 Okay, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Condo Insider. My name is Jane Sugimura and I'm your host today. And what we're going to be discussing today is a topic that I've discussed several on several other previous shows. And this is the fire safety ordinance passed by the city and county of Honolulu. Bill 69 was the original bill that was passed. And this bill was introduced because of the Marco Polo fire that occurred in July of 2017. And that was a horrific fire. And because of that, the city decided, you know, they needed to, you know, set up a law to make things safer for people who live in high-rise building. And for the first responders, the fire department, who have to go into these buildings to fight the fire and save the people who live in the buildings. And so the first bill, 69, which became ordinance 1814, was introduced and passed in May of 2018. Okay, under that bill, what is required, and it's a compromise bill, the compromise bill because the original bill provided that all high-rise buildings had to be retrofitted with fire sprinklers and that it had to be done within a certain period of time. And, you know, many of the people who live in condominiums and associations and their property managers all raised concerns about the cost of installing this because this is something that the residents who lived in these buildings would have to pay for. And so the compromise bill that came out was a bill that said that all buildings, all high-rise buildings have to have fire sprinklers installed unless you are exempt. And you're only exempt if you're below 10 stories and you have open exterior quarters, which means you come out of your unit and you're open to the air. And there's no wall enclosing the quarter. And if your building is one of those buildings, then you are exempt from the fire sprinkler requirement. But you are not exempt from another requirement, which is a life safety evaluation. And the life safety evaluation is an inspection that's done by professional engineers or architects who are qualified to do fire safety inspections. And there are people who are qualified. In other states, they're in fact licensed as fire safety inspectors. But in Hawaii, they are not. So there are engineers and architects who have special training and education in fire safety who would be doing these inspections. And what the inspection does is it basically looks at all the buildings and tries to determine whether some safety features are there and to determine and basically to give the building a score regarding the safety of the building. And this is safety of the building for the residents in the building to get out of the building and for the first responders to get into the building. So we're looking at two things. Safety of the firefighters and occupant safety and getting the occupants out of a burning building. And so certain things affect this. And some of them are common sense. One is the height of the building. The higher the building, the more risks there is, the more time it takes for people to come out of the building and more time for the people to get into the building to address the fire. Another factor and some of these factors that are included in life safety evaluation, if you live in a condominium or a high-rise, you can't change it. The height of the building is one. The construction of the building is another factor you can't change, whether it's concrete, masonry, drywall. It is what it is and it affects the risk of living in that building. Also, one of the factors that is looked at when they do the life safety evaluation is how far is it going to take you to get out of the building? So they measure from the middle of the building and to the exits, stairwells. And if it's 50 feet, I mean that's a good thing. If it's 200 feet, that's not so good because it's going to take you longer. And there's things that could happen in that 200 feet that would interfere with you getting out of the building safely or the fire department being able to get into the building to fight the fire. And other things that are looked at in the inspection are doors. And in the corridors, you have to have fire-rated doors. On the units, you need to have also fire-rated doors that are solid core with no louvers, with metal closures at the top. And so these are all things that, you know, the inspectors are going to look at. And the items that have to be checked in a life safety evaluation are contained in something called a matrix. And the matrix is a spreadsheet that was developed by the fire department and its consultants. And a committee that was set up by the City Council made up of stakeholders, which included representatives of condominium and co-op associations. And basically this matrix looks at 17 factors. And we will be showing you a website on this show. And the website is the fire department website. And it's on the screen right now. And if you go there, you will be able to see this matrix. This matrix is what is used in evaluating the high-rise buildings. They have to get a passing score on this spreadsheet. This is what the professionals use. And this matrix, this tool, this measuring tool is part of the ordinance that was adopted by the City Council. And that means that it is part of the ordinance. It cannot be changed without a public hearing. And so, you know, these factors, you know, if you live in a condo or you're part of an association or you sit on a board, it's in your best interest to go on that website and look at that matrix and look at the 17 items that are on there. And if you have a concern to call your City Council person and, you know, you can find out who that is by going to Honolulu.gov, look at City Council, find out who your Council person is and it will give you a phone number and an email