 think tech away civil engagement lives here hello huh welcome to condo insider I'm here with my co-host Jane Sugimura a prominent local attorney going to talk about association matters and particularly this week we're on the final hours of bill 69 the residential fires sprinkler bill for non sprinkler building going before the final vote of the City Council next Wednesday April 25th so we want to talk about we've got an insight what's going to happen but first welcome to the show Jane and I know HCCA Hawaii Council of Community Associations helps sponsor this show to help educate board members and owners yes and and this is one of the things we do you know we we we advocate for the rights and benefits of people who live in condos and we try to educate owners and board members and people who are involved in the industry relating to a management and operation of these buildings if you check our website at Hawaii Council of Community Associations you will see for new board members we have a seminar coming up in May it's a half-day seminar on what it's like to be a new board member and what your responsibilities are then later in the month we have another routine lunch seminar on an interesting topic as well so check out Hawaii Council of Community Associations for owner it's only $10 a year to belong and there's a lot of very useful education for you but let's get right to the topic at hand the famous bill 69 that's been all over the press statements by the mayor fires safety you know it's my understanding next week it's up for a vote yes the City Council meets on Wednesday and it's up for third reading approval and it'll be approval of a floor draft because there was a committee meeting about a week ago and the fire department and some condo owners who showed up and HTCA we all had comments on on on on the existing bill and so those comments were incorporated and they are now you know being presented as a floor draft to bill 69 and that's what's up for approval and even as we speak there are some issues that are kind of unresolved as you know I've been working with the City Council members and in drafting language you know to incorporate the changes that were discussed at the last committee meeting it turns out that that dormitories and some apartment buildings might not be part of this bill so we might have to carve them out because you know they they weren't included in the discussion so for those that don't know it's a floor draft where does it go from here? Floor draft means that the the the floor draft will be on the wet city website so that if anybody who is interested in seeing what the final version looks like they can go on to the city website for City Council and for how to participate in hearings and go to the City Council meeting for Wednesday the 25th and they will they think they can see all the bills that are going to be considered all that day. So when does it become an ordinance? After assuming it passes out and this is third reading it's got to go through three readings assuming it passes the council vote on Wednesday it will go to the mayor and I'm sure the mayor will sign it he's been anxious to sign some kind of legislation. If the mayor signs it then it's an ordinance. It's not going to be more public hearings or anything else this is kind of the end of the road. This is the end of the road although it's contemplated that you know there might be some changes later but minor changes. I think you know the parties the the stakeholders are pretty much okay with the language that's going to go into the floor draft. And so the changes in the future would be an amendment right in a future bill I guess to address that issue if there are any. So do you expect the City Council to pass this? Yes. You expect the mayor to sign it? Yes I really do because he's he's been asking I this is not the bill he introduced but I'm I'm sure you know based on the public support for this version of the bill and the council support and you know it's not so much the council support it's the council who will who made it very obvious that the last City Council hearing there were there's what there's nine guys there's nine people on the City Council and four of the nine made speeches so that they would not support a mandate that required sprinklers in high-rise buildings and everybody else voted yes with reservations and so it was really clear that there was not strong support for mandatory requirement for sprinklers in high-rise buildings. Before I ask you about it I'd just like to make a comment you know our government officials elected officials take a lot of heat. This is a perfect textbook example of a proposal that the City Council members listen to all the parties all the potential participants in this bill they spent a lot of time in discussion with people the system voted from an emotional point of view I think they did a lot of due diligence on this bill to try to find a way to address fire safety but at the same time address the concerns of the community so they deserve some credit for the effort they put into this. Right you know and there were three council members who whose districts had the most condos and that was council member Kara Fukunaga, council member Ann Kovayashi and council member Trevor Ozawa and they had these community meetings they had two community meetings one in October and one the week before Christmas and the one that was held the week before Christmas went on for two hours the council committee room was packed the hallways were packed and Trevor council member Trevor Ozawa at the second City Council hearing when he when he made a speech and he said you know when the mayor introduced Bill 69 mandating fire sprinkler systems in all high-rise buildings he was 100% in support of that and because of these two public