Fire safety bill allows high-rises to waive sprinkler installation

Owners of older high-rise residential buildings would be able to opt out of installing sprinklers under a draft fire safety bill approved by a Honolulu City Council committee Tuesday.

Related measures offering financial incentives for high-rise owners who do install sprinklers, meanwhile, moved out of a separate Council committee Wednesday.

All the measures were introduced following July’s massive fire at the Marco Polo condominium complex that led to four residents’ deaths.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the Honolulu Fire Department have been pressing the Council to enact a fire sprinkler requirement on buildings 10 or more stories in height.

The Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee, however, on Tuesday gave initial approval to a new draft of Bill 69 (2017) that will incorporate language proposed by Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga requiring high-rise residential buildings without automatic sprinkler systems only to undergo formal building fire and safety evaluations.

The draft further states “existing high-rise residential buildings shall be protected throughout by an approved automatic fire sprinkler system or alternative fire prevention and fire safety systems …”

Additionally, “an existing high-rise residential building may opt-out of the automatic fire sprinkler system requirement provided that a majority of the unit owners affirmatively vote to opt-out of the requirement within three years of the completion of the building fire and safety evaluation” provided the building receives a passing score by installing “alternative fire prevention and fire safety systems.”

Owners of a building who choose to opt out installing a sprinkler would need to publicly disclose they are doing so, including being required to post signs stating so in the building’s public areas.

“We need to balance the need for improved high-rise residential fire safety with the recognition that a mandatory fire sprinkler system would impose huge financial burdens on condominium associations and residents,” EMLA Chairman Ron Menor said. The language proposed by Fukunaga “is an attempt to strike that balance,” he said.

Fire officials estimated 360 residential towers don’t have automated sprinklers and would be required to conduct an evaluation. All were built before 1975, when the city first required all new residential towers to carry them. But only about 150 of those were to be required to install systems with the rest considered less vulnerable because they are deemed more accessible to firefighters and their equipment.

Jane Sugimura, president of the Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners, testified in support of “a voluntary, flexible process where the associations decide how much they want to spend and what they want to do to make their buildings safer.”

The bill will now be scheduled for the second of three votes before the full Council next Wednesday.

She said her organization supports requiring a life safety evaluation of all the high-rises towers with no sprinklers.

The Council Budget Committee, meanwhile, advanced on Wednesday three measures aimed at providing relief to condo associations and owners installing sprinklers after people testified in November that such a requirement would force fixed-income and cash-strapped owners to sell their units.

Bill 101 (2017) would provide an as-yet unspecified tax credit to property owners retrofitting with sprinklers, Bill 102 (2017) would give those property owners waivers from plan review or building permit fees and Bill 103 (2017) would create a loan program and fund for those required by the city to install sprinklers. They will be scheduled for the second of three votes next Wednesday.

Resolution 17-316, urging the semi-autonomous Honolulu Board of Water Supply to waive fees for the installation of water meters for those retrofitting with automatic fire sprinklers, was deferred.