 Good afternoon. Welcome to another episode of Kondo Insider, and my name is Jane Sugimura, and I'm your host today for the show. And the title of our show is Bill 96 Redux, which means we're revisiting Bill 96, and I have a very important announcement to make. I came, not more than an hour ago, I came from a bill signing, and this is what it looks like. This is what the original Bill 96, and there'll be flashing portions. There it is. There's a summary, and the next page is going to be the first page of the bill, and the last page is the mayor's signature on the bottom left-hand corner. And so you've heard it here. Now it's going to be on the evening news, because like I said, I just came from the press conference. The mayor was there, and I was there, and there was maybe 20, 25 fire personnel, fire department personnel. I felt I was definitely outnumbered, but I was very pleased to be there, because we worked long and hard for Bill 96, which is the clarification of the fire safety ordinance. And somebody, one of the reporters there at the press conference made a note that the original ordinance, Bill 1814, which was Bill 69, that was passed in response to the Marco Polo fire, that bill was passed, and there was a similar signing press conference on May 3rd. So May 3rd tomorrow is a one-year anniversary of the ordinance that started this whole journey that ended in the signing of the bill today. And it was really quite extraordinary, because in between Bill 69, which was the basic ordinance, and the basic ordinance for those of you who are just joining the conversation now, Bill 69 and ordinance 1814 requires all high-rise buildings over 10 stories. 10 stories are over to have a fire sprinkler system throughout protecting the building. That means in the units and in the hallways, unless you have open exterior corridors, and that means when you walk out of your unit, and there's just air. That means you have an open exterior corridor. In other words, if you open your door and you see across the hallway another unit or a wall, that means you have enclosed interior corridors, and so you would have to install a fire sprinkler system or do something called a life safety evaluation. And so that's in a brief summary is what that bill was all about. And one of the provisions in the original ordinance allowed a building to opt out, saying that they didn't want to do sprinklers and they had enclosed interior corridors. And in that case, you would have to post notices in the building and notify any new owners perspective or the unit owners in your building who were selling their units would have to disclose the fact that they had no fire sprinklers in the building to prospective buyers. And so that's where it sat. And then after the bill was passed, and it began the hard problem of trying to implement it. And because this bill is so comprehensive, one of the issues was what buildings does the law apply to? And so we've been going round and round, and the fire department keeps submitting lists. And the lists, when they appear, I would get calls, the council members would get calls, and they would say, why is my building on the list? Or why isn't my building on the list? Do we still have to comply? And that was one of the reasons for Bill 96 is because people weren't sure whether or not the law applied to them. And if so, what deadlines applied would be applicable to them. And the bill has got three very important deadlines. One is already passed. In other words, if you were one of the buildings that were subject to the law, you had to, by November 1 of 2018, submit a letter to the fire department, the Honolulu fire department, that you would comply with the law. And if you weren't one of the buildings who were on the original list, of course, you could not have complied with that requirement because you weren't on the list. And in this bill that just passed, Bill 96, and it's public information, so you can go on the city website and look at it, the list of buildings is attached to the ordinance, this new ordinance. And if your building is on that list, that means you need to comply. And this list that is now on Bill 96 is I think the fifth list that the fire department submitted and by all accounts, everybody who kind of looked at it said, well, that's pretty close. And the number changed. It changed from like 390. It went down to 367. I think it's up to 370 now. And if, for some reason, some other buildings come to the fire department's attention and they get added to the list, there is going to be a current list of buildings and you have to go to the fire department website. And that's where you'll find the most current list of buildings. And so let's say you were a building that wasn't on the original list, or maybe you didn't know you were supposed to comply with this law or that the law applied to you. And now you look at Bill 96 and you see, oh my God, my building's on the list. And it was not there before. What do I do? Well, the first thing you do is you need to submit a letter to the fire department saying that you're going to comply. And at this point, if you act quickly, the fire department is not going to take steps to find you in violation. And the second deadline in the ordinance is within three years of the initial date of the law, which would have been May 3, 2018. And as I told you, tomorrow is the anniversary. One-year anniversary. So already one year has gone by, so that means you only have two years to do a life safety evaluation because the original Bill said that you had three years from the date of enactment to do a life safety evaluation. So now that we're hitting the one year anniversary, you have two years left to do a life safety evaluation. And before I explain to you what a life safety evaluation is, I'm going to tell you what the third deadline is. The third deadline is once you go through a life safety evaluation and assuming you don't get a passing score, then what you have to do is you have to make all these repairs that was pointed out by the licensed professionals who did your life safety evaluation and you have to get them repaired or you have to install the fire sprinkler system throughout the building. And for that work, you have additional six years from the first three-year deadline. Now, what's a life safety evaluation? A life safety evaluation is an inspection of the building by licensed professionals and they are looking at 17 items that appear on a list that we've been calling the matrix. It's a spreadsheet and it is available to the public on the Fire Department website. And there's like 17 items on this list so that if you want to know what's being inspected, you go on the website and you look at it. And some of the things on that list, you can't change like the height of the building. If you're a 12-story building, you can't change that. And the reason for