hearings where he listened to for to condo you know owners and residents for hours hours he listened to them he changed his mind and he said he would in no way support a mandate for the reasons that he heard that you know people moved into these buildings they knew they weren't sprinklers and that since the Marco Polo fire they've been taking steps to make their buildings safer and and they there was a lot of support for the life safety evaluation that is being included in this you know in this ordinance change and you know so you know he he supports the bill but he doesn't he no longer supported mandatory retrofitting and to me this is a textbook case on if you if something bothers you you got to speak up and you got to talk to your elected officials because you have to educate them and here's an example of somebody you know who is a hundred percent for mandatory retrofitting who changed his mind after he heard the people speak so get involved out there in the community both at the state legislature and the City Council because you are heard and it's an important part of adopting and establishing good legislation and good ordinances for our industry but let's talk about what we think bill 69 is going to be okay first of all who doesn't apply to it applies to high all high rise buildings over 75 feet and residential buildings and it applies to condos and co-ops and in this the last few days it's questionable as to whether it applies to dormitory towers and rental apartment buildings because they you know those two types of buildings were not addressed by the fire safety advisory committee so I don't know if they're going to be included I know there's some discussion some concerns are raised by the Office of Council Services regarding those two types of buildings well it's interesting because I would assume that the people who live in residential apartment buildings or low-income housing have the same fire risks anyone else does if they don't have a fire sprinkler system right but the problem is is that they weren't represented in the you know committee hearings and so we don't know what their situation is and and and we can't presume to you know say that you know this bill is going to be good or bad for them so there could be an amendment in the future to include them or not include that we don't know yes okay so you say 75 feet that means the building is lowest six stories could be subject to this bill depending on their height yet the topography of the land and those types of things so not just condos however we don't know about rental buildings and we don't know about dormitories at the moment right so what do they have to do in this bill we talk about this fire life safety inspection what does that mean and what's that mean they have to do okay what the life safety evaluation is and it what it is it's a standardized it's a it's a it's a it's a standard that's been established and it's in the ordinance that's part of this new bill and what it does is it looks at 17 items that affect the safety of a building like how tall your building is you know how and and and what is it made of is it made of concrete are the walls concrete or are they you know drywall and it all it depends on whether you have standpipes in your stairwells how well your stairwells are are they lit or not do you have emergency lighting what about your fire alarm systems you know are they the old systems have they been upgraded smoke detectors I mean and and the there's this what we call a matrix and this is a spreadsheet that basically has all of the values all of the items that are being evaluated plus the values that are being assigned to to this particular item and so people can go it's on the website at this fire department website and it's on the city council website because it's embedded in part of the ordinance and it's on the Hawaii council website the matrix and so people want to see what items you know are going to be looked at or considered to see if the building is safe they can go and take a look at the matrix and see the items and they can go and start looking at their own buildings to see if they've got fire rated doors to look for vertical openings to make sure that they've got a stand pipe in every stairwell and you know and because a Marco Polo didn't have a stand pipe in every stairwell but the short summary to be is that in this ordinance specifically is a fire life safety matrix so it's not variable it's a specific form that has to be completed by a design professional we'll come back to that in a minute and once the ordinance is assigned by the mayor it must be done within three years right and from that moment you will know whether you pass or fail and what you may or may not have to do right we're going to come back to that and we keep that thought going we're going to take a break for one minute and come back to bill 69 shortly I'm Andrea Gabrielli I'm the host for young talents making way here in Fintech Hawaii we talk every Tuesday at 11 a.m. about things that matters to tech matter to science to the people of Hawaii with some extraordinary guests the students of our schools who are participating in science fair so young talents making way every Tuesday at 11 a.m. only on Fintech Hawaii mahalo this guy look familiar he calls himself the ultra fan but that doesn't explain all this why why he planned this party plan the snacks even plan to coordinate colored shirts but he didn't plan to have a good time now you wouldn't do this in your own house so don't do it in your team's house know your limits and plan ahead so that everyone can have a good time welcome back we're talking about bill 69 the final final version of the fire sprinkler mandates proposed by the mayor there's been a lot of progress by owners condos fire department to come up with