 Oh welcome to condo insider it's Thursday three o'clock and this shows all about association living from the homeowners to condos to co-ops although the laws are different in each of those areas and we've all heard recently a lot about sustainability you know we want to be fossil fuel free and I want to say it's 2050 but I forget the exact date the governor said they wanted to be fossil free free a great great great goal but when it comes to condos we're getting all these issues about with the widespread now being electric vehicles and what a condo has to do or not do as far as helping the owner who wants an electric vehicle provide a charging station and so I ask my good friend who's been on the show many times now on her knee welcome to the show thank you Richard always a great pleasure to be here hello hi everyone my name is no line I'm with the law firm team in key Leon Cup truck has heard I practice condominium law you make me feel so good when you say it's a pleasure to be here you know so I know that this is a great show for educational purposes we appreciate your your time for doing this so let's just talk about electric bills first of all I want to tell everybody out there I own an electric vehicle I've owned an electric vehicle for five years and I would tell you that the perks are great with regard to the three-metered parking and airport parking using the HOV lane the perks are great but more importantly I used to pay about 300 bucks a month for gasoline with my full overtake system on my house I now do my entire house and charge my car for $15 a month it is awesome and my car I happen to be lucky I own a Tesla and not gonna give them a commercial but this is actually my second Tesla I like the first one so much but the reality of it is if you look at all the newspapers General Motors Mercedes Porsche Audi they're all saying they're gonna be eliminating a lot of their gas combustion engine cars and I'm gonna try to offer more and more electric vehicles so it's it's kind of the wave of the future definitely I've talked to my friends who work in the you know auto industry they are being all seeing you know that's EV and also including driverless you know those kind of new technology that's where the future is it's very exciting I think also you know Hawaii has been you know the I think the number two state if you look at nationwide we have we you know as a small state but we are number two on the chart as far as EV and also our state has adopted a goal to be a hundred percent renewable by the year 2045 originally everybody thinks that's a very ambitious goal but you know with the years gone by if you calculate how much will accomplish we made I think we're right on track which is exciting yeah I think you have to put the caveat on that when they say a hundred percent sustainable I'm not sure by 2045 we'll have solar powered air planes doing commercial flights so that it may be there may be pockets of industry that were much less dependent on fossil fuel but it may be around for quite some time to come I don't want to crack a joke unless we build a train I guess between San Francisco and Hawaii which is a joke that somebody was talking about recently we won't go there with that let's talk about condos for a second sure okay I buy a condo and I own my car it's electric vehicle and I want and I have a stall I own my stall yes I want electric charging an EV charger where my rights so there's a statue basically says the associations cannot prohibit any private owner from installing an electric vehicle charging system in his or her own stall so in your situation you definitely have the right to go but the big problem comes to you know where if it's a very old building you know there's the electric infrastructure is very old or your building does not have enough capacity and then you know of course you can you know place your own charging station but you need to you know you need the wiring you need the the hookup you know to there is updated electric infrastructure support that system who is going to be paying for that because your charger that's going to be you know you know basically your exclusive for your exclusive use that's going to become part of your unit as value to your own property do you think the other owners would have problem you know substating you by paying for those upgrade of the electric system in order for you to play that private system so it has been the situation is like of course you can go ahead do it but the associations have also have the right to put a reasonable restrictions on how you can put it in so you will need to maybe be responsible for the cost of you know making sure the system is going to be compatible with the building capacity and if it's not safe you need to upgrade the electric infrastructure to make it safe and how about the electricity you use do that get submitter and separately build or I can't imagine the owners who don't have an electric vehicle to have to pay for the electricity of the owner that does have an electric vehicle the statue make it clear that you you would need to reimburse the electricity used you know for the charger so you need to pay for the electricity so let's just hypothetically say that you have a hundred unit building right and nobody has electric charge and now one person wants electric charger he says I will pay for it I will put it in here's my company's gonna wirelessly bill my electricity you know the association ends up with now they've got a bill the owner for the cost or at least the count for it on the owner's ledger there could be some administrative cost for this hypothetically say ten dollars a month for making sure that they got your electricity usage is all that passed on to the owner as well you know I would definitely highly recommend you consult attorney first it really depends on you know I think in light of the statue that's probably kind of ify I would highly recommend my client to be cautious and you know you need to interpret that with that statue also with your project documents and look at the circumstances involved I can see if there is a common charger for example you know that's a common amenity the association has to for example has to invest on a software to see who's in the queue you know if you get your chargers ready can get a text message for the other waiter to come back for this kind of administrative charges I think it's reasonable for the association to assess you know you know everybody who's using it as a limited common elements expense but for a situation where a prior owner is doing that if there is a submitter just by looking at the submitter bill I don't know if you can really charge that that could be interpreted as a charge that's prohibited by the statue provision we just mentioned let's take a little step further so you have a hundred stalls in the building and someone looks at the electrical capacity and says we know what we can handle ten chargers and so the first ten people sign up over time and they reach their capacity and now the eleventh person comes to the board and says well I want to put in my own charger too and but there's only the board