the height of the building as being a factor is the higher the building, the harder it is for people to get out of it, and the harder it is for first responders to get into the building to address the emergency. So the higher the building, the higher the risk factor. Another issue is mobility. And that's something that I'm going to get into later. But mobility is whether or not people are going to need assistance in getting out of the building. So if you have a situation where you've got a lot of people who need assistance, then it's going to be harder to get them out of the building. And that means that there's going to be more work for the first responders because now they've got to get these people who have mobility issues, which means that you have a hard time getting around out of the building before they can address the emergency. And so that makes your score makes it harder to pass. And then there are things like standpipes, whether or not you have standpipes in your hallways. And there are other things that you can change. Those things you can't change because they're structural. And then there are things that you can change like fire-rated doors. Some of you may have heard that with the Marco Polo, they had doors with louvers, which are not compliant with the building code because it allows the fire to spread. And so a fire-rated door does not have louvers in it, and it has a metal closure at the top of the door, which makes the door close automatically. And so if you don't have the fire-rated doors with the metal closures, this is something that the association can fix. And that's a lot cheaper than putting in fire sprinklers. And things like an emergency evacuation, do you have an emergency evacuation plan? And that can be as simple as having a graphic drawing with the floor plan and where are the exits and maybe a line as to how you exit the building. And if you have an emergency evacuation plan and it's maybe posted on the wall on every floor and in the common areas and on a bulletin board somewhere, or you pass it out so that every unit has got the emergency evacuation plan maybe posted in their unit, that would be that would be something that you can address and you can do something about. You don't have one, you need to make one. And so you have to look at the list and a smoke detector, smoke alarm systems. And so you need to look at the matrix to figure out exactly what things you can change and maybe start taking steps to address them before you contact your licensed professional to do this inspection. And when they come and do the inspection, they will use something called the matrix. And like I said, the matrix is on the website, on the fire department website. And it tells you what conditions you have to meet. And if you don't have those conditions, like the fire rated doors with the metal closures, then you get minus points. And the person who is doing the inspection will inspect all of the 17 items and come up with a score. And when they come up with a score, the score will tell you what repairs or how what upgrade you have to make. And then you would use that licensed professional to get that information. And then the association can make an informed decision as to what repairs they need to make because the person who did the inspection can tell you, oh, well, you know, you missed the passing score by two points or by four points. And that's the time that you would say to the licensed professional, well, what do we have to do to get a passing score? And that's when they can make suggestions regarding the repairs that you have to make. And then you can determine what the costs are for those repairs and compare them as to what it would cost to install the sprinklers. And that way, the association can make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to do the repairs that are suggested by the life safety evaluation or whether they want to install sprinklers. And we're going to take a one minute break now. And then when we come back, we're going to talk about what happened with Bill 96. Aloha, this is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About where every other week, Mondays at 3, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation and world, and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're going to learn a lot. You're going to come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at 3 o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Aloha and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. You can catch me every Wednesday alive at 5. I'll see you there. Okay, welcome back to another episode of Condo Insider. My name is Jane Sugimura. I'm your host today and we're going to be talking about Bill 96 that was signed into law. It was signed into law by Mayor Caldwell at 1.30 this afternoon and so you're probably saying, well, why, you know, so what is it with Bill 96 and how does it change the fire safety ordinance that was passed almost a year ago? In fact, it's going to be a year tomorrow, May 3rd. And there are some changes mainly because, you know, it was, there were a lot of questions by the licensed professionals and by the associations as to how this bill was going to be implemented. And because it's a new thing, it's a new requirement imposed by the city on almost 370 high-rise buildings. So this is a big deal. And you know, so the council members and Kobayashi and Carol Fukunaga introduced Bill 96 to get clarification. And one of the big things was, who does this law apply to? That's why it's really important. And if you didn't think the bill applied to you, I suggest that you want to look at the list of buildings attached to Bill 96 which is available on the city's website because there's a list of buildings there and there's a list of buildings on the Honolulu Fire Department website. And if your building name is on there, that means that the ordinance applies to you. And there were several lists of buildings that were submitted to the city. And this one is the most current one. And people were calling us, saying, how come they were on the list? They had fire sprinklers. They shouldn't be on the list. And the fire department agreed. And so they made those changes. They also made changes for buildings because the buildings are categorized as having exterior quarters or interior quarters. Exterior quarters means that you don't have to put in, you're exempt from putting in the fire sprinkler system in your building. You just have to do the life safety evaluation. What changes happen other than what buildings, oh, and with the buildings, there are these deadlines that apply to you. And because when you have to do the repairs specified by the life safety evaluation, if you apply for a permit and it takes you more than 90 days, and those of us who sit on condo boards know that applying for a permit, you don't get them