an opportunity to make our building safer so we talked about the life fire safety matrix which is in the ordinance it has to be done within three years of the ordinance becoming law right and it's got to be done by a design professional and that's a architect or an engineer certainly not a condominium management no no it's got to be a license yeah our architect or an engineer and they will be trained by the city and they will be getting the software that they will be able to download from the city website the software for them to go into the buildings and do their evaluations so that the buildings only pay for the professional time they're not paying for any software because the software belongs to the city the city is giving it to them for free and the board can't do it no and if we had an engineer on the board probably not a good idea to have a person with a conflict of interest right right no it's got to be you know somebody who doesn't have a you know conflict so the one thing that I noticed when I was looking at the matrix is that I think you said there's 19 areas 17 17 areas you look at I would just summarize that for our audience here that first of all it has to do with alarm systems right because alarm systems if they're old they're not going to meet the current code and which requires basically an enunciator in every bedroom and and those types of things so you wouldn't get as many points for that right even though you have an alarm system then old fire doors don't have the same fire resistance as new fire doors right you have potential holes in the floor where pipes have come through and they usually put a fire stop around the remaining part where the pipe is and the floor don't meet right to prevent fire from going through that but probably the two most important things are what we call compartmentalization where what separates one apartment from another apartment is it just studs and drywall which wouldn't be much safety or as a concrete block right which is much safer and prevents fire right and then the most and and the big dog in the room is going to be what I call the location of the hallways are the hallways and carters in the inside of the building or on the exterior edge of the building and those are the type things that are evaluated but I would just say to our audience this is a great opportunity for boards to look at fire safety on a general basis looking out for their homeowners or what they can do to make things better so once this bill gets signed my belief is that all these affected associations 75 feet no sprinklers have to file some kind of notice what is that about it's a notice that is the statue says that they had to file within 180 days of adoption that means from the time the mayor signs it into law they have 180 days or six months to and I'm sure they're gonna have forms that you can just sign and submit to the city say that you will comply with the law so they're mandating everybody acknowledge this new ordinance and stating you will come and send in the form within 180 days right that you will comply with the ordinance within three years within three years which means that you have to initiate you know make an appointment with a licensed profession and you know it's gonna take them a couple of months to be trained and they're going to be given the saw them in the fire department is doing the training so they will be training the licensed professionals and giving them the software and then when when when that's done then the associations or the building managers can start calling and making appointments and having them come in and do the inspection but the management companies I've spoken with and I'm familiar with one pretty intimately they're already reaching out to architects and engineers saying are you going to be able to offer this service and will you be prepared to immediately give us your proposal and maybe a variable on an hourly basis it may be in a flat fee based on number of floors I don't know but I know the management companies in anticipation this we're already looking for resources for boards to comply with the the ordinance because in essence within 180 days you have to say I'm going to comply but within three years you have to do the matrix yeah you have to do the evaluation have somebody come in and do the evaluation walk around your building and just check off and and give you a score on on those different items that are on the on the matrix and like I said this matrix is is already public you know information it's on the fire department website it's on the city council website it's on our website so it's not like and people are already looking at it but you know that because they come and they testify they said oh you know we you should change this score to this and this score to this and we looked at all the different numbers and this looks like a typo so you know they're looking at it you know so so I'm glad to hear that they are looking at it they're looking at the matrix and and walking around their building and trying to find out you know you know where they're deficient and you know start fixing up and doing the repairs because that's a lot cheaper than doing sprinklers I know the big argument for the city council from a lot of kind of associations would be summed up as we can't afford it and you know all buildings are kind of different they pump rooms and there's all sorts of issues with regard to sprinklers so if they fail are they going to be forced to put a sprinkler system or the chance once you go through you know the the evaluation you're going to get a score and they'll you're going to get a print out and so you can see where you're deficient and so if you got a low score because you had a lot of vertical openings you go out and you fix those vertical openings or