 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jane Sugimura. Welcome to Kondo Insider. And this is a show about kondo living and issues that affect people who live and work in kondos. And today, we usually have a guest speaker, a guest speaker. But today, we're going to be talking about a very important issue. And that's fire safety in high-rise buildings after the Marco Polo Fire. And so we don't have a guest speaker, but we will be talking about the matrix, who will be the guest speaker, because that will be the star of our show. Anyway, everybody knows about the Marco Polo Fire that happened in, I believe it was July 14th. And that was a very tragic event, because people died and property was damaged. And as a result, the mayor introduced a bill, and it's called Bill 69. And what that does is it required mandatory retrofitting of all buildings over 75 feet. And that would be anything over seven stories to be retrofitted with water sprinklers. And all of this had to be done within five years. And the mayor has gone on record on saying that this is something that has to be done to prevent loss of life and property in the future with high-rise buildings. Our organization, the Hawaii Council of Association of Apartment Owners, and a lot of other people felt that the mayor's bill was just not appropriate, and it's not a good idea. You're talking about 361 high-rise buildings that were identified. First of all, there's not enough contractors in the state to do retrofitting of 361 buildings. Also, the buildings had no funds set aside for retrofitting. Even if the buildings wanted to retrofit, they couldn't get loans from banks because they'd have to get 50% of their unit owners to approve the loan. And the cost of retrofitting made it very unaffordable because it would be the unit owners who would pay for it. And so what the City Council did is they set up a residential fire safety advisory committee and led by the fire department to review all kinds of options and come up with recommendations to give the city, to amend the mayor's bill. And the people who were on that committee, the Honolulu Fire Department, the Hawaii State Fire Council, the City and County Budget and Fiscal Services, the City Department of Planning and Permitting, the State Department of Budget and Finance, Honolulu Board of Water Supply, American Institute of Architects, Hawaii Chapter, Honolulu Board of Realtors, the Hawaii Council of Association of Apartment Owners, Hawaii Building Trades, Hawaii Public Housing Authority, Building Industry Association and Community Association Institute, Hawaii Chapter. Okay, and what I'm going to talk about today are the recommendations that are being made to the city because there was an informational hearing this past Tuesday. And the report has been given to the city and it should be made public soon. So if anybody's interested, they should check with the City Council website to see where the report is. The recommendations made by the committee to the city is instead of having five years for the buildings to comply and put in automatic sprinklers, that it would be extended to 12 years for the buildings to comply with a process where their buildings would be inspected and they would have to go through a life safety evaluation. And what you're seeing on the screen now is the life safety evaluation matrix that was developed by the fire department and vetted by the committee. And what it does is it basically says is that of the existing buildings that are over 75 feet tall that don't have sprinklers, everybody, all of those buildings would have to be retrofitted for sprinklers, except if you fall within an exception. Okay, and this is very important. All buildings with no interior corridors, that means if your unit opens out into a balcony or an open walkway and then goes into a stairwell, you are exempt from the water sprinkler retrofitting. And if you are building under 10 stories, which means if you are eight or nine stories, you are also exempt, now out of the 361 buildings, those exemptions take out about 210 buildings. That means there's about 150 buildings that are left. And under this program, all 361 have to take the life safety evaluation and get a passing score, but those buildings that have no interior corridor and are under 10 stories will automatically pass. It's the ones that are over 150, I'm sorry, the 150 buildings that have interior corridors that are really going to be challenged by the recommendations. And so let's go through this matrix, because this basically sets out different safety features in a building. And these are things that you can't change, like how tall is the building? You can't change how tall it is. The higher the building, the riskier it is, you get minus points. Buildings under, and what it does is the life safety evaluation. It assesses the building features and the fire protection systems so that it will provide a minimum level of fire and life safety to the occupants and the firefighters. That's what this whole evaluation is supposed to set up to be. And so anyway, we talked about height, construction. What kind of walls do you have separating the apartment units? If you have concrete or masonry, that's plus points. If you have drywall, it's minus points. OK, those kinds of things you can't change. Doors, doors in your unit, are they solid doors, not hollow? No louver doors, they got to be solid wood with automatic closers. That means you check your buildings. If you don't have the solid doors, it's cheaper to replace the doors than to do retrofitting. And if you don't have the closers, just put the closers on because there are going to be plus points when they do the inspection. Also, you have the doors to the quarters. Go and check those doors. They have to be fire rated. And if they're fire rated, there is a label that is a fix to the door where it is connected to the wall in the jam. And so if you don't have those fire rated doors and the automatic closers, that's something that the buildings may want to do now because it would be plus points. If you don't have them, it's going to be minus points. Exit access. Do occupants have more than one way to get out of the building? In other words, if you have a typical building with a stairwell on each side, that means that people have two ways to get out. If you have that, it's going to be plus points. If you don't have more than one way to get out, it's going to be a minus point. Vertical openings. And these happen around things like pipes that you have in your building. And under the building code, when the building is constructed and you have pipes and conduits and things that go through the building from between floors, they're supposed to