good afternoon the meeting of the housing human services and transportation committee when i'll come to order it is one thirty p m on thursday august sixth twenty fifteen members thank you for being here i am seasick revolt chair of the house and human services transportation committee before we begin may i please request that we all turn off our silence our cell phones our other noise making devices at this time i try to introduce our committee voting members committee vice chair gladys by good afternoon good afternoon our council member my victory no i'd like to introduce participation from our non voting committee member mr cochran thank you for being here and thank you thank you for having me at this time i'd like to introduce our administration representatives and introduce jan sheet oh our deputy director of housing and human concerns you know with us representing our budget director administration and as well as our finance department mr all around sent a buzz thank you of course from the corporation council our deputy corporation counsel mr she's in the gallery right now with our committee staff committee secretary tammy perris thank you for being here and our legislative attorney carla nakata thank you for all of your work members we have two items on the agenda today so we'll get started with public testimony i'd like to first of all recognize the assistance from our district office assisting us this morning from the honda district office is don conn at this time for individuals who will be testifying in the chamber please sign up at the desk located in the eighth floor lobby just outside the chamber door if you will be testifyin from the remote testimony locations specified on the meeting agenda please sign up with the council staff at that location testimony will be limited to the items listed on the agenda today pursuant to the rules of the council each testifier will be allowed to testify for up to three minutes per item with one minute to conclude if requested when testifying please state your name and the name of any arctic organization you are  good afternoon madam chair and members of the human services and transportation committee my name zealously and i am testifying as an individual today as some of you know i was previously director of housing and human concerns from one nine hundred ninety nine to two thousand and six when i first became the director we  forgive this law because there is a agency provide such a vital service that we can't really go without them and then as it is now they really don't have the resources to repay four million dollars now even though there's a repayment plan before you at the very least i hope you approve it but if you can search into your hearts to make this a little less of a burden on them that would be very very helpful assuming that you can't arrive at the conclusion that this loan should be forgiven this is a matter that has been kicked down the road for sixteen years and this can is barely recognizable anymore and i know all it was difficult for prior administrations to say ok we forgive you we won't collect on the four million dollars but believe me the four million dollars was of significant investment in this nonprofit because it's not just a place to live we're talking about a population that requires special resources to new delhi so i you know i would strongly urge you to please if you can't forgive this lo make it a reasonable repayment plan thank you very much thank you any questions comments are rephrased by the test the fire thank you for being here thank you thank you m aloha madam chairman and council members apologize i have to policies in advance i mean to be reading a little bit of this so i didn't memorize it yet thank you so much for allowing me the time to speak to you about tiny houses i'm representing myself  i don't have a formal entity but i've been involved in the research of fordable housing with tiny houses for many years now so i'm here to offer myself as a resource into the affordable housing alternative called tiny houses tiny houses  simply small living quarters built on wheeled trailers as a single father of modest income i've been interested in tiny houses as an affordable housing alternative for many years today it is a movement that is sweeping the country the currently two t v shows about them tiny house nation tiny house hunters are two of them there is a documentary film several books about the subject as well as i started a tiny house why a facebook page a blessin a year ago and it's already got six thousand five hundred fans tiny houses are an affordable housing alternative that many municipalities on the mainland have already embraced every state and local jurisdiction treats them differently here in hawaii the legal jurisdiction over tiny houses whole state wide traffic code they're in there defined as house trailers and are permitted to willing so long as they are legally parked on private property that typical tiny house on the mainland is completely self contained off grid willing with no more than one to two pence these smaller one hundred fifty to three hundred square foot homes can be solar powered connected to water catchment and use composting toilets in some places these tiny houses are hooked up to power and much like it and water much like r v s some people buy land and put tiny houses on them and some people some tiny house owners simply rent the land from property owners tiny houses are not for everybody but for the one percent or so that desire these affordable houses it provides them with a lower cost of living enables them to save for retirement pays helps to give them money to extra money to pay for school by healthy food etc it also has gives more money that they can spend locally if a percentage of the population moves into tiny houses that relieves the tension on the current shortage of affordable housing in my county tiny house is also provided mobility in case that land o decides that they need to use the land for some other use it also makes it less challenging for the resident to find other tiny house parking somewhere else rather than looking for rental apartment which as you know is very difficult here in my county tiny houses are simple and affordable to build some people build them building companies build them for somewhere between thirty thousand and sixty thousand dollars each depending but you could build them yourself tiny houses get i should say mr over there in two thousand and thirteen and people are reluctant to come forward for fear of being visited by county inspectors and facing some sort of legal problems which may or may not exist what is needed is some kind of official and public support for tiny houses by the county of maui so that those that want to build and live in tiny houses will do so on their own accord without fear of legal problems or unnecessary regulation tiny houses are real good affordable housing option for some residents and another alternative no cost housing solution for maui if you can tell me you talked about tiny houses and whatnot what's the difference between a tiny house and let's say a mobile home a tiny house is built with similar construction methods as a regular home so they have it's all wood they have all the the framing is all done the right dimensions and so it's very similar to what we use traditional housing it's in a mobile home they're done with flimsy thin metals thin single walled sometimes they have limited framing and whatnot so they're not as strong so for example if a hurricane comes to town a tiny house can withstand that whereas a mobile home might not be testifying on h h t seven he's the last person who has signed up to testify in the chamber good afternoon council members thank you