Moratorium on ‘monster homes’ gets Council approval

After months of discussion, the Honolulu City Council approved a bill on Wednesday that imposes a moratorium on larger-scale houses in residential districts on Oahu.

The ban will give the Council and other city officials up to two years to pass permanent laws aimed at curbing the so-called monster houses that residents in older neighborhoods say are ruining their communities and overtaxing their roads and other infrastructure. Critics also argue that the homebuilders are gaming the system with no regard to their neighbors, and are creating what essentially are either apartments or vacation rentals in communities built for single-family residences while at the same time driving up property values and taxes.

While critics of larger houses pressed the Council to put in a moratorium before more monster houses could go up, Council members have spent the past few months grappling over how to define a “large detached dwelling.” The issue became more thorny after the building industry, at least one major developer and others said they are worried that the wrong language would shut down the construction of legitimate homes in the midst of a statewide housing crunch.

At one point Wednesday, Council members had the option of choosing from among nine different drafts of the proposal.

The draft of Bill 110 (2017) that was approved unanimously Wednesday would bar the Department of Planning and Permitting from issuing a building permit for a dwelling in a residential neighborhood for a house with a floor area greater than 70 percent of the land area. For example, the owner of a 5,000-square-foot lot will not be able to get a permit for a house with more than 3,500 square feet of living area.

The bill does allow for DPP to process and approve building permits for larger dwellings if they meet a very specific list of requirements, including at least two off-street parking stalls for a dwelling up to 2,500 square feet in size and more stalls tied to the size of a dwelling; no more than 2.5 bathrooms for lots up to 4,000 square feet and more depending on lot size; greater side and rear setback requirements; and no more than two wet bars and one laundry room per dwelling.

Kathy Sokugawa, acting DPP director, said after the meeting that it “would be challenging but not impossible” for property owners to meet those criteria.

The bill also calls for the establishment of a task force made up of key stakeholders to help DPP and the Planning Commission come up with long-term laws or rules.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell released a statement late Wednesday indicating he will sign the bill. “I’m glad the City Council took the time to craft legislation that allows construction of large homes as long as they are not physically imposing on the lots (they are) built on and don’t negatively impact the quality of life in our residential neighborhoods,” Caldwell said.

He blamed the proliferation of large houses on the high cost of housing and the housing crunch and he urged the Council to pass Bill 58 (2017), a measure requiring developers to provide more affordable units to those on the lower end of the income spectrum.

Assuming Caldwell signs the bill, the ordinance would take effect soon after.

While the bill states the moratorium can be for up to two years, Sokugawa said she expects DPP to send a set of draft rules on large houses to the Planning Commission for its recommendations by September, with the goal of forwarding a bill to the Council by the end of the year.

Most of those who testified on the bill Wednesday supported the moratorium.

Kapahulu resident Steven Yamashiro said he’s not against people who legitimately are building homes to house several generations of their family members. “But we are against these structures that are actually apartments in residential homes,” he said. “As I speak, there’s a 6,600-­ square-­foot house, or structure, being built on a 5,000-square-foot piece of land. So where’s the parking going to be? Definitely not on their land because there’s no room for parking.”

Several Halawa Heights residents said they only recently learned of two large structures going up along Puawa Place where they live.

Mark Shertzer said research showed both properties share the same owner. One of the lots already has been approved for a house that will have at least 10 bedrooms and Shertzer believes it’s just a matter of time before the second structure is built.

But Victor Young said his small construction company is slated to build a house in Salt Lake for a multigenerational family that would fall just over the 0.7 floor area ratio threshold. “They’ve already borrowed the money. … We’ve already submitted (a building application) but still haven’t gotten full approval yet,” he said.

Young said he generally supports efforts to curb larger houses because “I don’t like monster homes; they give us contractors a bad name.”

Councilman Trevor Ozawa, who represents several older East Honolulu neighborhoods that have seen a proliferation of large-scale homes in the last year, described the version of the bill the Council was about to approve as “the best we could get at this point,” adding, “Of course it’s not perfect, of course there’s going to be people on both sides of this issue that are going to be disappointed.”

The bill won’t penalize “those property owners that are good actors,” Ozawa said. However, “these large monster houses are not being used for what is being submitted on paper to DPP. We cannot continue to rubber-stamp these applications without looking further into the actual intent of these bad actors.”