well that regular meeting of the water resources committee please come to order today is wednesday june seventeenth twenty fifteen and it's about five minutes after nine in the morning before we get into introductions chair would like to remind everyone if you could please put your cell phones on silent mode really appreciate that i have to remind myself and so the manager may remind everybody thank you very much thank you for being here this morning members and i'd like to introduce the members of the committee that are here this morning the vice chair of my committee mike vick to you know good morning mike and thank you for being here i also like to later so we have a quorum and we can go the committee has non voting members but they're not here this morning and that's member guzmn and mr hall come i mentioned that so if there are you wondering why they're not here they're not booting members of the good morning and we also have a representative from the fire department we have lieutenant scott english welcome and we have a few other water folks and as we progress here the water director w today if you wish to testify please sign up at the desk located in the eighth floor lobby or at one of the district offices listed on the list of money will be limited to three minutes and i will be happy to offer an extra minute to anybody so that they can conclude at three minutes the light will turn yellow and at four minutes it will blink read so please stop talking if you hit that four minute mark i will kindly ask you to stop if you forget or get to question it when testifying please state your name and who you are representing we have a step just a connection to the district offices to be fear and will rotate through each of those so will start  have anyone wishing to testify testify in the district offices so we are going to proceed with testimony here in the chamber missile and bring if you could please call to testify yes thank you chair our first testimony testify or the will be followed by dr richard polian thank you so we're prepared here ok good morning mr curly hair a little a committee i'm tom croly and i'm speaking on my own behalf fire flow i support this measure to grant an exemption for fire flow for the folks on the upcountry water meter list i believe this is a practical solution something that the county often sorely lacks some that is practical solutions for flow has been used for years to stop many many projects i'm not sure when it's used in that way that it's always being applied universally or in the most practical manner  what is proposed here is not unprecedented throughout the county we have homes that do not have according to you know the current code proper fright fire flow i live in mowing meadows for example the first two homes or the first two structures that are built on a property are currently exempt from fire flow however i can tell you from my neighbor's experiences that when they come in and say i want to build a garage all of a sudden the fire flow is now inadequate in our area and this person is told they have to put a fire hydrant in in order to build a garage this is happened numerous times as you well know chair this used to happen for every bed and breakfast that placation that would come in a bed and breakfast application would come in and all of a sudden the fire flow would be inadequate now again i live in a subdivision that was built in the late sixty's and early seventy's i suppose at that time the subdivision standards were not the same as they are today but my point is we're not creating something that that is true totally an unsafe condition because it exists throughout the county right now so while i am supportive of this measure i would like the committee to consider extending it beyond just the upcountry water meter list again we we if we're going to have a policy i believe the policy should be should extend to everyone from that standpoint if as in your deliberations you consider that there is a serious health and safety risk or the county liabilities override this then i would think it reasonable to maybe say that the new structures that  water fire hydrant is really just impractical and i guess i applaud this this measure for its practicality thank you thank you very much mr couper clearly members any questions for the test this bill and thank this committee and its chair for their efforts this is an important exemption qualification requirements should be very explicit the qualification for this exemption reads if the water meter application is for a single meter or single me to upgrade her lot for three lots or less does the phrase per lot for three lots or less apply also to the single m only to the single me to upgrade does a subdivision of one lot into four lots qualify or only one lot into three lots i bought my possible in one nine hundred ninety six but applied to the list in november two thousand and three not because i wanted to subdivide but just to preserve a position in time stamped list i requested five new media is the maximum i possible zoning allowed when my major award fourteen me to list will be updated to show in advance of seventy five parcels some of applicants have been removed from the list because they could not afford to fire protection improvements required before this it seems fair to offer them a chance to reconsider that choice in view of these observations i suggest that the wording of the bill be changed to if the water media application or revised application made the time of the meter award request meters and or meta upgrades for a subdivision into three new lot so a less and and two would be the same and  this exemption from upgrades to the county fire system order system is important to allow development of small apostles on the meta list without it many small projects are not economically feasible of one percent for up country water consumption this limits upcountry meter awards true about one hundred new meat as each year central and west maui systems are allowed two percent annual growth but up country has always been special upcountry growth is controlled by limits on what media award limits fish accounts by a protection and fire protection requirements a lack of new wells of a real limitation on a country development according to the one percent per year growth