back in 90 days. I mean, I've got one for my building. We're waiting six months. And we may be getting it soon. That's what I'm hearing. But anyway, 90 days is a really short time. And so the ordinance says that if you don't get your permit approved to do your repairs within 90 days, then the deadline, the six-year deadline for compliance, is extended for the time it takes the city to approve your permit. And at today's bill signing, Mayor Caldwell assured us that he had talked to his Department of Planning and Permitting, and they were instructed to expedite all of the repair permit applications from condo associations relating to the life safety evaluations, and that because they're relying on third-party evaluators, they don't believe that any permit approvals are going to take more than 90 days. Of course, that remains to be seen, and I will believe it when I see it. And so I'm cautiously optimistic that that will be the case. But now the bill has a provision in there that says, if the city doesn't approve your permit within the 90 days, you get an extension. And the reason why that's so important is the fire department, in the testimony on this bill, gave verbal assurance that that's what they would do, but because we insisted that we don't want to rely on verbal assurance from the fire department. I'm sure that in good faith that this is what they really believe would happen, but we don't know who's going to be in charge in the future, so we want it codified so that if a building needs to get an extension that they would be entitled to one. And so that's a change that is in the ordinance. And another change that's in the ordinance allows association employees to help do some of the inspections for the licensed professionals, and that would mean going throughout the building and reporting on fire-rated doors and metal closures and smoke detectors in the units. And so if you, in connection with doing a life safety evaluation, what you can do is, you can have your maintenance people do the inspection, make a spreadsheet, give it to the licensed professional so that all they have to do is do a random sampling of the information that's on the spreadsheet that's prepared by the association staff, and that's going to save you a ton of money when you do your life safety evaluation. And one of the things, too, that is very important with this bill is the fact that this is not a done deal. I mean, the way the bill is set up, because this is such a huge undertaking, we're talking about 370 buildings, at least 370 buildings that are subject to the law, and at least two-thirds of those buildings have interior corridors, and so they will have to do life safety evaluations and maybe do some repairs. And because right now we don't know what kind of issues are going to pop up, I mean the fire department may have issues regarding compliance and the associations may have issues regarding how the inspections are actually done and how the results are reported. So this council has indicated, has specified in the ordinance that there will be reviews every six months for the first up until 2022. And this is a good thing. I mean, it's a good thing for the fire department that has to enforce the ordinance, and it's a good thing for the licensed professionals and the associations who have to do the life safety evaluation. I learned at the bill signing today that five buildings in Honolulu have completed their life safety evaluation, and there are about 30 more, kind of like in the pipeline, who have started the life safety evaluation, so it's starting. It's starting, and we don't know what kind of issues are going to come up. And if they do come up, because this bill 96 provides for a six-month review for the first three years of the bill, then all the stakeholders, the fire department, the associations, and the licensed professionals can all weigh in and meet with the city and make further changes that may be necessary. And one of the issues when we were negotiating these changes that I raised with the city and the fire department, this bill, the fire safety pattern, is modeled after a bill that was passed by the city of Chicago, and they have a similar type of inspection, but in their bill in Chicago, and they have about a thousand, they have about a thousand high-rise residential buildings, they do not have a mandatory fire sprinkler component in their bill, although they do have something that's similar to a life safety evaluation. And in the Chicago ordinance, the fire department is required to post the compliance information on their website. In other words, what buildings have complied, which buildings have not complied, and what exactly are the compliance issues. And although the fire department, our fire department, the Honolulu fire department, was very lucky to include those provisions in the ordinance affecting the buildings in Honolulu, the fact that they are going to participate in the six-month reviews with the city means that everybody will know, you know, whether or not there's a compliance issue, because it makes a difference, because if nobody's complying with the statute, with the ordinance, then we have a problem, and we need to address that. And if everybody's complying, or if there's a huge number of people complying, then that is an incentive or motivation for other buildings in town to comply. And so it's really, really important. It's really important for the associations and the licensed professionals out there to know that for the first two or three years of this ordinance that there is going to be a review. So if something isn't going right, or you have some questions, you have an opportunity, and which means that you have an obligation, if you have a concern, you have to let people know, because after the first three years, there's not going to be this periodic review. And so for today, that's all I've got for Bill 96, but you know, you have to stay tuned, because in six months, we're going to have our first review of how the ordinance is being implemented. And I invite you now to join us next week for a very interesting program. Today is the last day of the legislature. Yay. I'm so happy. But anyway, today is the last day of the legislature. So next week, Richard, Emery and I will be telling you about the bills that made it out of the legislature. And we will know which bills they are by the end of today. And so we will be reporting on them next week, Thursday. So please join us for that episode of Condo Insider. These are the bills that pass the legislature. They still have to be reviewed by the Attorney General and signed by the governor. And that's going to take maybe another 60 to 90 days. But we will have more information about that process in our next show. So please join us next week, next Thursday, for our next episode of Condo Insider. Thank you. And mahalo. See you then.