address. But it's really important for you to communicate with your Council members because this bill is now moving through the City Council. And this is the third bill. This is the third bill. We have the original bill, 69, that set up this inspection. There was another bill, 72, that tried to amend the bill to clarify some of the ambiguities that were in the first, the original bill. But that bill had some language that was not acceptable to the mayor. And so, he vetoed the bill. And so, we are now back at the City Council with a bill called Bill 96. And one of the things that Bill 96 does, it clarifies that these professionals who do the inspection, I mean, and the associations will have to pay for them to do the inspection, they come into your building and they look at all these 17 factors that are on the matrix and they give a score based on what they see. And so, it is, and they can only charge for their professional time. So, architects and engineers, they get paid with $150 to maybe $200 an hour. And so, if they're in your building for eight hours, they are going to charge an hourly rate. And so, you can understand that if they have to look into every unit and if they have, and if there's nobody there to show them around, to show them where these 17 elements items are in the building, it's going to take them longer to complete their inspection and evaluation. And so, that's why I urge all association and condo and co-op owners and apartment owner to look at the matrix, become familiar with those 17 items that have to be inspected and be prepared to work with the professional as they come into your building and do the inspection. But one of the provisions in the Bill 96, which is now before the city council, provides that the inspection shall be done by or under the supervision. And those, that language, even though it's just a few words, it's really important because that means by or under the supervision means that the licensed professional who you're paying $150 to $200 an hour doesn't have to do the entire inspection. Like one of the items on the spreadsheet, well, two of the items on the spreadsheet, are smoke detectors in every unit. And under the current ordinance, in city ordinance, you need to have one smoke detector in every apartment. Under the life safety evaluation, if you have a smoke detector in every bedroom and one in the hallway and if they are connected in tandem, you get plus points, which helps you get a higher score. And so it's in your best interest to make sure that people in your building, that live in your building, in fact, you can start a campaign and tell people, you know, you need to get smoke detectors and put them in every, put them in the bedroom, put one in the hallway, make sure they're connected. And that way, when we go through the life safety evaluation, we're going to get plus points and maybe get a higher score so that we don't have to put in fire sprinklers. Because that's why you're doing the life safety evaluation. If you get a passing score on the life safety evaluation, you don't have to pay the millions of dollars to put in a fire sprinkler system. In other words, retrofit your building. And that would mean retrofitting all the units as well as putting sprinklers in the hallways. And so, you know, that's why you want to be able to use other people beside the licensed professionals. And the way you do this is all condominiums have a provision, have the right to do something called a high risk component inspection. And that's the washer, dryer hoses, the pee valves under the sink, and in the toilets. And, you know, so and you and the association usually has to, they use their site manager, resident manager to schedule, make up a schedule, contact all the owners of the building and say, okay, we're coming in, we're going to do the high risk component inspection, and we're going to do it during these weeks. And they set up a schedule so that they could get into every unit. And under the condominium statute of in order to do this inspection, because it's for the safety, health and safety of everybody in the building, everybody is required to participate. And because of that, you the vendor, the plumber, who does the high risk component inspection is going to have access to every unit. And that's when you send your maintenance person, along with the plumber, when he does his high risk component inspection to check the units for smoke detectors, and to make sure that you have fire rated doors, one and three quarter inch solid core, no louvers, and a metal closure on top in the corner. Okay. And, and, and you make us you have a spreadsheet that your maintenance person can fill out, and he can list the unit, he can say that there are working smoke detectors, and that the fire is a fire rated door for that unit. And they would sign it date it. And when your professional comes in to do the life safety evaluation, you give that report to the professional. And we've run this by the fire department, they're perfectly okay with this. And the professionals that we talked to, they're perfectly okay with this. And they're happy because they're not spending time going through the building to look inside units to find out if the smoke detectors are there. And there are fire rated doors on each unit. And so this is a way for the associations to save money, and to make it more easier and economical for this life safety evaluation to complete it, to be completed. And that's only one of the changes that we're, that are in this new bill 96 that's pending before the city council. And right now we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about other changes in bill 96, and how you can help in making this bill a better bill, because we need to get input from the community as to how they're going to be dealing with the changes contemplated by this bill. So I hope for the viewers out there that you're going to go to the matrix that's shown on the website that we've been flashing on the screen, and that you will talk to your site manager and your unit owners, and come up with a plan when it's time to do the life safety evaluation. And we will talk about negotiating the life safety evaluation when we come back. Thank you. Aloha, and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. You can catch me every Wednesday. Alive at five. I'll see you there. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Welcome back to the second portion of our condo insider. And today we're talking about Bill 96, fire safety. My name is Jane Sugimora. And I've talked about, I've been on this show and we have talked about two other bills and that's all on the same subject. It started off with Bill 69, which became Ordinance 1814. And then we had Bill 72, which tried to clarify the original Bill 69, which was vetoed by the mayor. And so now we are back with Bill 96. And this all deals with a process called the life safety evaluation, which all high-rise buildings unless they're exempt. And you're only exempt if you're below 10 stories, or you have open corridors. Otherwise, you need to do a life safety evaluation. There are 360 buildings in the city and county of Honolulu. And so that's a lot of buildings. And I'm told that, in fact, I was at a hearing yesterday and the fire department says that about 20 buildings have already started doing the life safety evaluation, which is a good thing, because when we were doing Bill 72, there were discussions between the professionals and the fire department. And the big issue then was how much was it going to cost? And we heard all kinds of numbers about it was going to cost half a million dollars, it was going to cost 100,000, it was going to only cost 5,000. So the good thing about Bill 72 and the discussions that happened between the licensed professionals and the fire department is we kind of got an answer on what is it going to cost? And it's not going to cost an arm and a leg. And I think the consensus is on the low end, it's going to cost about $5,000. And on the high end, if you've got a huge complex building with multiple towers, it's going to cost you maybe about $20,000. And so we're not talking about a huge amount of money. It is a substantial amount of money that, but you know, if we're talking about doing this inspection to make sure and to give you some comfort that your building is relatively safe in case of a fire. And that means safe, meaning that you're the people who live in the building can get out of the building and the firefighters who respond to the fire can get into the building to fight the fire. And that's what we're trying to accomplish by these laws. And Bill 96 now that is pending before the City Council, in addition to allowing people other than licensed professionals to help with the gathering the information so that the professionals can determine, can score the building and tell, say whether or not it's safe. And the scoring, when the licensed professional score your building, that information goes to the fire department. It goes to the city fire department. And what's scrolling underneath here is the fire department website. And that's the link to the matrix. And it's very important that associations and, you know, get very familiar with the 17 items on that matrix because they need to know that in order to negotiate with the professionals who are going to be doing the inspections. The second thing about the Bill 96, there are two deadlines. You have three years to actually do a life safety evaluation. And the time is running on the three years because the bill was signed in May. And here we are. We're almost into May of 2019. So we're almost gone. One year has almost passed. So we have a little over two years to actually do a life safety evaluation. And and most buildings are not likely to pass on the first go around. And so you have three years after doing the life safety evaluation to actually get a passing score. And so because there's those because there's a three year deadline after you do your life safety evaluation, the and the after you go through life safety evaluation, then, you know, you your professional will help you determine what things do you have to do to get a passing score. And if you're six points short or eight points short, you might have to upgrade your alarm system put in audibles or, you know, put in more smoke detectors. But, you know, you're professional, you the building can work with their professional and the professional because they've done the inspection and the evaluation can say, oh, you need eight points, then you need to do this and that. And I can give you a passing score. And in order to do that, a lot of those repairs or those fixes are going to require a building permit. And then we get this other problem that we've been having all of us, all of us who live in associations are familiar with the building permit problem. You submit your application for a building permit. It takes six months to a year to get it back. And sometimes longer, I'm told. And so the so bill 96 has a built in extension. When you apply for a building permit, and if it takes you six months to a year to get that building permit back so that you can do your repairs, your three years to comply with the ordinance 1814 is extended by the length of time it took you to get your permit. Okay, so the important thing is to make sure that you finish, you go through a life safety evaluation in the first three years and you've only got two years and three months to do the life safety evaluation. And if you don't get a passing score, you have another three years after that to get a passing