for allowing me to speak today that i have been a participant on the board of directors of k holly akio from almost from its inception at the time when we found the homeless support the food bank and a mental facility health facility for the indigent so we go back quite a few years i'm a two time past president of the board once in a good times when we opened up the first shelter for the four homeless the resource center and the second time was at the end of charl writings career and the beginning of a new way of management the effect of what our mission is is involves homeless people who were without shelter the night before and that's called emergency the second level is transitional which takes those people and assesses their needs and in title months and helps them to become a full member of society again in three affordable housing which hollywood or mcconnell is a part part of we have over two hundred thirty apartments all built to code and which you were instrumental in helping us get this taken care of and built out we have over eight hundred to a thousand people living in the affordable housing right now that we don't know where they would be sleeping tonight otherwise we are not in a position to be able to pay a loan back that we didn't know we were going to get at the time it was instituted and many of the past members of council and those of you who were around at that time i'm sure have a vivid memory of how that came about i'm not here to defend that decision or to  try to demean it i am just saying that as alice lee said we have to look at this in a different light and today is the day it was deferred this decision was deferred to a different two and a future counsel that future is passed now that needs to be dealt with and we do not have the kinds of money that we have agreed we can help you to help pay it off if we had to do that it will take away from our mission and you tell me where those eight hundred thousand people will be sleeping tomorrow night we do not or cannot meet our mission capabilities as well with this hanging over our head we're paying thirty to forty thousand dollars a year for a federally mandated audit that has one statement in it that says because of this that that is not being paid three men we feel this this  facility is in jeopardy of maintaining its viability this is been going on for six or seven years without that we would show ourselves as being one of the best in the nation i have seen numbers of different shelters throughout the nation and we have one of the finest there is compare us to what you see in honolulu on the streets as you can hear the thank you for your party just a moment members any questions or comments for the want anyone from the my district office right i am going on the basis that there isn't anyone in the gallery or the district offices who would like to testify further so if there are no further testifiers members  none from the gallery that at this time without objection i will now close public testimony thank you we can get started on our agenda i administration we have jan chito deputy director of housing and human concerns and mr vas our budget director as well with our resource personnel aaron lowe and  executive officer holly homeless resource centers members the committee is in receipt of the following miscellaneous communication data april twenty third twenty thirteen from the county clerk reporting that on april nineteenth twenty thirteen the council referred the matter relating to a review of the management off the holiday or why olli rehn to rehabilitation facility county communication thirteen dash two or four from your committee chair relating to the operation and management of homeless resource centers incorporated and correspondence dated july sixteenth two thousand and fifteen from the deputy director of housing and human concerns transmitting our proposed resolution and title authorizing repayment plan propose cali all of homeless resource centers incorporated the purpose of the proposed resolution is to authorize a proposed repayment plan for the outstanding debt related to the construction the director notes the proposed resolution states a single payment of two hundred thousand dollars has been received by the county and advises this statement is that correct the letter has been distributed to the members binders the director of finance outlines the payment history on the loan showing payments made between nineteen one thousand nine and two thousand and three totaling one million four hundred seventy two five hundred thirty thousand of that amount the director states two hundred thousand has been applied for principal and the one million two hundred seventy two five hundred thirty thousand applied toward interests he also confirms receipt by the department of finance for twenty five thousand payment twenty five thousand dollars payment on may first twenty fifteen he notes that if the proposed resolution is adopted the most recent twenty five thousand dollars payment will be applied toward principal as will all future payments members i have requested aaron lowenthal c e o of oil law homeless resource center incorporated to attend today's meeting and be available to respond to questions the committee may have considered by the committee today are there any objections to designating miss miss lowenthal as a resource person pursuant to rule eighteen per a her run of the rules of the council no you members i am also distributing today i revise proposed resolution for the committee's consideration this revised resolution incorporates the general terms contained in paragraphs  through four of exhibit one to the original payments received on the loan per the finance directors letter and the recent payment of twenty five thousand dollars which has already been deposited by the county and allows for a prospective quarterly loan payment commencement date of september first twenty fifteen i'd like to request that the committee use this version handed out today as the starting point for  discussion so at this time i'd like to allow the deputy director of the housing and human concerns to provide an overview of their proposed repayment plan as well as if our budget director has any comments if there's a need for a budget amendment or what have you thank you mr cheatle thank you good afternoon  partnership was organized on december eighteenth one nine hundred ninety seven to acquire construct own finance lease and operate the holly mcconnell affordable housing rental project required as qualified low income housing project cali ok although homeless resource center inc a hawaii nonprofit corporation serves as the operating general partner how the provides an affordable rental housing for molly county residents who earn fifty percent or less than the median income this project is comprised of two hundred units twenty four studio units one hundred twenty eight two bedroom units thirty two three better me units and sixteen four bedroom units how they make one or why they receive their proximately four thousand two hundred fifty five thousand i'm sorry four million two hundred fifty five thousand dollars from the county of maui to complete the development of holly mcconnell on why ollie a loan repayment agreement was made on december twenty ninth nineteen ninety eight molly economic concerns for the community e c c referred to as the borrower and the county of ma we the county issued certain taxable general obligations obligation bonds bond funds to provide the borrower to pay the balance of this grant loan to the county a debt service schedule bond issue repayment to county of mom he was attached starting from one thousand nine hundred nine through two thousand and three interest payments were made