 everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Kondo Insider. My name is Jane Sugimura, I'm going to be your host for this episode. And this is the show for people who live and work in condominiums. And so hopefully this show will give you some helpful information. Today, I'm really pleased to have as my guest, Council Member Carol Fukunaga. She's the Council Representative for Council District 6. Hi, Carol. Aloha. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for joining us. I mean, Carol's been our big advocate on this particular issue, so I asked her to be here because there's going to be a hearing on June 29th at the City Council, right, on this issue. And so why don't we just start with a little bit of background. Okay. Okay. And Carol represents District 6. And so you can see District 6. And in fact, you have one of the larger districts with high-rise buildings that are affected by this law, right? That's correct. My district has the most of any of the other council districts. So we were very concerned about the impact of this law on single, I guess, condo owners, as well as condo associations. Okay. We're talking about ordinance 18-14. That was passed in May of 2018. And this was the reason for this bill, the fire safety bill. It was because of the fire at the Marco Pole in July of 2017, right? And why was the bill, I mean, how did the bill come about? Okay. This bill was adopted, you know, when the Marco Polo fire took place. And so at that time Mayor Caldwell introduced legislation to require that fire sprinklers be installed in individual condo units for all condo properties. And for those buildings that were built before 1975, this would have been a significant hardship for many of the owners who had never envisioned that they would have to retrofit their buildings. And for some buildings, this would become a real safety and construction burden. So what we did was we set up a task force to develop recommendations to present, you know, that would help us address how best to provide safety as well as address the impacts of the legislation upon individual condo owners. And so that task force was chaired by former Chief Nevis. And I believe that Jane was a member of the task force so she can also speak to some of the recommendations that came from that task force. Right. And I think, I mean, what we were tasked to do was to figure out, you know, some type of, come up with some type of framework that would provide safety to the first responders who have to enter a burning building and to allow people who are inside the building to safely exit. That was the task. How do we, you know, how do we come up with some kind of legislation that would protect both types of, both parties. And the Marco Polo was template. I mean, we heard all kinds of stories about all the bad things that they found in that fire, like vertical openings, which are, when you make a building, right, you have to make, you put a core in it so you can run all your wires and whatever. And so what they do is they seal these holes. But after, over time, after 30, 40 years, like at least some of these buildings were built in the late 60s and 70s. Right. Those seals are gone. And so what you have is this opening and fire travels and in air goes up. Right. So that's why they said that the fire and people who watched on TV, and they saw the fire moving up the building. And you say, well, how can that happen? It's because they were traveling through these vertical openings that, you know, and the fire was just moving. And so that's why vertical openings and high rises are considered to be not a good thing. And, you know, one of the deficiencies that are checked, and that's one of the things that happens in the fire safety ordinance. What we wanted to do is we want to strike a balance because sprinklers are so expensive. I mean, you're talking not a million dollars. You're talking several millions of dollars. And that's just a very high price to pay for retrofitting. And so what we wanted to do was come up with alternatives. In other words, if you didn't want to spend $14, $15 million on a fire sprinkler into retrofit your building, what else could you do? And that's when the life safety valuation was discussed and adopted. And what it is, it's a plan. And it means that, you know, buildings have to go in certain buildings. If you're, you have to be over 10 stories tall, and you, you know, you don't, you know, if you have vertical openings, which are, you walk outside of your unit and you're, you've got air instead of a corridor instead of a wall, that's called open exterior corridors. And so if you are over 10 stories and you don't have exterior, open exterior corridors, you have to do a life safety evaluation and get a passing score. And the fire department, you know, is, is the, I guess it is the regulator, but the, you each building hires a licensed professional to do the life safety valuation. And we came up with something called a matrix. And the matrix is like a spreadsheet. And it has, it has 17 items. And every, you know, the licensed professional will do an inspection and it will basically check these 17 items. And if they aren't, if they're, you know, if they're not completely up to snuff, I mean, up to code, then they will give you, they will knock down points. And, and at the end, you know, you have to get a passing score. And if you don't get a passing score, then you have to make changes to your building to make it safer. So that, you know, you do get a passing score on the life safety evaluation, then you don't have to do the fire sprinklers. And yes, what we found out is that there's a lot of these buildings that were, you know, built, you know, 40, you know, 50 years ago, you have a lot of vertical openings. And in order to, you know, get a passing score, you can't have two floors. I mean, if you have two floors with vertical openings, then you're going to fail the life safety evaluation. So you figure if you've got a 30 story building, and two of your floors have got vertical openings, you're not going to pass it. But that doesn't