rate" are assessed as "an equal share of the flat rate charged by the provider," so every unit pays the same regardless of size.

Master association dues are the one line where Ulana's filing contradicts itself. Section 4.4 of both public reports lists them among items billed separately and not included in the maintenance fee. Exhibit "N" of the same report says the opposite: "The Master Association Dues are included in maintenance fees." Exhibit "H" books $242,208 a year as an assessment and the same sum as an expense, collected and paid through the association. The 2026 listing sides with Section 4.4, showing $35 a month separately. The association manager can settle what the documents cannot.

Which meter each charge belongs to

Sewer is the surprise, because it is the one Ulana includes. The 2023 budget carries "Sewer Service Residential" at $655,642 a year, roughly $78 per unit per month across 697 units, with no matching reimbursement line. Under Appendix 43-A of the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu, the City Department of Environmental Services charges multiple-unit dwellings on the city water system a base of $33.19 per dwelling unit per month from July 1, 2026, plus $11.83 per 1,000 gallons of metered water after a 20 per cent irrigation reduction, both rising every July through 2031 to $50.83 and $18.11.

Water for the unit goes the other way. The Board of Water Supply schedule adopted under Resolution No. 976, 2023 prices multi-unit residential service per dwelling unit: from July 1, 2026, $4.16 per 1,000 gallons for the first 2,000, $6.34 for the next 2,000, and $8.16 from 4,001 to 10,000. The building's bill arrives at the association, which reads sub-meters and rebills. Reading them is itself a budget line, $45,632 a year for water and the same for electricity, about $10.91 per unit per month.

Electricity is the largest pass-through. Hawaiian Electric's Schedule R, effective September 1, 2026, sets a single-phase customer charge of $13.90 a month, $0.430628 per kilowatt-hour for the first 350 kWh, $0.444573 for the next 850, and a $1.40 Green Infrastructure Fee. Those components reconcile exactly to the $232.71 the utility publishes as a 500 kWh residential bill for that month. Ulana's budget assumes about $131 a month per unit, roughly what a Schedule R customer pays for 270 kWh, though the tower buys on a master meter and the rate it passes through is not the residential tariff.

Common-element power, gas, water and basic internet sit inside the fee, along with $547,788 a year of residential insurance.

Ulana against Kōʻula, on the same form

Comparisons across Ward Village buildings are usually made in dollars per square foot, which hides what matters. Kōʻula, built by the same developer in the same master plan, filed its Third Amended Developer's Public Report on December 9, 2021 using the identical state form. The two filings differ box for box.

| For the unit | Ulana | Kōʻula | |---|---|---| | Water | Billed to owner | Included in fee | | Sewer | Included in fee | Included in fee | | Electricity | Billed to owner | Billed to owner | | TV cable | Billed to owner | Included in fee | | Basic internet | Billed to owner | Included in fee | | Master association dues | Billed to owner | Included in fee | | Gas | Not applicable to units | Not applicable to units |

Kōʻula's headline fee has been reported at $1.11 per square foot against Ulana's $0.90. On the 878-square-foot unit, the cable, internet and Ward Village charges alone lift $0.90 to $0.997 before a drop of water or a kilowatt-hour is counted.

What to ask the association manager

Hawaii law gives these rights to unit owners and their authorized agents, not to prospective purchasers, so a buyer works through the seller or a written authorization. HRS §514B-154.5 requires the managing agent or board to produce the records within thirty days of a written request and caps copying at $1 per page, covering the declaration, bylaws, house rules, "all public reports and any amendments thereto," the current financial statement, board minutes and the ledgers.

1. Request the adopted operating budget for the current fiscal year, with the summary §514B-148(a) requires. It must state the reserve balance, the assessment needed to fund reserves, and "planned increases in the estimated replacement reserve assessments over the thirty-year plan."
2. Request the letter of unpaid assessments. Section 12.B of the Ulana Bylaws gives the board or managing agent twenty business days to produce it, and a buyer is not liable beyond the amount it states.
3. Request the reserve study in full.
4. Request twelve months of the unit's sub-metered water and electricity billings, the only way to price the two charges the fee excludes.
5. Request board minutes covering budget and assessment votes.

Associa Hawaii manages the project from 737 Bishop Street, Mauka Tower, Suite 3100. Under HRS §514B-103(a)(2), the association's biennial state registration names a designated officer, separate from the managing agent, for exactly these requests.

When a listing says "utilities included"

For a Ward Village building the phrase means little without Sections 4.3 and 4.4 of the current public report. Ulana and Kōʻula would both support the claim and mean different things by it. Three disclosures are commonly missing: which utilities are metered to the unit rather than the building, whether master association dues sit inside the fee or beside it, and whether the quoted fee came from the adopted budget or the developer's estimate.