put some kind of seal so that there's no air. And if there is air, then those are minus points. So you should start looking through your buildings around vertical openings and make sure that all of them are sealed. Smoke management. And this is smoke proof enclosures. Or do you have open stairwells that are open to the air? Because those are plus points. If you have a mechanical pressurization in the stairwells, it's a big fan that will ventilate the closed stairwell. If you have one, then that is a plus point. If you don't have, it's a zero or minus point. Smoke detectors in the units, the city ordinance now requires one smoke detector in a condo unit. The current code calls for one smoke detector in the bedroom and one smoke detector in the hallway. And then if they're in tandem, it's plus points. And if you comply with the current code, it is plus points. If you only have one in the bedroom, it's going to be a zero point. So that doesn't help you in this matrix. Fire alarm systems. It depends on whether you have a bell type of a fire alarm. You have fire alarms that go into each unit called enunciators. And if the enunciators, is it just an alarm? Or is it a one way speaking? Because it would be plus points if you have a speaking thing alarm. Sprinkler systems. And most of these buildings don't have sprinkler systems. But if you do, that would be plus points. A stand pipe in each stairwell. So if you have a stairwell that doesn't have a stand pipe and you have more than two stairwells, then it would probably be minus points. Elevators. Most high-rise buildings have to renovate their elevators. If you've renovated your elevators, that means you've had to comply with the current code, which means your elevator talks to your fire alarms, your fire alarms talk to the smoke detectors. And they have emergency responses all built into it so that you would get plus points. If you have not renovated your elevators, you might have minus points. Emergency lighting and hallways and stairwells. This is something that you need to have. If you have it, it's going to be plus points. If you don't, it's going to be minus. And so we've gone through the matrix items. And so you can see that there are some things that you can change and some things that you cannot. And the reason why I'm here talking to you about it is that this matrix, when the city gets it and makes it public, it will be available to all of the building managers so that they can start working on trying to get their buildings up to speed. And in order, and what happens to the 150 buildings is if you take this evaluation and you don't pass it, and most buildings will not pass, that the only way you can pass it is by putting in a partial sprinkler, which means putting water sprinklers in the common elements, which means the hallways and the lobbies. And that's in a nutshell some of the recommendations. That's part of the recommendation that went to the city council this week. And we're going to be taking a break right now. And when we come back, we will be talking about what the buildings can do to get ready for the life safety evaluation that is probably going to start in the middle of next year. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11am. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii, not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea. Aloha. Guys, don't forget to check me out right here, The Prince of Investing. I'm your host, Prince Dykes. Each and every Tuesdays at 11am Hawaii time, I'm going to be right here. Stop by here from some of the best investment minds across the globe. And real estate, finances, stocks, hedge funds, managers, all that great stuff. Thank you. Welcome back to Condo Insider. My name is Jane Sugimura. And I'm here talking about the recommendations of the residential fire safety advisory committee to the city council regarding the recommendations to change the mayor's bill for mandatory retrofitting of high rises. In the first part of our program, we went over the matrix. And I've gotten a lot of calls from people who want to know when the matrix is going to be made public. The report has been given to the city council Tuesday. And so that should be made public. I don't know when the city council is going to do that. But the next hearing on the bill is November 14. So between now and the 14th of November, I believe that the recommendations of the committee and the matrix will be made public. So people can go online to the county website and see what it is. This part of the program, we're going to be talking about what the buildings can do to get ready for it. Because everybody, all buildings include the 361 that are on the list will have to pass a life safety evaluation. And under the statute, under the ordinance, the way it works is that the inspections are going to be done by licensed professionals. And they will be architects and engineers. OK, so those are the people who will be doing the inspection. The matrix, which is the tool that they will all use to do the evaluation, is an Excel spreadsheet. It was prepared by the fire department and modified by the committee who worked on it. It will be given to all the inspectors who will be doing the inspection. They'll all be working off the same Excel spreadsheet. And because the city is giving it to them free and it is part of the ordinance, the person who comes, the professional who comes to your building will be charging you for their professional time. So if they come to your building and it takes them a week to finish their inspection, it may be very expensive. But if you, as a building manager or an association board, prepare for this inspection and have information ready for them when they come to your building, it will shorten the time that they have to spend to complete the evaluation. And it will be cheaper for the building in the long run. The first thing you do is you get your building plans. Pull out the building plans. Because as you can see, the first part of the matrix talks about the building. How is it constructed? You have to show the inspector what kind of walls you have. Do you have masonry? Do you have concrete? Do you have drywall between the units? And why this is important is because if you have concrete or masonry, it's going to contain the fire in that unit. It's not going to spread outside. Whereas if you have drywall, it's going to spread faster. But if you have concrete or masonry, the likelihood of the fire spreading is minimized. And so you get points for masonry or concrete. And so if you have your building plans, you can show that to the inspector. And when they go and look at the building, they will be able to confirm that. Also, you know that they're