mean that it's over. It means that you just have to do some other things to make up for the fact that, you know, you have vertical openings. But it doesn't mean that you have to ignore the, you have to fix the vertical openings, which are expensive. But you know, if you can imagine every floor, you've got to put the seals back on all of those openings to make sure that you don't create a situation where there's an updraft where the fire is going to spread throughout the building. And, you know, and people who, you know, board directors and owners who are concerned can check the matrix, excuse me, they can go onto the Honolulu Fire Department website, and they can, you know, check the matrix, which I said is a spreadsheet. And it deals with 17 items that are in your building, things like standpipes and vertical openings, and whether you have smoke detectors, or whether you have louvers on your doors, or you know, doors and fire raided. I mean, there are 17 items and this way you can go onto the matrix and figure out, you know, what's there and have your building people go through your building and check and see if, you know, you have to, you know, fix them. If you have louvers on your doors, you've got to replace those doors. If you don't have fire raided doors, you've got to replace the fire, you know, and the fire raided doors means it's got to be hard, it's got to be solid door, cannot be hollow, right? And it's got to be a certain width, I think it's 1.56, and it's got to be solid. And your corridor doors is a metal plate that's right by where the door jam is. And it will tell you how long that door will hold back fire. And so these are things that, you know, if buildings are interested on what the license professional is going to check, they should go on to the fire department's website, look at the matrix, and figure out, you know, what items they can check and fix and replace before they do their life safety evaluation. But they have to do their life safety evaluation. And in most cases, and what, and the fire department under this ordinance has to do a, what is it, six month report that they report to the city, right? And that's what raises the concern that's leading to this meeting on the 29th. Because the fire department is reporting, I think they've got over only half of the 360 buildings in Honolulu, right, that have submitted life safety evaluations. That's correct. There's been about 150 or more that have submitted life safety evaluation forms. However, the fire department has also reported that only six of the properties have received passing scores. So on top of those buildings that have not submitted a life safety evaluation form, or have not come up with a plan for their life safety evaluations, they are also kind of under the gun at this point because we've had to extend the deadlines several, in several instances over the last two years. So for example, the life safety evaluation form needs to be completed in three years beyond May 3, 2018. And it was supposed to have expired this year in 2021. However, in light of the pandemic, we did extend the deadline to May 3, 2022. However, after we received the report from the fire department saying that there were only six buildings that have passing scores, we wanted to review with condo property owners, condo associations, managers, insurance, design professional types of representatives to see what's happening in the condo communities, and to see whether other assistance is needed. Because once your life safety evaluation is completed, you have a specified period of time. So each building would need to comply with the life safety evaluation within six years after May 3, 2018. This was extended one year to May 3, 2025. The entire building would need to be protected within 12 years after May 3, 2028. I mean, 2018, which would have meant that the buildings had to be completed within the 12 year period that would extend to May 3, 2031. So because many buildings have not quite gotten through the first step, we wanted to bring together stakeholders to find out what they were facing and what they were experiencing. And I really applaud Jane and HCCA for pulling together a variety of discussions where people are talking about the challenges they face. Yes. And the problem is, the pandemic, I think just made it worse. I mean, this is something when the bill was passed and the law ordinance was passed in 2019, nobody knew that we would have this pandemic in 2020. Which meant that a whole lot of people living in condominiums lost their jobs, reduced hours, and that affected the cash flow that comes into an association. And so one of the challenges that is created by the life safety evaluation is that you have to do, if you don't get a passing score, you have to do repairs. And one of the repairs is fixing vertical openings or upgrading your fire alarm system. And upgrading the fire alarm system, just the hardware, I'm told is over a million dollars, which is still better than installing fire sprinklers, which is multiple millions of dollars. But still, a million dollars is hard to come by when people have lost their jobs and aren't working. And so that's the challenge. I think that is facing condo owners now and the fact that there's so many buildings that didn't get a passing score. And for all of these repairs that we're, most of these repairs that we're doing, we have to get permits. And there's the issue of department planning and permitting and how quickly you can get a permit. And so if you've got all of these buildings standing in a queue, I mean, are we going to all, you know, are we going to be able to get the, you know, the permits that are required in order to comply with the deadline set by the ordinance? And that's kind of where we are hopeful that engaging in a, you know, in a community wide discussion that includes condo owners, insurance providers, you know, for condo associations, condo managers, design professionals and legal experts, we can identify through these discussions, you know, what the challenges are and what kinds of steps we should take to provide