and a principal payment of two hundred thousand was received in september of twenty congratulations who is with us today as we know in an effort to reach a just and equitable solution to county concerns after completing a reserve study to plan for future maintenance and capital improvement costs colleen was no in a position to address their reimbursement to the county at all or respectfully proposed for pose as providing one hundred thousand dollars each per year on a quarterly or semi annual basis in april of two thousand and fifteen the county received a first quarterly payments in the amount of twenty five thousand on june twenty fifteen the department's director transmit a letter of support to counsel chair of the of the proposals submitted to the department by aaron lowe and bill in conclusion have taken the reins along with her her chief financial officer and her wonderful board the residents are respected and you policies have been put in place thank you for your time and consideration i think it gives us all renewed hope about the future of all of the good work that's going on over there with so i'm very familiar with this project like mr wortley we back with this thing long before there was a shelter and i am just so happy that you know it is we're looking at i think i see some financial stability but like i have always been of the opinion that i don't know how we got into the situation we got into but i would have preferred that from the get go that this was a grant and not alone and the reason i feel that way is i know the work that is done there i know the value of the program i know how hard it is for a nonprofit to try to meet these kinds of obligations and you know the county supports a lot of things and i think supporting homelessness is really really a worthwhile thing i really when i when you mentioned the numbers of people what was the number of people that you have there at at this moment in the two projects in our central facility we have seven hundred  fifty one individuals at home a kind of wiley at the homeless resource center that's right next door to houma kind of wiley you probably have an additional three hundred fifty at any given time and then you have yes and how many is that so in line oh we have a similar amounts roughly two hundred seventy and our resource center and we we have a thirty affordable units that ho one hundred twenty or so so it's a lot of people that we're talking about that are being housed and you know all of us watch the t v news every day and read the paper and some of us have had the opportunity to travel while and to see those tents along the sidewalks and all of that and i'm just so glad that we have a facility like yours and i am very supportive of the idea that you've gotten to the point where you can propose a settlement plan and make payments but i do know that stressful on your agency i'd like you to share with us you know mr worthy mentioned that this thing keeps coming up in your audit can you tell us what effects it ha s on your ability to be financially secure i think the most immediate effect it has is our ability to reinvest in the property these are aging units there are roof repairs that need to be done there is substantial irrigation work that needs to be completed and yet we're not able to really meet the needs completely and we're having to stagger it out since we had a reserve study completed we are now making regular payments into that reserve account but since this is something that was just initiated it's not nearly at the level that it should be so that is the most you know immediate issues that we face as an agency and then secondly even though holly mcconnell is its own separate entity because it's been before council because it's in the news it affects the trust that funders have in our agency and jeopardizes funding for the homeless resource center side so what you're saying is even if you were trying to get spend as a county in your department on the homeless issues you have a general idea i'm going to take a wild guess a good guests and thank you for that question we have on the the homeless we have about six hundred forty five thousand and then we do have accounts for the substance abuse as well as self sufficiency and the rental ok so it's about i would say about two million a  i have several times that i've been here do you have an idea of how much you've you've asked for in that that you may have knowledge of so when we request grant funds from the county of maumee it's always far homeless resource centers and that's where we're not only providing housing but we're also providing support of services so that is i just want to make sure we distinguish that from holly mcconnell which is a separate entity we receive approximately five hundred thousand dollars from the county of maui and grant funding every year to continue operations and again the affordable housing how many units of four hundred did you say we have two hundred affordable housing units in central and thirty affordable housing units in line a and it houses how many people over nine hundred individuals think so madam chair the reason i'm asking these questions is if you divide the four million dollars into sixteen years it's approximately two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year for we already spend almost two million for an extra two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year if we were to forgive this loan look at look at all the people that they can handle and can service for two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year i think it's a no brainer we just i mean i know you want to get this out today and whatnot but i think it's a no brainer this is money well spent you know maybe there were some issues before you know with how this was supposed to be handled and you can read it and you can go either way on it but i'm with miss bison it's money well spent i think it's well worth saying you know forgive this and then with that extra hundred k a year you can throw half of that into reserves and the other half is build some tiny homes for those folks the last paragraph that indicates you are in the process of negotiating with sun america housing funds to exit from the partnership and how is that going and i forgot there was an i remember there was an issue to that but you can write you know we call or sense this letter was provided to you we have negotiated their x that and they are no longer  came about is that what would happen they were an investment partner and there was there was some interest in them taking ownership and we didn't want there to be a conflict and you know loan forgiveness and they're in their interest i i can i can chart yes i can recall some kind of a discussion that we had when this issue was brought up in this committee that that might have been one of the issues why we kept the loan outstanding was because of the involvement of sun american housing i that may have been part of that discussion but i don't think anybody from finance or from the entity could actually come from that for th rationale right right ok so maybe when we revisit that issue again about forgiveness we can look into the issues regarding that entity and i'm not sure if i'm but as as far right now it sounds like corporations so if that was one of the things holding us back which i don't recall it being but again i wasn't intimately part of this i don't see a problem with the forgiveness as they're gone or you know thank you sheriff i mean i don't want to really comment as yes so i think and again i'll i think a lot of those conversations happened prior to my coming on board as it relates to the i g but what i imagined was another concern is that an investment partner they were going