Council moves bills mandating regular building safety checkups

Two bills that would require most Oahu commercial buildings, condominiums and apartments to be inspected every five years moved out of a City Council committee Thursday, despite concerns raised by both a condo association group and the Department of Planning and Permitting.

The bills are being considered in the wake of an October incident at Ala Moana Center that left one man dead and another critically injured after a railing collapsed and they fell several floors.

Bill authors Ernie Martin and Trevor Ozawa described their bills, which they introduced separately, as safety measures aimed at ensuring more oversight of the condition of building exterior walls and other “appurtenances,” or accessories, such as guardrails, flagpoles, signs, window frames, window air conditioners and flower boxes.

But Jane Sugimura, president of the Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners, asked committee members to put off a decision on one of the bills because her group’s members were just learning of something that would affect them significantly. Sugimura said she hadn’t even heard of the other one.

Meanwhile, department Acting Director Kathy Sokugawa questioned the need for five-year inspections. Economics dictate that most owners and associations maintain their buildings regularly.

But Council Zoning Chairwoman Kymberly Pine, in persuading her colleagues to move the measures out Thursday, said the two bills still require at least two approvals from the full Council and another by the committee before they could become law, offering ample time for the department and building owners to hash out their concerns with key Council members.

2 similar bills

Bill 16, Martin’s proposal, would essentially mandate that all buildings on Oahu, with the exception of detached one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses, be required to undergo “critical examinations” every five years that would be conducted, at the owners’ expense, by registered design professionals with qualifications determined by the department.

The department would then need to inspect any building or building section reported as dangerous or damaged and, if warranted, issue a notice of violation that may include a timetable for the situation to be corrected, Martin’s bill says.

Bill 17, Ozawa’s offering, is similar but would apply only to buildings three or more stories high. Like Bill 16, inspections would also need to be conducted every five years.

As with Martin’s bill, the Ozawa measure gives the building owner the responsibility to retain a professional to conduct the inspection and then submit a report to the city. A professional is defined as “a state of Hawaii licensed professional engineer experienced in the practice of structural engineering or a state of Hawaii licensed architect knowledgeable in the design, construction and inspection of building exteriors.”

The 11-page Bill 17 spells out in more detail its definitions and descriptions of what owners need to do than Bill 16.

Inspectors would be able to deem building conditions “safe,” “unsafe,” or “safe with a repair and maintenance program” under the bill, which also establishes time requirements for completing repairs and an appeal process.

Neither Martin nor Ozawa attended Thursday’s Zoning Committee meeting but told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in written comments that they were motivated by the Ala Moana incident, which occurred only months after Hawaii’s biggest shopping center opened its new, $570 million Ewa wing expansion. The collapsed railing is on the Diamond Head side of the mall.

After city inspectors found rust and spalling or flaking in the railings at Hookipa Terrace, the section of the mall where the railing collapsed, the department last week issued a building permit to Ala Moana owner General Growth LLC for about $4 million in repairs to railings and other work throughout the mall.

“If a tragedy like that occurred at a major shopping center, whereupon the owner invested millions into upgrading its facility but failed to perform regular preventive maintenance on its existing structure to protect its employees, contractors and shoppers, then this situation could definitely occur elsewhere,” Martin said. “When discussing this issue with DPP, they did note that there are many aging condominiums that may be susceptible to this problem and therefore, the necessity of this bill.”

Ability, need questioned

Ozawa said that shortly after the incident he and his staff reviewed ordinances in other jurisdictions where inspections are required. The bill he introduced would “explore such a program for the city,” he said. “In the course of my research, I believe it would be valuable given the aging nature of many of our commercial and publicly accessible buildings.”

Sokugawa said she recognizes the importance of ensuring the safety of Oahu’s buildings, “but both of these bills could represent a significant amount of additional enforcement responsibilities for the department, and we’re not totally sure we have the ability to respond to that additional demand for staffing.”

Bill 16 would apply to about 166,000 buildings, Sokugawa said.

“That is a concern,” she said.

Bill 17, applying to structures of three stories or more, would include about 3,000 buildings, she said.

Building owners themselves now deal with the situation through “self-regulation without government intervention” due to concerns about insurance and liability, she said.

Deputy DPP Director Timothy Hiu said enforcement does take place in response to complaints. DPP is currently pressing a building owner to make repairs and issued a notice of violation following a complaint made by the public.

Sugimura, who represents more than 30 condominium and apartment associations, said her group also agrees with the intent of the bills but has concerns about requiring inspections every five years.

Condo and apartment boards have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain their buildings. But like anything else, “you have good boards and you have bad boards,” she said.

Sugimura said it’s unfair to add additional requirements on those building owners that already regularly survey and do repair and maintenance on their properties. The state “budget and reserve statute” requires associations to conduct reserve studies and set aside money for deferred maintenance, she said.

Perhaps those who do that could be given a waiver from five-year inspections, she said.

Meanwhile, Sugimura said, the city could provide DPP with more resources to step up enforcement. It could also encourage the public, through advertising, to turn in violators, possibly anonymously.

Two other private citizens submitted written testimony raising concerns.

Downtown resident Lynne Matusow said her condominium has a reserve study that maps capital improvements 20 years into the future and has spent more than $1 million in improvements in recent years. “Residential condos should not have expensive reports forced on us, especially when we do the work anyway.”