Commission gets tough on ‘monster homes’

Honolulu Planning Commission members unanimously endorsed a draft bill Wednesday that is tougher than what the city Department of Planning and Permitting proposed.

DPP’s version of the draft bill was crafted at the request of the City Council in response to rising community complaints in recent years about landowners building out-sized homes for rent to large numbers of unrelated people in neighborhoods zoned for single-­family homes or duplexes.

The draft bill recommended by the commission in a 6-0 vote will head to the City Council for consideration.

The commission’s decision, which followed nearly three hours of public testimony, DPP input and deliberations, is important because the City Council likely would have had a tougher time passing a bill that wasn’t supported by the volunteer commission that includes planning experts.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell made an unusual appearance before the commission Wednesday to urge the panel to endorse DPP’s draft bill with modifications if necessary.

Former Gov. Neil Abercrombie also testified and encouraged the commission to vote for DPP’s draft but with stricter elements.

The bill being advanced by the commission reduces the amount of space new homes may have on lots zoned for low-density residential use.

DPP had proposed a 0.7 limit for the ratio of living space to lot size, also known as floor area ratio, or FAR. This limit would allow a maximum 3,500-square-foot house on a 5,000-square-foot lot. The agency also proposed extra requirements for on-site parking and yard space for homes with a FAR above 0.6.

A temporary moratorium that prohibits new building permits for single-family homes over 0.7 FAR has been in place since March. DPP officials said this drastically reduced the number of permits for homes with more than eight bedrooms and seemed like a reasonable new standard.

Elizabeth Krueger, head of DPP’s Zoning, Regulations and Permits branch, also told the commission that a three-person task force that provided stakeholder input to DPP was split with one person advocating for no FAR restriction and an opposing member contending that DPP’s proposal didn’t go far enough.

“Our position is this is a balance,” she said.

But commissioners and some people who testified Wednesday felt a 0.7 FAR was too high.

“I can live with .6,” said commissioner Art Challacombe, a former DPP director. “That’s as high as I can go.”

Challacombe used his own home as an example, saying he could add 4,000 square feet of living space to his 2,000-square-foot house on a 10,000-square-foot lot under a 0.6 FAR limit. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable,” he said.

Some community members urged the commission to set the maximum FAR at 0.5, and delivered their own draft bill with that limit and a variety of other restrictions including limits on the number of bathrooms, laundry rooms and wet bars.

A competing draft bill from Councilman Trevor Ozawa had provisions that included a limit on wet bars, higher parking requirements and an unspecified FAR maximum.

DPP said limits on rooms and wet bars would be ineffective because homeowners can modify those things after a home is built. DPP also said other proposed bills can better deal with the agency’s ability to take enforcement action against homeowners who operate illegal rentals regardless of a home’s size.

Krueger noted that half of all single-family homes built on Oahu over the past decade had a greater than 0.6 FAR for 3,500-square-foot lots, while FARs were considerably lower for larger lots. She also said the large-scale homes drawing the biggest complaints in recent years had FARs of roughly 1.0.

Such monster homes could be built because there was no FAR limit. Current law restricts how much of the lot is covered by a home to 50 percent in a residential zone. Height is limited to 25 feet, or 30 feet if the lot slopes. And the structure must be set back 10 feet from the front edge of the property and 5 feet from the side and rear.

Much of the testimony to the commission, which included about an inch-thick stack of written comments, complained about the impact on their communities from essentially apartment buildings built in their single-family neighborhoods.

“Our residential neighborhoods are under siege from greedy developers and landowners who are commercializing our neighborhoods and taking advantage of residential zoning laws that need updating,” said several letters.