to capture a lot of the excess revenue that was right and i was provided by the rental property and so you know should we get the loan forgiven and we now are in a cash flow positive situation we wouldn't benefit now we're in a position where we will directly benefit and we can put that back into the property that's right so even more so a good matter thank you we'll call you back up again if we need further discussions from you would you wish to make it more comments i had a little bit of a statement prepared that if i may i would like to just share with you all of the changes we've made over the past best to where one of my foremost priority is coming into this position was to ensure holly mcconnell the two hundred you know affordable rental housing property which manages operates as efficiently as possible while still providing decent safe affordable housing to our seven hundred fifty one residents including three hundred fifty six children over the past year we've initiated several changes in response to both county and community concerns we downsized the number of maintenance and operation staff from twenty six to nine to more reasonable standards for a property of our size resulting in substantial payroll savings holly meconis serves as a work site for the hawaii state judiciaries community service work program this program allows us to provide a valuable service to collaborated with the maui police department to establish a neighborhood watch group and p d joins our neighborhood watch group twice a month to walk property and discuss ongoing concerns we are currently in the process of working with the parks department  is prohibited we are also working closely with the parks department to implement more structured community activities and add additional park lighting our team has invested a tremendous amount of time and energy toward fostering a greater sense of community to this and holly mcconnell has worked closely with the veteran affairs supportive housing program to house nine formerly homeless veterans additionally we provide housing for more than forty eight voucher recipients holly mcconnell collaborates with the maui food bake once a month to offer food boxes to provide quality nutritious food to some of our most low income residents a local church sponsors an onsite weekly youth group for our resident keiki that provides structure children's activities holly mcconnell is fortunate enough to have big brothers and big sisters on site and we are working to strengthen our collaboration and promote the services they offer lastly holly mcconnell has been working with the department of housing in humans concerns immigrant services division to provide education to our immigrant residents to strengthen communication and cultural understanding we feel confident moving forward under the proposed repayment term although ultimately complete forgiveness would be ideal we feel this is a sustainable payment plan that will allow kalima condit to continue contributing to our reserve account while also continuing to provide quality housing to our residents thank you for the opportunity to discuss our proposal with this committee and i also want to express my sincere gratitude to council member caballo department of cooperation council the department of housing and human stop somebody it's my understanding that it does continue to occur interest ok ok that's not a good idea ok thank you thank you thank you thank you for required to accept the repayment plan as stated and i also just wanted to make a comment to members coaches statement just to clarify it wouldn't be costing us any money any way affect our financial statements for th thank you madam chair and would like to also point out to the members that we did get about one point seven almost two million back already in interest you know we're not a bank know we we could loan out money and get it back for causes that not as very beneficial as this that's fine but this one i think essentially you know i at the tune of less than two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year we've done some we've got some great service so i don't know how you want to proceed with this to go i know you want to get this problem for a long time until we had to attack what was really part of the contract what was it a loan was it and it does seem to we were still issuing our monies to to the entity and so now we've we've done some due diligence as a committee enters a department as board members and as far as their management and with their due diligence i think you know it would just allow us to take into consideration kind of this question that we've had today in regards to if we want to use the word forgiveness or or or wipe it off but before we go any further with that and regards to this particular resolution i think i'd like to confer with our legal minds too to see how we want to do this what necessitates this resolution or what m necessitate or the possibilities of the proposals or the discussion that we're having now so at this time i'd like to call a brief  the resolution for repayment for the discussion with our legal minds that's a possibility for us to do this today so first of all i think we were carroll you want that conceptually to be noted in the resolution or do you want to be our firm condition where we sign an agreement i only ask because if it's true condition and we sign an agreement with the organization it will require tracking and you know other things on the partment housing the concerns whereas you know if you make it known that that's the desire of the council i'm sure the organization will follow that and just want to state that distinction thank you oh i was not to thank you i would be more than happy to support what is what we're being talking about thank you thank you it's got great figure chair and if i'm not mistaken is there we're in essence same forgive just half of it in a sense at this time via other that'll be dealt with on another day maybe or yes something to that effect yes ok just want to thank you for keisha thank you yes they loans yes yes the total eight me is the college thank you i think you know my stance because i've said it but i just wanted to  concern i think we have enough members to to vote with you on that but i don't think that you know us giving one hundred thousand dollars a year  to take however many years i haven't done the math yet but forty years yeah forty years it's like it's not even worth the hassle so i think we might get a unanimous vote out of this i just wanted to remind members that we have a few members here that that are more budget minded and may have some other can understand what you're saying i don't know that we're here today and it's a matter that we should yeah some time in the almost two and a half years from the very beginning we had management issues to it as well as funding issues and then came the loan finding about the loan and several concern is on the conservative side accountability will this be made tainted will this continue to be on the right path and so what is the conditions that will maintain that you know i'm i'm all for for forgiveness of this four million but i don't want to do it right away i have or at least put some kind of conditions that would make sure that there's accountability that this will be an entity that will be clean and not really clean but on the right path because when we got this in your committee chair somewhat very questionable as to whether we were even going to allocate additional monies for grants so that's my concern tha for various operational activities the receive audit from them and i and you'll basis that are you know the economy that is held in that manner for this specific facility the county still