said we don't have any more capacity and then the owner says yes you do all you have to do is spend 250,000 to upgrade your electrical room and then I can have the same benefit the other ten owners have what do you say to that well and lucky for the eleventh person because right now the system as the statue provides it is a race game whoever gets you know within the capacity spend less and whoever is on the break point you probably will be held responsible for you know the you know the expenses but I've known you know there are programs out there providing rebate for private parties or you know entities who want to invest on this electric charging system they will provide some rebate some help so maybe that's something you can consider and so I understand your answer so the eleventh person would have to pay the 250,000 to put the the meter in or does the board have to pay it meaning the association if it's for a private charger for that person's own use I would think that's for the eleventh owner to take responsibility if it's going to be a common enmity you know association is going to offer it for every owner to use of course that can be a common expense now you're in this industry do you see associations putting in meters and looking at this or is it because of the cost everybody just pushing the can down the road it really depends on what type of project we're talking about you know for relatively newer buildings I'm know actually on you know a lot of projects are looking into this because with the popularity of electric vehicles and you know the technology becoming better you know I think people would view this as you know a good amenity to having their project it tends to you know enhance values you know attract more you know tenants for investment properties or definitely you know brings value to the project people you know we're looking to whether it would be worthwhile for the association to invest on it but for a lot of older projects where you would have to spend a heck of money upgrade your electric infrastructure I think it's a huge challenge it's always been it was a study group formed back in 2015 trying to look at the issue of you know installing more charging systems for electric vehicles in multi unit dwellings basically the conclusion which is you cannot adopt a cookie cutter you know approach because each project has its unique challenges and issues for existing buildings it's really hard to accomplish there anything within the current laws that require of existing building to mandatorily put in chargers in the guest parking stalls if any only for places of public accommodation so if you are a place of public accommodation having more than a hundred stalls that that is offered to the general public then you have to at least have one stall that is you know exclusive for EV to charge I have the facility ready so hypothetically a mixed-use building where there's a restaurant which is open to the public but the higher floors are residential right and that restaurant by its governing documents has 20 stalls available for its customers mm-hmm would they have to put in electric charger since it's 20 stalls and that's all they have access to for public no because they don't have a hundred stalls that's offered to the general public you only have 20 which is you know below that trigger number I had actually interesting situation on the island of koai up in the North Shore right where an owner wanted to buy an electric car and there is no electric charging stations up there and so the board took the position well yeah you can do that and we have extra stalls we will let you put the electric meter there where you have to pay for it you have to pay for putting in the meter and you need to have some of the meters have this built-in wireless ability that when you go in you use it you're putting your credit card in or whatever so you can be paying for your utilities as you use it right and so he objected that and said no I want to put it in my own stall and the board said well you can do that too but you have to pay for all the costs the other the stall we're offering you is much shorter run we less that's expensive for you it'll be a lot easier if you do it here and it'll solve your need and he says no no no I think you have to mandatory put it in for all of us and then he went on the board went on to say you know if you look at koai which is very rural and very much a tourist destination the rental car companies don't even offer electric vehicles for use so wouldn't make economic sense for us to spend all this money to put it in because most of the people who stay in our condo it's a resort district our absentee owners and or tourists who use rental cars in the parking lot and so the rental cars don't offer they had a big argument about it but he eventually gave up you think the association had to put in the meter for him I mean if he wants it to be a private you know a minute for himself I don't see why the association would have the obligation to pay for all the costs especially when that amount is so unreasonable yeah all right well you know this is what the law is today we're gonna take a short one-minute break and we're gonna come back and talk about two bills before the legislature so we'll be right back in one minute aloha and welcome to at the crossroads I'm your host Keisha King I'm live at five every Wednesday where we have entertaining and educational conversations that are real and relevant both here in Hawaii and across the globe I'll see you at the crossroads aloha hey Stan energy man here on Think Tech Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm gonna keep on doing it so join me every Friday on Stan energy man at lunchtime at noon on my lunch hour we're gonna talk about everything energy especially if it begins with the word hydrogen we're gonna definitely be talking about it we'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner how we can make the world a better place just basically save the planet even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore we got it nailed down here so we'll see on Friday and noon with Stan energy man aloha welcome back to condo insider with my good friend the attorney now on talking about electric vehicles the wave of the future as one might say and we just reviewed that an existing condominium has to allow an owner at the owners expense to put in an electric vehicle charging station for his use and his stall we've learned that existing laws don't require guest parking to be provided electric vehicle unless you have at least a hundred stalls for public accommodation and so if that one owner and infrastructure to improve the electrical to get a meter require a two or three hundred thousand dollar investment it's all on the owner not on the condominium board of directors so the law is recognizing that a lot of our old buildings just don't have the infrastructure to provide an efficient way to provide electric vehicles so now comes the legislature who has their own ideas and there's a bill we want to talk about I will try to paraphrase this it was a house bill number 559 it basically said that all residential