rate specified by the council the next new well is needed in the year two thousand and twenty three eight thousand nine hundred eighty seven partial media list will be satisfied by about two thousand and eighty affordable housing projects such as and also close to mike white welcome thank you for being here this is well and bank thank you chair our next testifier is michael clemens and then william good morning madam chair council members everyone speaking on my own behalf this morning my name is michael clements and my wife nora and i have been on the country priority list for a water meter nearly sixteen years our application is for a single five eight inch meter or upgrade in size and is a one acre our three zoned condominium property i am in support of this bill today our property is located on lower key more drive one of the oldest residential roads in cool there are three fire hydrants within two hundred fifty feet of our property and want to less than one hundred fifty feet away there's actually a fo fire hydrant but certainly the actual distance but it is less than five hundred feet the location of these fire hydrants provide fire protection from each side of our property i can actually say i am surrounded by fire hydrant which is a good thing as i am relatively confident that there is protection should there be a fire over the course of the last sixteen years i have applied for and been granted building permits that have had to take fire protection into consideration the latest was in november two thousand and fourteen so it is with some surprise that one of the requirements listed for my having the ability to obtain a water meter is to provide a fire hydrant along lower chemo drive fronting the property i believe this proposed bill would allow for some leeway for applicants such as myself to not have to bear and dish will cost what has already become a costly sixteen year wait for water service to our property i can only speak for myself but i know the frustration that is felt by those who have been waiting for the ability to utilize their property and have been in limbo while building codes fire protection standards material costs etc continue to change i ask that this committee do all that it can to be fair and to work to find solutions to providing priority list applicants with water a country and i thank you for your time your consideration and your service to our county thank you thank you very much mr clemen the proposed bill and would like to entertain the idea of accepting catchment systems for areas applicable catchment systems systems would help speed up the process for ag land owners to acquire water in order for them to utilize their properties is a waste to let thousands of gallons of valuable water go down the road while it is raining when a property owner can develop a system store water and use it when needed we also encourage the council to utilize budget funds for infrastructure and not rely on trickles of service charges to cover those costs my countenance association is a nonprofit organization systems are you asking that the catchments catchment systems be allowed to hook into the water system or be separate from the water system be separate and that's not allowed now i believe it's allowed but  it kind of holds up things in planning if you don't have a meter and you know you or or you want to like subdivided for your families or something i don't know exactly if today in support of this bill i think it's a great idea i sat on the mayor's water task force reviewing the water availability ordinance and coming up with some recommendations and we you know mr taylor came to the to a number of the meetings and shared with us his his  tough job and we talked a little bit about the upcountry water system and focused a lot on the central nervous system because of all of the economic benefit of that system but in a number of meetings came back to our country how can we solve that problem what can we do and it's it is admittedly a very long term issue that i think david to struggling with and he's got he's got a tough row to hoe and i don't envy him at all but with regard to this bill i think it's a good start i think it helps people  if there is indeed water available available meters can be issued gets people on their land if we have and my caution here would be these should only go to legal lots that exist today at the as the effective date of this ordinance not allowing re subdivision because i think you want to serve the people who are there now that have been waiting i would also say that i would compare this bill to sections of the subdivision ordinance for example for family subdivisions because there are sections in there of improvements to be made you can't get a building permit until such and such happens just make sure that this bill is coordinated with the subdivision ordinance and provides provides the staff when they look at a subdivision and they're looking at at the water the water service that they understand that this bill plays a part of that if you have a legal log for example and you want to get a water meter and you don't have to do these offsite improvements make sure that's adequate coordinated because you don't want to get a stop for another reason down the road after doing all this work but other than that madam chair i i think it's a good bill i think it will help the folks of country i think you should in some fashion in this bill restrict it to one meter per lot because we have a limited source of water a limited number of meters everybody wants an opportunity give them that opportunity but let's be judicious on how many meters go pro law and the bill that would be my only com how the bill addresses it what if there is a family subdivision and they've waited all these years like some have mentioned how long do you think they can continue to wait if they want to be a let's say for and you know i do that i live up country so and people know or i live this look i think stated here you have a limited resource you have a difficult problem getting water out to people you have a limited number of meters limited resource one meter per legal lot is how i would handle this because it is limited and people have waited this will give the opportunity if they have a legal lot to get a meter and start that