you know you fix you replace all your doors and you put fire you know rated doors on and you know for and and if you still don't get a passing score because you can do the you know the evaluation multiple times if you still don't get a passing score you can opt out what does that mean that means that at a regular meeting of the association or if you're a co-op your annual meeting or a special meeting the owners or the shareholders in a co-op can vote and more than 50% can vote to opt out of this requirement. I read that provision so I kind of sum this up as that once you've gone through you have to go through the life safety fire safety evaluation and you can have an additional three years to get a passing score by going in corrective things you've discovered right however at the end of a still mandates fire sprinklers if a majority fifty point one percent of owners at a meeting either special or annual vote to opt out then they would be exempt from putting in the fire sprinklers right however they need still need to get a passing score. They still need to get a passing score on the rest of the items there on the committee. Yes. On the on the matrix four. Right. So it's something it's very important so if they decide to opt out I think there are two additional conditions that that occur. Yes they have to put a sign in a conspicuous place in the building saying that they don't have sprinklers and you know they there are these real estate forms that you provide to prospective buyers who want to you who are interested in buying units in the building and so those real estate forms will have now have an item where you have to disclose that there are no sprinklers in the building. That's called the RO 105 seen the managing age disclosure so I see the Hawaii Association Realtors amending that form to have some kind of check blocks we have sprinklers don't have sprinklers or whatever the status may be but then in a conspicuous public place which is typically the lobby you need to have a sign saying this is a non-sprinkler building to some effect. Yes. Now we've talked about that and they can opt out so condos can opt out to avoid this cost. And co-ops. And co-ops too but then they still have to do the life safety inspection and then the board would have an opportunity to see what the costs of sprinklers are so that the owners were making an informed decision whether they wanted to have sprinklers or not have sprinklers. Right. But are there other exceptions where you don't have to put sprinklers in? If you are a high-rise building and it doesn't make any difference how high you are but if you have exterior quarters where when you walk out of your unit and it's you're out in the open you know you're exposed to the air and you don't have a wall there those types of buildings are exempt from the fire sprinkler requirements and if you are a high-rise building under 10 stories so if you're nine stories or below you are exempt you don't have to put in the fire sprinklers. You still have to pass the fire safety life evaluation. So primarily the sprinkler side is for 10 stories or higher. Right. And they don't apply if you have exterior carters with those carters giving you access to an exit stairway. Right. And so but there can't be any interior carters. Right. How about balconies you know we talk about Lanai. They're also exempt from sprinklers. I think the key words are and I don't know many case words not true where at least 50% of the long side of the Lanai is open then the Lanai itself doesn't have to have sprinklers. I think that's also true with respect to elevator rooms elevator hoistways and mechanical rooms which has its own separate fire suppression systems not normally sprinkler systems so there are some exceptions and I would say that you know the White Council is going to hold a seminar on new laws coming up here in the next month or so and this will be repeated again so those who want more information please come to our seminar and learn on May 24th. May 24th. May 24th. I'm glad you remember that. I don't remember that. When's it when's the board new board training 12th the 12th May 12th. Go online sign up. It's a great program and you know we see things that our legislature every year new bills because they feel the kind of owners or kind of board members aren't educated so we're doing our best to help change that so let me ask you this let's just say things aren't quite right they're too slow getting a bit are there mechanisms within the ordinance without going through them for extensions and for appeals to the fire life safety matrix and yes you can appeal of the the findings of the professional and you can do that but you you make the appeal through the fire department and we've been assured you know by the fire chief that you know that you know they will take into consideration all of the the factors that are you know presented to them and try to come up with a fair you know fair decision but that's who you do the appeals are made to the fire department. Well we're at the end of our shows I'd like to just say and summary first of all thank you Jane for being here I love being a co-host with you I keep begging you to fire me but you won't do it so we'll get through that someday but I do want to thank the city council the fire department all the volunteers of the various people interested in this bill from architects engineers to condo owners we're working through this process because if you take an objective look at this bill it's a fair and balanced way to improve fire and life safety for our residents at the same time recognizing the hardship certain requirements that requirements may put on our condo owners so we thank them for that and we thank all of you for watching condo insider and we look forward to seeing you next week aloha