Honolulu City Council might delay condo fire safety rules

After the July 2017 fire at the Marco Polo condominium killed four people, there was a call to have older condos retrofitted with fire sprinklers.

Bowing to concerns about the high cost of sprinklers, the City Council backed off on a plan to make them mandatory at the roughly 368 condo buildings that don’t have them. That plan was replaced with a law that gave condo owners the option to conduct a building fire and safety evaluation within three years and to comply with the evaluation’s findings in six years.

This week the City Council could give condo owners two more years to conduct the evaluation and an additional two years to comply with the findings.

The Honolulu Fire Department opposes the deadline extension.

“Let’s just keep it going so we get these buildings fixed,” HFD Assistant Chief Socrates Bratakos said Monday. “Rather than the chance of having other incidents, we implement the law and get working on whatever fixes these buildings need to make them … more fire-safe.”

Bratakos, who heads the Fire Prevention Bureau, said if owners of individual condominiums anticipate not meeting the deadlines, their cases could be reviewed by fire officials on a case-by-case basis.

The extension, included in Bill 72, introduced by Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga, goes to the City Council for a final vote Wednesday.

The measure delays the deadline put in place last spring under Bill 69 (2017).

The Marco Polo complex did not have sprinklers at the time of the fire, but is installing them now.

Condo association members testified against mandatory sprinklers, arguing that the imposition would require them to raise association fees to levels that would force owners on fixed incomes to sell their units.

Consequently, the bill approved by the Council in April and signed by Mayor Kirk Caldwell on May 3 allows a condo owner or association to opt out of installing sprinklers by instead conducting the evaluation and then making any improvements identified. Tax credits and fee waivers were offered as incentives for installing sprinklers.

Jane Sugimura, president of the Hawaii Council of Associations of Condominium Owners, is urging passage of the new bill, arguing more time is needed to work out the kinks of the new rules.

“Because (the evaluation) is a huge undertaking — and possibly an expensive one — we need to ensure that everyone — the associations, the professional(s) and HFD — are all on the same page,” Sugimura said in written testimony.

Some calling for the longer compliance times said there were few companies available to conduct the evaluation studies, resulting in a backlog. But the HFD’s Bratakos said “we found there are quite a few companies around that are able to do this kind of work.”

Some condo associations have also been told “scary stories” suggesting it would cost more than $50,000 to install sprinklers in an apartment unit, he said. A more reasonable estimate is between $7,000 and $10,000 per unit, he said.

“I think those higher numbers are not warranted,” he said.

As far as the safety evaluations, Bratakos said he’s seen some companies offer to do them for less than $50.

Bill 72 also requires the Department of Planning and Permitting to process building permits tied to sprinkler installation, fire or other safety improvements within 90 days.

There are about 368 residential towers on Oahu totaling between 38,000 and 39,000 units that do not have sprinklers. They were built before 1975, when condos were required to install sprinklers.

Bill 69 (2017) required condo owners to acknowledge in writing by Nov. 2 that they plan to comply with the new rules.

HFD has received only about 250 letters to date, Bratakos said.

HFD will notify those whose letters are outstanding and remind them of the requirement, he said. Violation notices would be issued to those who continue to ignore the requirement, he said.

That requirement, however, could change if the Council adopts Bill 72.

“We would rather get people started sooner than later, but we will enforce whatever the Council passes,” Bratakos said.