going to be looking at stairwells. They're going to be looking for standpipes. And this might be the first time they've ever come to your building, and you know your building better than they do. So if you have somebody walk them around to show them where the standpipes are, to show them where the stairwells are, to show them where the lights are, this is going to reduce the time that they are going to spend in your building. And also, if you have done your elevator renovations, you should have that paperwork ready. Because that will tell the inspectors that you have done your elevator renovations and whether or not the, and what kind of upgrades were made to the fire alarm system and to the monitoring system in the elevators, and whether or not they're all connected. So that documentation would be helpful if you have it. And things like your doorways and your closers, automatic closers, you should walk around the building and take a look at them. Because you can replace them before the inspectors get there, like I said, replacing doors is cheaper than retrofitting. And things like smoke detectors. You can notify your owners that they can help with the building getting a higher passing score in the life safety evaluation if they put a smoke detector in every bedroom and one in the hallway. And if they're connected, in other words, if they're tandem, then they get even more points. And one way that the building can probably assist the inspector is to do an inspection of all the individual units to make sure that they have the smoke detectors. And they're cheap enough. If they don't have it, maybe the association can install them in order to improve their life safety evaluation score. Or the unit, you can just install them and charge it to the unit owner. But in any event, you can do the inspection. You can have somebody in your maintenance or management or organization go and check all the units and do a certification on the dates that the units were inspected and sign it and date it and give it to your inspectors to let them know that all of your units have smoke detectors in the bedrooms, in the hallways next to the bedroom, and which ones are in tandem. And things like the emergency lights that are required in the hallways and in the stairwells. If you don't have the lights or your lights aren't working well, I mean, this is a time to go and fix them. Because you're going to get scored on whether or not those lights work and whether or not they provide safety to people who want to get out of the building. And the thing that is different with the recommendations that are going to the council is that the changes proposed by the committee extend the time for compliance. The mayor's bill says that you have five years to comply by doing mandatory retrofitting. And the recommendations from the committee is 12 years. And that can be extended to 20 years if you are showing that you are trying to comply with the statute. And as I indicated earlier, the default or the bottom line is the statute says that all the buildings that are not exempt have to have a fire sprinkler system unless they fall into an exemption. So that's the bottom line. So what you want to do is make sure that you can get your building into an exempt area. And the exempt areas are no interior corridor and buildings under 10 stories. All other buildings have to pass a life safety evaluation, get a passing score. And with those 150 under the current recommendations, they will have to do at least a partial retrofitting, which would mean in the interior corridors and in the common areas like the lobbies. Our organization, the Hawaii Council of Association of Apartment Owners, has taken the position in the committee and at the city council. And we will be advocating in the city council that buildings should have the flexibility to avoid having to install even the partial sprinklers, because even partial sprinklers are expensive. And they should have the choice of upgrading, making changes to their building or upgrading their fire safety systems in order to comply, get a passing score. In other words, they should be able to make those other changes to get a passing score without doing the retrofitting. Because the retrofitting, even though it doesn't mean that the retrofitting will affect the individual units, it's going to be the pipes and the sprinklers will be in the hallway. They will be in the common element. That means that you are going to have to install some kind of a pump. And in our committee, we were told that you have to have a minimum of 10 by 10 space either in a basement or maybe in your rubbish room or somewhere in the building. You're going to have to have at least 10 by 10 to install this pump and the piping that will service the partial sprinklers. And that comes at a significant cost. But for buildings who want to do the sprinklers, that's fine. But there are some buildings who don't want to do it. And our position is it should be up to the associations to make that determination for themselves based on the people who live in the building and based on what they can afford to do. And so we will continue to advocate for that. And I contemplate right now that there will be further programs as the bill develops, because the first hearing is on November 14th. And I ask anybody who is interested in this issue to go to the City Council website. And it is in the Executive Matters Committee. It will be on a Tuesday. It will start at 1 o'clock. You can submit testimony online. And the bill with the recommendations will be online for you to respond to. So I really urge those people to get involved in the process, because this is a bill that is being fast-tracked. Second reading, I mean, the vote on the second reading will occur on December 6th at a City Council hearing. And that means third reading will happen in January. And the bill could be passed as early as February, 2018. And that means that sometime. And right now, I think in talking to the fire chief, it looks like they're advocating for July 1 to be the effective date. And so again, I urge you to stay in touch and watch the news and watch the City Council. And please get in touch with us and let us know how you feel, because we will be there, hopefully, representing the 150 buildings, as well as the other buildings who will be exempt. But we will be representing all of the condo owners in trying to resolve this in a way that works out for the safety of the occupants, as well as the firefighters who risk their lives to save people and property in these horrific events. Thank you for being with us today. And we're here every Thursday at 3 o'clock. So please tune in next week for another episode of Condo Insider. Thank you.