owns the property and so we have a lease agreement for them to still uphold you know their portion of what they're doing so i understand management comfort concerns and that can happen of course with any organization and you know it will be up to the department in ministr continually monitor their activities to make sure that they are doing fulfilling the mission of the organization in feeling what what we as a county desire of them for this community and what the communities needs are and that's that comes on an annual basis where budgeting for sure and as you mentioned you know the possibility of pulling funding from them if if needed if they are not fulfilling their accountability requirements so there is a level it is my intent to entertain a motion with the revisions to reflect what we're proposing here today and like i said the legal minds nobody was paying attention to this loan no one no one even know knew what the contract was all about for many years so as a committee we did a clean up and because of that under the leadership of our department we were able to get an honest audit and the board of directors of the entity took that very  seriously applied lot of the recommendations from the audit saw in response to accountability i think it starts with us administration the department  it's our oversight as a committee with the department working together with the entity to be assured that our homeless and our less fortunate are being addressed you know we have i think our county is the most generous county when it comes to provide for our nonprofit so in turn provide for those that are in need and it all falls on our lap as as policy makers and working with the department so i understand your your concerns is it's make sense  but you know when you look at it these loans a basically wiped out thirty you know in in the work that was done before so my my condition our hope or desire is that what we're being forgiven is to be sure that the clients their needs are being addressed case management you know how do we have them budget their monies are we going to keep on jacking the rent are we going to say you know you've got to meet this you've got to meet that or as you're out those are to me that kind of desire  a member of this committee or chair of this committee that i'd like to be assured not necessarily putting the conditions up somebody would have to do more oversight but what comes with all of the necessary work s written form or at least some conditions that since we it is such a large amount of money that we are going to earliest potentially forgive i'd like to see some kind of conditions where we can place  it's almost right to say this in front of this leveraging you know some some things some some conditions like mr carroll has mentioned that we can somewhat dictate in and say ok we'll forgive this about if you two x y and z that that seems to be very reasonable without those type of conditions were basically saying ok fine it's all done in good that's move on  lease something for something quid pro quo we forgive but you do x y and z that's what i'd like to say and it seems like it would be so at least fair and reasonable and i think the entity would be reasonable to agree with that as well to at least see that language or how that negotiated i'll ask mr oil cut to comment on that if you don't mind side it is i believe it's been about twelve years since dave the last payment saw men i'm not sure what are our true recourse is if we don't get paid so you mention leverage and you  know performance i believe this organization you know they've had some ups and downs but they're you know the come around they're running themselves well they've always seemed been to the department of housing him a concern so  i'm not entirely sure how we would word it or i would need a yes we would need guidance when drafting that agreement on exactly what those conditions would be if you guys do choose to go that route thank you thank you  understand where you're coming from but like i said when we when we delved into this problem it's been years since we've got anything and like mr is it twelve years you know  and like i said no one paid attention and then then you have a whole cleanup and even if they had problems in the past they made attempts to to make some payment i guess you know i guess coming from your understanding i would like to understand what sort of condition know what more can we put upon the entity that will sort  of judge their i guess your concern on their a comfortability and right now i i'm kind of at a loss of thoughts and what type of conditions but it's something that could be discussed i'd like  mr carroll's proposals in the beginning but at this point i wasn't really prepared to make that decision or that discussion so i i know one  thing i am in agreement of forgiving but i just don't know how that will you know what's a process or what is the consequences and things like that how do i would we somewhat or we'd have this facility we do have individuals from the home program office from the county of maui do yearly inspections so we will always have strong ties with with maui county we will always be working in partnership with  thank you here and thank you just i think maybe you can for during recess with corporation counsel but because on the agenda it's in regards to repayment plan and now i guess the discussion is in forgiveness of it to your i mean i just think thank you but i think you know let mr okama and his thoughts perhaps just hearing his discussions in the past others maybe in the public or what have you if they saw it written in a different way on the agenda to day they had come up with their ideas on how mr goosen is searching for conditions and other ways to address this this is different from what is being stated yes thank you and i can also say that if members do have concerns about conditions that might be something we might be able to add at first reading as an amendment if they really have some strong there other situations within our county like like this nature as in loans repayment plans and things like that for other entities madam chair no i'm not aware of any  thank you any further discussion are you a key with the opportunities that we may have to add market condition it sounds as though you may have some time before now and first read oki thank so if i have this right i'd like to entertain a motion to recommend adoption of the revised proposed resolution distributed oh all are ok i'd like recess like to call this meaning back to order thank you members as we continue on on our agenda in regards to h h t seven at this time i'd like to entertain a motion to amend the title and text of the revised proposed resolution to reflect that outstanding debt why ali affordable housing rent to project shall be forgiven and that it's the council's desire for a motion so move the i hear a second so i can thank you members any further discussion mr college misplaces the one the main motion is i thank you very much i think i've said enough today but i can't tell you how others feel like i said i thought i'd never live to see this day thank you thank you mr college thank you would like some clarification of the any further discussion if not yes mother goes megachurch just for clarification this is do we need language in there that basically says the other outstanding four million is exempt from this forgiveness or this is just it's clearly a motion to come before you i'd like to entertain to adopt the resolution as amended so moved here thank you and there is a motion to accept adoption of the resolution as amended and a second now we move on to our next agenda item this is mr culture's proposal to us the agenda i don't h h t dash twenty