Hawaii voters will decide next month whether to let developers fund roads, water, and sewer lines with a new kind of bond, which could lower home prices for buyers but shifts some risk onto taxpayers.

• Developers now pay for infrastructure around new housing, and that cost gets added to the price of every home or condo — often tens of thousands of dollars.
• The proposal would let the state issue RISE bonds, paid back out of the new property taxes a finished project creates.
• Counties would keep collecting what a vacant lot already pays, but give up the extra tax revenue a new home brings until the bond is paid off.
• Mayors back it because workforce housing is a bigger need right now than the extra tax money.
• If construction runs late or over budget, the bondholders still have to be paid, and counties and taxpayers could be left covering the gap.

Outlook: Hawaii voters decide on question two in November, and a yes vote would open the door to billions in infrastructure borrowing.