score. And if you have to apply for a building permit and it takes and it takes months and months and months to get your building permit, then that three year time limit is extended by the length of time it took you to get your permit. And now let's talk about negotiating because it's really important. The fire department has made it really clear that, you know, they're just setting, you know, setting the parameters for the life safety evaluation. It's up to the associations to negotiate a deal with whoever their licensed professional is. And there's lots of licensed professionals I understand who want to do this work. And so if you talk to one and they don't give you the answers you like, call another licensed professional and negotiate with them. And the first thing you do is you look at the 17 items. And one of the things that you can negotiate is there is a term called mobility. And the fire department has made it really clear that mobility should not be an issue for any building. So if your licensed professional is telling you, oh, well, you know, you know, your building is too high, or you have 600 units, and you know, this is a big risk. And so I'm going to give you a high factor for mobility. If I were you, I would stop talking to that professional and call someone else because the fire department has indicated that mobility should not be an issue, even though it is an item that's on the matrix. Another thing that you as an association can negotiate with the professionals is what is a reasonable sample? I mean, in other words, the ordinance does not require the professional to go into every unit. It does require them to look at a reasonable sample. That reasonable sample is negotiable, and associations should know that. So if you live in a 600 unit building, then maybe you want to negotiate for five or 10%. And that means that, you know, they might have to go into those units. But like I said earlier in the first part of the program, if you do a high risk component inspection, and you've got a report that talks about smoke detectors and fireproof fire rated doors, then you give that report to your professional and they pick, you know, 30 units or 20 units, and they just go and check those units to make sure it's consistent with the report. And that takes care of that. And so, you know, so these are ways that you can negotiate the terms with your professionals. And unless you know, unless you're familiar with the matrix, and the items that are included in that matrix, then you're not, you know, you're going to be kind of behind the eight balls. So I really, really urge you to go it. And we're not talking rocket science, there's 17 items. And some, and I think eight of the items, you can't change like the height of the building, the construction of the building, how far it is from the middle of the building to get to your outside, you know, stairwell, whether you have, whether you have vertical openings, or whether you have stand pipes, I mean, these, these are things that, you know, you really can't change. And so, so, you know, you have to look at the items on the matrix that you can change, and take steps to address that. And, and, and in order to do that, like I said, you can need to be familiar with the matrix. And you need to know also that as an association, you have the power to negotiate these items with your licensed professional. And if you don't like the answers that you get from one licensed professional, go to another one. I mean, and, and, and you should, and we have on our website, which is HawaiiCouncil.com, we have all kinds of informational memos and articles that will help you if you have any questions or concerns, you know, but, but information is key. And if you want to make it easier and cheaper, you know, to do this life safety evaluation, you need to inform yourself of the matrix. And, and like I said, this is a work in progress. They have finished yesterday with second reading in a second committee hearing, and then it will go to second reading before the city council. And so if you look at the matrix, and you look at Bill 96, which is on the city website, and the parts that are being changed are underscored. And so, so make, and there's only two or three sections that are underscored. So if you look at just those sections, then you know, you know, what bill, what the bill is trying to change. But what I'm trying to emphasize is that if you look at the bill, and you look at the matrix, and you look at your building, and you talk to the people who live in your building, and if there are any concerns, you need to call your council member so that we can address those concerns before this bill becomes final. And I understand from the proponent of the bill that they're trying to move this out so that it gets completed before the end of March. And so we have once a city council hearing, we have another committee hearing, and then third reading before the city council, and then it will become a law. And right now the fire department does not have any opposition. And so if the fire department doesn't have any opposition, the mayor doesn't have any opposition. So we really think that this bill is going to go through. So, you know, I hope you, you know, keep tuned. You need to keep tuned and informed. And like I said, if you go onto the website and you read these documents, and you look at your building, and if there are any concerns, you need to contact your city councilman so that city council member, so that these things can be addressed before this bill 96 becomes finalized. And because when it gets implemented, we think that this will be hopefully the final change. And I'm running out of time. So thank you very much for tuning in today. And for this episode of Kondo Insider. And thank you very much. And aloha.