multifamily projects which mean apartment buildings as well as condominiums by January 1 2020 a simple nine months from now the 25 percent of all their stalls have to be EV ready if you have more than 20 stalls in the building yeah you brought the bad news I'll tell you the good news is this bill has been deferred which means it's dead for this session well it says that the intent of the legislature what do you think of the bill in general I mean it's definitely I see there's efforts there trying to really you know I I think promote the the EV industry because I've seen a lot of you know discussions about you know the challenge we just talked about that's exactly what's I guess faced by the industry is the the charging problem because there's not enough like charging stations available for the EV potential buyers and existing users so you know but there's just I think a lot of reality that all the challenges the issues we just discussed about for existing buildings is too hard to accomplish that's why right now there's another bill SB 1000 it talks about for new buildings there's this push for you know as far as by the beginning of 2020 they want if it's a new multi dwelling unit building or it's a commercial building and you if you want to apply for a permit and you you have 10 or more parking stalls in that project then you got to at least have 20 percent of the stalls basically EV charging ready so let me just review right HP 559 which died said that every multifamily building by January 1 2020 had to have 25 percent of all stalls whether or not you own the electric vehicle 25 percent of all stalls had to be EV ready and it died which is the good news so what followed was the identical bill SB Senate bill 1000 except it said only new buildings they got a building permit after January 1 2020 so it'd be for all the existing buildings are carved out and it's any new existing bill is that right yes correct only applies to new projects who wants to apply for permits you know for construction yes and where did that bill stand so that one it's it's it was proposed initially in the senate right so now it has crossed over to the house and it is referred to several committees like waiting for further review it's in its second version already basically the current requirement is if you have 10 stalls or more you need to have at least 20 percent EV charging ready for new multi-dwelling unit buildings or commercial buildings so the amended version yes went from 20 stalls to 10 stalls meaning it actually made broader broader but then they said only 20 percent of the stalls have to be EV ready not 25 is that right 20 percent exactly look that's a new and that's moving that is moving and guess who suggested the amendment who that's Tesla well I understand that anybody who makes electric vehicles would have an interest although you know Tesla has always said that you know they're about the environment in the future and I think there's some proof to that you know because they certainly revolutionized cars you know electric cars you know people always said the big problem with electric cars used to be driving distance you know my car has a range of 320 miles I could drive on the whole island twice it could work an island and I put my car my plug into my wall my garage every night in two hours I'm fully charged because I only do 50 60 miles a day so it's a very if for me it's a very efficient means to get around a lot cheaper than and my other guest guzzling car I had I definitely understand and you know I also want to protect our environment you know when I look at the Tesla money all the supporting Tesla money not only comes from the you know EV players EV charging players but also all the you know environmental protection MPOs and GOs but you know we also have kind of concerns of course you know the developer is going to take into consideration adding to the cost of the building you know when you have all these new great features involved and that means we could have less affordable housing new projects on island especially you know when you won't be able to get a permit under this law yeah that's where the first thing that comes to mind that this isn't a free lunch yes to put in the infrastructure and the electrical capacity it's not cheap it's expensive so do you end up saying okay I have a new building with a hundred stalls I need to make 20 percent that's 20 stalls and so what am I going to do uh I'm going to put in enough infrastructure for those 20 stalls so you can buy an apartment that has an electric stall or doesn't have an electric stall and that's going to cost more money but just the basic infrastructure to provide it whether that buyer wanted an electric vehicle or not adds to the cost so the affordable housing model gets more difficult because you have to pass that cost on somewhere and then what do you do if the law changes and they say okay no longer it's 20 percent in five years now they say it's 50 percent of all existing buildings kind of like house bill 559 comes back to life five years because we're all in this campaign of global warning and save the environment so they build extra capacity I'm a big electric car fan but I'm not sure that that bill has the right approach to that to the issue yeah I mean maybe the technology is going to be advanced fast enough that it will address the issues that we're facing today maybe it will be there will be great charging technology that could be you know sufficiently charge it easy like within you know minutes or that would address the problem you know well it's it's a way with the future and I have to say that because I've been following this I bought my first electric car in 2012 I've been following this kind of somewhat out of curiosity and interest really insistently for since 2012 what's going on in technology and what's going on in the world is fascinating and I think the changing of buyer's habits will will force this to happen anyway because if you're a consumer owns an electric car you're going to be looking for a condo that will allow you to charge your car versus one that won't allow you to charge your car so I think we have to rely kind of on market demands sometimes to create these things but SB 1000 large you know how many committees it has to go through I think at least two more two more committees wow well I want to thank you for being here bringing us up to date on electric vehicles to all of you we hope you learned something about this complex problem what are you about condo world nothing is every easy it would be easy we know all the answers right off the top but it's very difficult to take existing buildings people's homes seniors who live and have to pay the everyday cost and make these global statements in the legislature that we're going to change the world and make everybody responsible for doing that without realizing someone's got to pay for it so maybe the non-lon revocable charitable trust will make these donations whether I doubt it so thank you for being on the show thank you all for watching condo insider we'll see you next thursday three o'clock for more association living information aloha