What can move the number after closing

Ke Kilohana, the other Ward Village reserved-housing tower, is the case study. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported in May 2021 that its board had raised maintenance fees 53 per cent early in 2020, less than a year after the building opened, adding roughly $150 to $300 to monthly payments, against Howard Hughes Corp. estimates of around $270 for one-bedroom units and $525 for most three-bedroom units. Andrew Gomes had reported in March 2020 that operating expenses were exceeding fee revenue by $40,000 to $50,000 a month, leaving nothing of the roughly $14,000 a month meant to build reserves. Ken Kasdan, an attorney with Kasdan Turner Thomson and Booth representing the homeowners, said the increases "effectively render those units as no longer being affordable." The developer called the claims baseless, attributed the costs to staffing, insurance premiums and water and electricity use, and pointed to a disclaimer stating that such estimates "are not intended to be and do not constitute any representation or warranty by the developer." The same wording appears in capital letters on the first page of Ulana's Exhibit "H."

Four mechanisms can move the figure. A board can raise assessments inside its own budget year, though HRS §514B-148(e) and the Ulana Bylaws both stop it at twenty per cent above the adopted annual operating budget, absent an emergency or a majority vote of the affected unit class; beyond that line it must adopt a resolution with written findings on why the expense could not have been foreseen and distribute it with the notice of assessment.

Reserves are the second. Pauli Wong, PCAM, RS, president of Associa Hawaii and one of a handful of certified reserve specialists in the state, swore in the 2021 filing that "the Developer has not conducted a reserve study for the Project" and that the reserve figure rested on "the 10% minimum FHA loan underwriting requirements." The 2023 report added a study. Section 514B-148(b) lets a new association defer collecting replacement reserves until the fiscal year after its first annual meeting, so the first full reserve assessment can land after move-in.

The third is a tax rather than an assessment. The purchase agreement discloses that a community facilities district special tax may be levied on the owner's real property tax bill, "limited to not more than 0.2% of the first Unit Owner's Total Purchase Price" and "subject to up to 2.0% annual increases," which is $1,370 a year on a $685,000 unit, charged under HRS §46-80.1 and absent from the maintenance fee. Utility rates make the fourth, moving on published schedules no board controls.

No special assessment has been disclosed at Ulana. The disclosed cost of arrival is one month's maintenance fee in advance plus a non-refundable reserve contribution equal to two months, or $2,372.76 on the $790.92 unit.

For reserved housing these numbers reach the sale price itself. Hawaii Administrative Rules §15-22-185.1(a)(2) requires that monthly payments, "which consist of principal and interest, real property taxes, insurance, and fees and costs required by the bylaws of a condominium property regime," not exceed thirty-three per cent of gross monthly income. Renters fall under the same rule at thirty per cent, their version covering "all utilities and other building operating costs, excluding telephone and cable television service."

What belongs in the file

Keep the current public report and every amendment, the recorded Declaration and Bylaws by document number, each adopted budget with its summary, the reserve study, the letter of unpaid assessments, twelve months of sub-meter billings, and the board minutes. Minutes are where physical problems surface first: the Ke Kilohana construction complaint of 2020 alleged more than sixty defects, among them plumbing that admitted sewer odors and potentially poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas into homes. Under HRS §514B-144(h) the board must notify owners in writing of a maintenance fee increase at least thirty days before it takes effect, which dates every change. Past-due assessments bear interest at a rate the association sets, capped by statute at eighteen per cent a year.

Frequently asked questions

What is the HOA fee for Ulana Ward Village?

It depends on the unit. The developer's certified schedule runs from $262.34 a month for the smallest studio type to $896.64 for the largest, about $0.90 per square foot. A 2026 listing for an 878-square-foot three-bedroom shows $790.92. Confirm it against the adopted budget.

What does it cost to live in Ulana Ward Village each month?

The maintenance fee is one of five charges. On the 2023 certified budget, total residential assessments average about $799 per unit per month: the fee plus electricity, internet and cable, water reimbursement and master association dues. Property taxes, unit insurance and mortgage payments sit on top.

How does Ulana compare with other condos?

Ulana's fee excludes water, cable, internet and, by one reading of its filing, master association dues. Kōʻula's fee includes all four. Both exclude electricity for the unit. Dollars per square foot will mislead unless Sections 4.3 and 4.4 of each public report are checked.

Which utilities are individually metered in the unit?

Water and electricity. Both are sub-metered, read by the association and rebilled to the owner on actual usage under Section 15 of the Bylaws. Sewer, plus power, gas, water and basic internet for the common elements, are not metered to the unit and sit inside the fee.

What is Ulana Ward Village’s address?

Ulana Ward Village is at 828 Auahi Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813, in Kakaʻako, at the corner of Auahi and Kamani Streets. The developer's public report gives the tax map key as (1) 2-1-053:001, expected to change as the land was subdivided.

When is Ulana Ward Village scheduled to be completed?

It is finished. The tower opened to residents on November 3, 2025, with closings running into early 2026. All 696 reserved housing units were allocated by lottery; units returning to the market now move through HCDA's buyback process rather than a new sales release.