three tiny houses on trailer so with us today we have our resource personnel deputy director of housing and human concerns our planning director mr will spence and director of public works mr david good the committee is in receipt of county communication fifteen dollars to six member don cult relating to the matter of tiny houses on traders so at this time i'd like to ask member college to introduce the matter and provide any information he wishes to the committee little bit different story about so i had my staff take a look at what's going on and what are the issues can it be done can it not be done and i put some letters to corporation the response but i did have a meeting with public works and planning to talk about the possibility of this type of trailer which is designed constructed and equipped as a dwelling place living a boater sleeping place either permanently or temporarily and is equipped for use as conveyance on streets and highways and it talks about that they can be no person or persons shock you buy a house trailer is being moved which is understandable and tax that the each of the counties can it may enact and enforce ordinance are really relating to the use of vehicles for purposes of human habitation which at this point we don't have that i could find any ordinances on that and it goes further down into what what you can and can't do with houses on trailer house trailers so i have passed out some thoughts about and some articles about the movement that's going on as the test fire said there are two national t v shows now that are on cable regarding tiny homes some people are saying that older citizens that are by themselves would be willing to use these not quite sure if that's the case i hear more of that the millennial zz are looking towards doing something like this as a way to get into the housing market so village eco village we talk about that on the second page here that might be a thing house first i think the homeless housing first situation so if we can there's all kinds of potential here for affordable housing for people who want to live in something like that not not for everybody as as a test for said potential housing first for homeless so i think with our discussion earlier this morning about ohana is on smaller lots and and the lack of affordable housing i think this is one way we might be able to you know eat the elephant one bite at a time so this is a little chunk the problem is going to be is concerns that the department of public works has in the concerns that department planning may or may not have and they had brought up some concern so i'd like to hear if you don't mind madam chair what does apartments may or may not have in concerns with doing something like this having them still on trailers and putting them in a little group or allowing people to have one in their backyard to have somebody live off of there are all kinds of different essentially something you could use as a dwelling and you know you are permitted to habitate in a vehicle between it's just not prohibited to habitate in a vehicle between the hours of six p but i guess we wouldn't go so far as to say that make permission to do it it's just not prohibited you know and there's that slight distinction i think you guys can understand that so that was what we were looking at and i guess for court counsel i guess we'd prefer seeing our proposal as to how someone wanted to do something like this in the proper legislation to allow it rather than just not prohibit it would probably be a little easier for us to review and give a good legal analysis on because from speaking with certain people from what i understand we've been plans have never been submitted for something like this at this time so just some of our thoughts thank you chair thoughts was the whole eco village type of concept where on a couple acres and you could put four or five of these in and have a little communal area for restrooms and showers and maybe a kitchen or something like that so that that can be done the question would be then if you do something like that and these these homes are said there it's not really prohibited which therefore means it's not permitted but it's not against the law so you can do it i guess so i you know that it's really a touchy situation because we do you know we've been talking about density and we've been talking about permitted uses in it in the planning committee and this is kind of around some of that you know is that we think just for clarification too as i mentioned it's not in it's not illegal under the state traffic code right i don't know about the the me be not illegal thank you i would really support the idea of like an ecovillage you know you there's a there's a ton of different names for it co housing that's sort of an old term but you can do it and you can do eco village is an urban rural or ag there would have to be some changes to some significant changes to code so i like that idea i think that's a trend where you could have housing whether it's you know we need to discuss sizes and stuff like that at the ability for people to build inexpensive housing with some shared facilities those kinds of things i think there's a huge benefit to that i like that idea lot i've thought about that quite a bit the proposal before us if it's a proposal at all or what the problem i have with tiny houses is that they are on wheels and they are mobile they are not permanently affixed to the ground they're going to move around as as a zoning matter we would look at it either as a residence a tiny house as a residence or as camping as a residence you have all your zoning codes on how many you can have per square foot you know if you're in the residential district if you're in the ag district you can have two houses on a lot and it has to be related to farming if you are you know if it's camping there's a certain limit to that amount of time that you can camp out without moving as well so it's not a permanent residen part of my concern and it it stems from dealing with enforcement you know which was has been a topic of discussion for you know related to all different kinds of things  we run into properties where there may be twenty encampments on a single lot and we need to go deal with that  people living in tents people living in makeshift homes that don't meet any kind of code would we do not directly deal with squatters but i think in my career as planning director i've been to at least three meetings with the police department where they need to go putting homes that are just moving around my concern is we're going to end up with you know ten or fifteen located on state land somewhere on county land somewhere they're not going to move or do you want you know you have to ask yourself do you want these tiny homes parked along a road sides in our parks  taking up parking spaces you know i see i see a a bunch of issues coming up and foresman issues coming up if you allow these as just you know this is a great thing to do this is entirely different than the mainland i know i can appreciate mr players thoughts of this is you know why is right for this is very different now is entirely different than places on the main one where you may encounter this kind of thing i did a quick look you know maui island is seven hundred twenty seven square miles that seems really big but it's a finite space in comparison san diego county is forty five hundred square miles next door riverside county is seventy we have a finite amount of space i just i just see problems coming up with allowing essentially we're not mobile homes in the in the kind of the same thing but in some ways are very similar just to be able to park anywhere i see it i see there is a trend on the mainland  but i do i do worry