assistance either through state or county legislation, funding mechanisms or other kinds of financial aid procedures. Because the more we engage everyone together at the outset, we think that we'll be able to come up with better solutions that will accommodate the broad variety of buildings and the different circumstances that different condo associations may be facing. For example, one of the condo properties in my district is, you know, it's viewed as a sort of luxury condominium. I think this is 1010 Wilder. You know, they are also among those that are required to comply with this requirement. And one of the issues that their property managers have identified is the fact that there's a very small number of owner occupants in that building. And so coming up with a specific strategy is, you know, a very, very challenging issue in ways that we never even heard about at the time that we were going through recommendations, you know, for this fire safety ordinance. And at this point, we have tried to build in more reporting requirements for the fire department because we know that, you know, since we have learned that only six buildings so far have received passing scores, that we have to work much more closely together in order to find ways to help buildings comply in a way that's going to be cost effective for their condo association and condo owners, as well as provide safety. The total number of buildings that are affected by this fire safety legislation is in and around 370 or maybe it's a little bit lower now. Some buildings have been eliminated, you know, along the way because they either were below 10 stories or their internal design did not really fit the criteria. But when you look at the number of units that are involved, our preliminary estimates were that over 50,000 residents, you know, would be affected if penalties were imposed upon the various condo associations for whatever deficiencies might befall that particular condo association. And so the midi briefing that we're having next week Wednesday, it's scheduled for one o'clock p.m. in the Honolulu City Council Chambers. The agenda is posted at our Council website, www.honolulucitycouncil.com, and we welcome any kind of written or oral comments from condo owners, condo managers, and others involved in this process because the more information we can collect now, that information is going to help us come up with better solutions. So I really appreciate this opportunity with Jane today to talk about some of the concerns and challenges of complying with this condo fire safety law. Yeah, and you know, thank you, thank you very much anyway for giving us this opportunity because you know, I don't think, you know, when we were, when we were, you know, in the task force and trying to, you know, address the problem of how to make our buildings safer, that we would, you know, be involved in a pandemic that would affect the cash flow to the buildings, you know, and you're talking about trying to raise maintenance fees now to pay for the repairs that are required because of the life safety evaluation. And I know that's, that's, you know, we're going into budget season now with condominiums. We're going into the budget season. And so I've been asking, you know, our site managers and our, and our managing agent, you know, to come up because we did not pass our life safety evaluation. So we're, you know, one of the challenges we have is to try to find out what it's going to cost to upgrade our fire alarm system. And like I said, we've gotten, we don't have a bid yet, but I've been told it's anywhere from a million to a million two. We have one estimate from the engineer who's going to be engineering all of this. And that proposal is 75,000. And, you know, we still need to get a project manager because you're talking about installing these, these new, that new devices in every unit in our building. So we have 300 units. So, you know, that's going to take a lot of coordination. So you have to hire a project manager, you know, and, and, and, and, I mean, it's a complicated project because the devices have to be connected to the elevators and to the smoke detectors. And I don't know, I mean, they were trying to explain it to us, but it's very complicated. And it's, you know, very expensive. Very expensive. I do want to make one quick correction. I erroneously identified the time for public infrastructure and technology meeting as 1pm next Wednesday on June 29. And the committee meeting is actually at 2pm. I just checked the agenda and happy to provide, you know, additional corrections if they are needed. But we have also posted copies of the fire department's reports regarding the most recent analysis of those life safety evaluations that were submitted as of April 2021. So, you know, for anyone who may be watching or for condo managers and residents who are interested in learning more about this, this whole life safety evaluation type of process, they can also take a look at the committee agenda. And we do have a lot of information that is being added to provide background and context to why we're asking for comments and people's observations this year. Because we would like to see, you know, a coordinated effort in moving forward towards solutions that will help condo owners as well as their condo associations, because this is kind of a massive undertaking. And anytime you look towards adopting or implementing a change that's going to affect over 25,000 condo units, that's a really big project. And, you know, knowing how many projects are also underway in terms of commercial construction, residential construction, all of the condo properties that have to comply with this ordinance are competing in a marketplace in which I understand the costs of materials have gone up, shipping and other kinds of conditions have really been dramatically disrupted as a result of the pandemic. So, the conditions are a lot tougher than what we envisioned at the time we initially adopted this law. And given that, you know, what you just raised, the fact that we're all going to be competing for a limited