Days after Mayor Kirk Caldwell unveiled a measure prohibiting people from sitting and lying on public sidewalks in Waikiki, Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga has introduced a bill imposing the same restrictions for an area from Chinatown to Ward Avenue.
Both bills, along with a separate measure barring defecating and urinating in public areas of Waikiki, will be heard as part of a special meeting of the Honolulu City Council at 8:45 a.m. Thursday, Council Chairman Ernie Martin announced late Friday.
Bill 45, Fukunaga’s bill, would cover the area from Nuuanu Stream on the Ewa side to Ward Avenue, in the heart of Kakaako, on the Diamond Head end. It would reach the H-1 freeway on the mauka side and the ocean on the makai side.
If the Waikiki and downtown "sit-lie" bills are passed, a squeeze could be put on homeless in urban Honolulu to relocate into areas not covered by the regulation such as Ala Moana, McCully and Moiliili. At a news conference Wednesday to announce Caldwell’s initiatives to battle homelessness, Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and other officials acknowledged that bills discouraging the homeless from congregating in Waikiki would likely push them into other areas.
Fukunaga, who represents District 6, which runs from Kalihi to Makiki, said residents and business people in her district say regulatory actions like the sit-lie bill being proposed for Waikiki should be applied consistently among the island’s major business districts.
Residents and businesses complain to her office daily about pedestrian access blocked by people lying or sitting on sidewalks, she said. "This is a big problem that has affected businesses and their ability to function in the manner that their businesses were intended."
Caldwell on Wednesday rolled out a revamped strategy to deal with homeless issues islandwide that includes spending some $47.2 million in newly approved funding from the Council to provide permanent shelter for up to 400 homeless individuals and families. The administration said it will direct that funding toward Waikiki, downtown and the Waianae Coast because of the large numbers of homeless living in those areas.
But two measures Caldwell is proposing as part of the new homeless initiative are aimed only at what is described as the Waikiki Special Design District, which runs from the Ala Wai Canal to Kapahulu Avenue. Bill 43 would ban lying and sitting on sidewalks in the area, while Bill 44 would prohibit defecation and urination in the region.
The sit-lie bills carry language similar to laws in Seattle and San Francisco that have passed constitutional challenges.
The urination-defecation bill is similar to a state law that prohibits such activity in the Chinatown-downtown area. Initially scheduled to sunset Dec. 31, House Bill 33 — introduced by state Rep. Karl Rhoads (D, Chinatown-Kalihi) and signed into law by Gov. Neil Abercrombie in April — extended the law through Dec. 31, 2016.
Martin said the decision to hold a special meeting for all three bills was made to ensure they could be heard during the Council Zoning and Planning Committee meeting set for 9 a.m. Thursday. The next scheduled Council meeting is July 9.
"Homelessness has reached the crisis stage in Honolulu, the Council, the mayor and the public are in total agreement on that," Martin said in a release. "Fast-tracking these bills will provide the city administration with the legal authority to clean up public areas but also help to get the homeless into shelters and receive assistance sooner rather than later."
The bills could get final approval as early as July 30, Martin said.
Previous measures dealing with the clearing of sidewalks such as the stored-property ordinance and sidewalk nuisance ordinance have been funneled through the Public Safety and Economic Development Committee, which Fukunaga chairs. Councilman Ikaika Anderson, who chairs the Zoning and Planning Committee, said he pushed to have the two Waikiki bills heard in his committee because it was already scheduled to hear Resolution 14-117, which calls for reviewing all the rules and regulations governing the Waikiki Special District.