about the consequences so what if we get three or four hundred on my way what if we get five hundred you know they start grouping into areas what are we going to do with the waste water what are we going to do with t trash what about freshwater those things aren't entirely answered right now we are having a problem if you want to talk about parking on county right  right now something i'm sure is going to come up to council at some point is the whole idea of food trucks parking on county right of way so what if we have people camping on county right of way and potentially lots more than the issues we're encountering with food trucks i'm concerned about the safety particularly with hurricanes you know or high winds in general  there's sort of a joke in planning departments on the mainland where you know you start allowing mobile homes you go you know that's a big attractant for tornado in these yes you know because that seems to be the big thing because they're not secured to the ground like a house is so if we have a bunch of these people are living in them or ever on the island there's just there's a safety issue with that or what if they're parked in you know a hazard zone you know part of that part of what we do with in the planning department is we deal with the flood hazard zones there are special construction requirements for drainage areas those kinds of things these wouldn't be subject to that at all i don't know how we would check or enforce people would unknowingly every now and then you hear about when the tsunamis come people go walk down into the ocean as the water recedes unknowing you know that the wave is coming so you don't have people living down by the beach and potentially you know in a dangerous area i'm constantly surprised when i go to the more remote parts of the island and i see how far the wash of the waves are so there's a lot of unanswered questions primarily based on them being mobile affixed to the ground i think we should make accommodations for i don't know what size the you know the the county wants to talk about housing you know what's a minimum square footage we want to talk about eco villages affixed to the ground i think we should be talking about those things mobile i have a real difficulty with it thank you thank you mr spence you really did some homework yeah vehicle for purposes of human habitation whether or not the vehicle is design or equipped for that purpose while the feel cool is parked on any roadway street or highway or other public property between the hours  that concern would be mitigated i would think by that law i mean we the police would have to enforce it of course and the reason i brought this up on trailers is because once you put them on the ground you have another whole big can of worms one of which is that they the minimum size of a house i believe and mr good can back me up on this is by the international building code is i believe two hundred twenty square feet something around there that's the minimum size of a house no more anyway yeah when he comes to talk so but once it gets affixed to the ground or at least set on the ground and now you have issues with plumbing water electricity different issues then it would be because the question i would have is we have campers here you know that you see campers on the back of trucks or a couple of motor homes around and what not those if those were parked in somebody's backyard is what would that be camping would that be what was the other you are talking the choice was either camping or actual dwelling so what how would that be if we had three hundred of those shipped over here and people living in those people's backyards or on somebod actually review it and mark up my understanding at least the two hundred twenty square feet takes care of some basic speech still need to add i think about truman kitchen which to me are basic as well so realistically it's probably somewhere close to four hundred square feet maybe a little under and i did as my staff getting some folks who have been there quite a while what's the smallest house they've ever seen come through and they mentioned  way back when and even though the building materials supply house they had a four hundred square foot unit you could basically buy prepackaged all the materials and build and that's that's like the smallest  so then that case you probably got a room like a studio type situation that meets the building code so i don't have an exact number but it's probably it's probably some are just under four hundred square feet so that would be the type of structure that could probably be permitted under our code without a variance or some other special consideration and of course there's been discussion about trailers that would be outside of the building code so a trailer to is something that's regulated by d o t etc so for us we wouldn't be permitting that although if it were allowed to be hooked up under the zoning codes you'd still need to hook up law water so some kind of electrical polling permit may have to apply i'm not sure how that would that would happen so it's a pretty small area as i was sitting back there chair i at i thought from this chair to you to mr couse to mr goodman in back to me it's probably between two and three hundred square feet it's not a lot of room so i just want to get in perspective everybody understand what what even a tiny house at one hundred sixty square feet or two hundred square feet would be and my final comment would be when i went talk to some of our building code folks they mentioned that situation i just want to point out a couple things for discussion i hate to be the no no person so i try to also look for solutions for doing so just for information there is a terrorist forty six fifteen which is the experimental and demonstrating demonstration housing projects so that we make copies of our they make copies of it so it does allow for such things and it basically would exempt them from all sections of the code so i would recommend you take a look at that you also can look at my county code has also adopted a experimental and demonstration housing projects this in that's in sixteen twenty eight so and that was authorized back in one thousand believe eighty three so there is a methodology in which you would be able to do this type of tiny housing if  county council and the mayor wanted to do so so they would be have to be plans and specifications for that purposes so that would be my recommendation to those who want to advocate for this would just look at those two sections to see if they still are able to what they were trying to do and i mean that's all i can say that's what the law does allow i believe the last time the experimental housing was done i believe it another they were they would i believe that that project was done under the experimental provision at that time so and again there is a streamline process i don't know how streamline but it's done by council and by the mayor to be signed off on based on the did you have any comments and for this discussion can we open up a seat for you thank you chair good afternoon again and i didn't do my homework i was so set on having it be forgiven so thank you for that but what i do want to say is that with mr spence and mr good's comments you know when they talk about and when you talk about h r s two ninety one see when you talk about i when you talk about d o t when you talk about all these other a b c s you know i come from the department of housing and human concerns and so for having these tiny houses it's a first step possibly in affordable housing it's a first step in possibly housing first but of course i understand all that the ramifications of having enforcement and laws and i think that when it