number of contractors and probably supplies and everything's going to have to come in from the mainland. And, you know, for upgrading the fire alarm systems and fixing the vertical openings and dealing with other things. Is there a chance that we could get an extension on that six-year deadline? And I understand from talking to the fire department that that six-year deadline means that we have to have in hand. We don't have to have the work completed. We just have to have permit in hand and a contractor, a sign contract, and something to show that we are actually going to proceed with the work. So, it doesn't mean that we have to have it done. But still, when you think of all the different buildings in town that have to have a contract in hand and a permit, right, within six years, I mean, that's kind of, you know, very challenging, especially given the issues that we all know occur with Department of Planning and Permitting. You know, and that I think that's a concern that, you know, that we're going to have to probably discuss. And it might be helpful to have somebody from DPP at that hearing to tell us. They told us, you know, when the Marco Polo was doing the, when they were installing their, doing their retrofitting, we were told that DPP had fast tracked their permit, right? It would have taken, ordinarily, it would have taken years for the Marco Polo to get their permit to do their fire sprinters. But we were told that they fast tracked it. So, are they going to fast track the life safety evaluation repairs so that all of these buildings can get their work done? And I know the fire department's going to say, well, don't wait till the last minute, because if you wait till the last minute and you come to us for an extension, we're going to say no, because you waited too long. But the thing of it is, you know, I think they're, and what concerns me, too, is that we're only halfway there. There's still about 150 buildings in town, and they only have less than a year now, because now the deadline is May 3, 2022, right? And so they have less than one year to get their life safety, and it doesn't take long. I mean, from the time we contracted and they came and they did the inspection, I think we were done in maybe, you know, 60 days. But still 150 buildings in town, 60 days times the number of licensed contractors, I don't know if they're going to get done. And if you wait till the last minute, then you're going to miss that deadline, that first deadline of May 3, 2022. So is there a chance on getting some extensions? And I know the fire department has been very adamant every time I've talked to them. They said, well, you know, you show you're doing stuff in good faith, and for some reason, you just can't make the deadline. And of course, we're going to extend the deadline. But you know, we're going to do it on a case by case basis. This is not comforting. This is not comforting, you know, to me, because I know there's going to be buildings out there that for some reason are not going, you know, are delaying, procrastinating, for whatever reason. And they just don't understand that the fire department, I mean, this has been a dialogue that we've been having with the fire department for years. And they kept saying, no, no, no, no, no, we're not going to extend those deadlines. I think for the, you know, the condo owners and the condo associations, this is really the period to watch very closely as to, you know, the progress that is being made by individual properties. We changed the six month reporting requirement back to a three month reporting requirement over this next year, because we want to be able to monitor whether or not substantial progress is being made or not. So I think from the council standpoint, you know, one of the potential solutions is extensions, but at the same time, we want to address the need for either financial or other assistance if, you know, that is what is holding up the implementation. Okay, you know, we're kind of running out of time, but I want to ask you a question. And this wasn't something that we discussed, but I just, you know, reading the news, you know what happened in Miami with the collapse of that condominium? And I didn't realize that Miami had a certification. They have a certificate, they certify buildings. And this building was going through their 40 year certification. And so that might be something that, you know, the Honolulu might want to think about, you know, in the future, because we don't have any type of certification. And God knows, you know, we don't want something like that to happen to one of our high-rise residential buildings, like what happened in Miami. I mean, that's kind of scary when you look at the pictures. True. I totally agree with you that we should take a look at, you know, whatever will help safeguard condo properties because condo properties are an important housing resource and we want to preserve and protect them as long as we can. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, we've run out of time and I really, really appreciate you coming and hopefully, I mean, word will get out and people will contact your office or at least, you know, listen and tune into the meeting on Tuesday or provide, you know, input so that it can be considered by your committee when, as we move forward on this journey, because it is a journey. It just seems like every time, you know, you, you know, every time, you know, you move like two steps forward and you get hit with the pandemic and now we're, you know, five steps back. And, you know, so, yeah, it's a challenge and a journey. And the end of it is that the buildings in Honolulu are going to be safer. And but, you know, it comes at a price and we appreciate your support and your efforts to help all of these high-rise buildings, you know, deal with this issue. Thank you so much, Council Member. Thank you very much for having me. Aloha. Okay. Thank you. And thank you to our viewers for tuning in and please tune in next week. Rayleigh and Tenna will be your hosts for the next episode of Kondo Insider. Aloha and Aloha.