comes to safety issues there it's going to have to be a process in which these tiny houses are reviewed and given and monitored and possibly managed but just seeing what we need here on maui and how it's so we need more of the affordable housing as you know our section eight housing division has been diligently and working so hard in getting our waiting list down to almost zero and we are you know i'm just so proud of that division having been able to get out those volunteers we are i think we have to also be careful of i think mr spence mentioned squatters and i think we have to define  the homeless and of course we all know that the homeless they don't want sometimes don't want to be housed but i think if there's an alternative and that there is going to be the housing first concept where they'll be able to get the resources get the mental health help be able to help with there's substance abuse issues then basically as a human and concerned you know i'd like to hear more about these tiny houses and i'd like to really discuss more in the cards to how we can have all these tiny houses help mali county thank you members any questions and regards to this conceptual proposal is cochran thank you chair this is the main reason why i came to join you today when i saw tiny houses there i got very excited because and i saw i want to think council member coach for bringing this subject matter forward and in one of his handouts on the very back at talks about the dignity village that i keep talking about which is in portland oregon and i guess they also have opportunity village which is in eugene oregon so this is kind of more the concept in my mind that i've been thinking about in trying to get out there i know i was speaking to director redoubt and the department housing human face maui's here i've talked to them i've talked to planning before and it's kind of now sort of jelling together and this discussion so exciting to see and mobile units were never part of my thought in regards to tiny houses or what have you so that part is a new concept to me and i'm hearing concerns of the department right now i'm looking at mr coaches firsthand  in regards to the eco village and that's kind of more the idea i was thinking of true and then a couple pages in it says what can county do and number one has always been the issue in regards to land availability of land and it because we are the county are rich and so we personally don't have this type of you know acreage to create such an eco village tiny town or whatever you want to call it and then also the large landowners normally this isn't a big profit making thing for them to do so it's been a very challenge for me to trying to get existing land owners out there to buy into this concept so i think those are some hurdles that we need to overcome but i'm very very much in favor of this anything creating these more tiny house eco village type areas or something i think would be sort of more easier done in regards to creating an acceptable zone or you know acceptance by the community basically versus mobile mobile tiny house that can just kind of roll around wherever i think that's going to be a huge challenge and i know on the island of oahu hola has been utilizing maps and containers and creating for people and so far i think it's i haven't heard that it's working it's moving along and they're doing something so be interesting to review and see how they've progressed in nevada but you know the rolling around tiny houses is comic so i got at need to look it we want to get houses we want to get affordability in there but again hate to have all these loopholes and abuse for too many little tiny houses crammed into a spot but i very happy to be here for the discussion and i really really like to see if we can move forward with this eco village more type concept where it's communal off the grid even as it can be less footprint on our resources  didn't want to get in that way i'm not wanting to get in the way and just looking at the dignity village illustration and from the other one on the previous page this is exactly the kind of thing i would like to see a county go forward on some shared communal facilities i don't know if you know i think the hole the size of the toiling that's all up to discussion but the concept of being able to you know how these kind of little villages i think that's really admirable i would really like to see has passed village you know i think that we need to have every tool they we can in our two buckets right here and so we've got to try and see how this goes and if it turns out really good then maybe it's a better solution than we thought about but to start somewhere and so i'm very thankful for having that discussion today and i want thing member coach for putting you know bring it up for you for putting it on the agenda but i would like us to dig into it a little deeper thank you cute you know it's not like you're suffering it's not like you're sticking them in a little box or anything it's very satisfactory and it's very it makes you feel really good when you thank you and i thank you thank the colleagues for the comment in this the department as well for the comments one of the things is mr spence said he would like to see some legislation i guess my question would be what would that legislation be because that's kind of what this this meeting was about is to introduce the concept and say ok what what kind of things do you not want to see and what kind of things do you want to see and i guess that he don't doesn't have to be today but that would be one of the things i would like to get out of this meeting is what kind of legislation do we need and i'd be happy to with you or have further discussion as far as her how the committee can help at legislation to this regard we can look at some models madam chair we don't have any particular ordinance in mind there's nothing drafted yet but we can look at some different ideas from around the country you know on how they deal with some of the things we've been talking about like waste water and  departments and i'm sure with the housing department we can work together on some sort of proposal with some village gotta find the land you know and where we go from there  discussion so i think with really a live off the grid in my house a little bit bigger than one hundred square feet i know that it doesn't take a whole lot to be off the grid especially if your units are going to be that tiny solar power up on each rooftop and they've got all the ladies and of whatever they need basically not the heavy duty but it looks like communal laundry communal keane and what have you will be separate anyways but just for your basic night light reading or whatever radio stuff could work very very easily and the other question is what is it that you can build that does not require a permit like  so the building code has a number of exemptions for types of structures it only permits and there's i think twenty eight different exemptions if i recall correctly and urban areas  set up a process by which people can come in and claim those exemptions so that we understand where those structures are they can be taxed done quite quite dozens of my think this point ok so in habit area was your you know my kids are it think you were camping every day and it you can you can manage you know living off the grid before it even became something real was how we raised our families so it works it's just that what you're willing to make happen you know so departments thank you very much for being with us  because they will not be any legislative action on this with no objection i would defer the i don't know thank you so members thank you for being here this cochran thank you for joining us at this time