process but i think everybody has to understand once again we have a limited resource and the limited availability of water and the ability to serve thank you for that and i just want to add with respect to the fire department you know i think they would appreciate ok look we like the idea the hold harmless suburban release a liability but if you start getting more and more units and by the way you're limited on how many fixtures with a five each meter what you can do on your property helping them help you and help the public is a good way to go yes chair rosemary robinson followed by tom byrne rodrigues good morning everybody rosemary robbins doesn't need a water meter thanks that the people who need them should have had them long sense just a few elements in terms of reality check according to the state constitution water is a public trust nobody  it according to the water department by way of water all things find life question is how helpful the life and how long does  happen i remember being here with the dupont rate and this sailing and she was so apprehensive about coming up before microphone she has since stayed on the list for generations waiting for water killer ok so in terms of what we're dealing with today and keeping that on the focus with the water department right now also coming from the charter of the county of page thirty one in order to protect and manage the water resources in the county the department of water supply shall make studies surveys and investigations relating to the locations and so ases of water supply within the county the amounts of able for current in perspective uses the water resources which may be available for such uses and the maximum sustainable yield those s department of water supply still implement the county's general plan and community plans in the administration of its affairs the department of water supply prepare and daniel only update a long range capital improvement plan and  updated water used and development plan which will be subject to the approval of the council as provided by law this is from eighty eight all of the water things up from eighty eight that's however many years ago twenty three twenty five whatever and we're still in trouble when we're driving down we can see the reservoirs that are filled with water by way of private sector people polo grounds there's waterways sitting on water all of our highlands is sitting on water we just continue to talk about wells and who can get them and who can't and house on dead or alive so we need to be able to not just zero six also fourteen point while zero four zero this is been around for a long time where's it going it's not going to the well being and the health of the people who need water we have water under us we need to do whatever it takes to get that water out and to keep it wherever it's going to be needed not just for development where we having water transported from one section of the island to another and then not developing it either of those on their own to the degree that the growth would require and for the generations to be accommodated from the country so let's make sure that we don't continue on with what has been going on because it's gotten us to where it has gotten us we've got this i don't know how to psycho multi thousand pound elephant in the room that nobody is talking about where's the work going on the c i p for reza poems and other sources of water so please let's make sure everybody is accommodated evenly thank you thank you members is there any need to clarify the good morning chaired by some members of the council thank you very much for the opportunity to testify this morning on a personal note my family the most recent generation moved here in hundred ninety eight two days later i was driving highway and all of a sudden it dawned on me it's the water it's been the water as you know for very long and it's very difficult to bring big solutions to this problem but it is possible to reduce and to mitigate the negative effects of our challenges in delivering water and sourcing and by taking steps single steps and i believe this is one such step property owner agrees to the conditions in the legislation and it reduces the cost of housing it may not be a big step but we need to provide safe housing for our residents and water is linked to that housing this is is one step it's an important step and we respectfully urge passage of the bill and your full consideration thank you very much for the opportunity to testify thank you very much members is there any and we advocate on behalf of jobs a healthy environment we have a kid on water issues agriculture issues of that nature our focus is on employment in a healthy economy thank you very much any othe this is very important to me personally and also to a lot of our clients my clients in the colony and our country people we really need something to change and this is the start command that  hydrants millions of dollars of improvements on one hand the other hand we had a private sprinkler system the one on the left from my place anyway it was thirty to forty minutes to get to my house the fire department when they get notified when we get notified is something like you get an emergency call by the time you get that emergency call that the fire is on the way or in a house it's going down unless we have a system in a ho notify fire department right away in any case the next thing is getting to the house lot of problems end up countries get into it so we we had that problem and that was on the left we had millions of dollars here for me it will pull out put out the fire we have about six hundred thousand gallons on this on what we're talking about is private sprinkler systems in the house i think this one will work to save lives in fact i know it  really good job at getting there and trying to trying to get it but again it puts a liability on the county if we're trying to improve the system spend millions of dollars to improve the system to get a better rate on the insurance break you put in a fire protection system private fire protection in there and it goes down by five percent to twenty percent and if you want stuff we have the insurance companies that will do  so in any case that i feel as a resident as in a controversy we are significant we're very significant and we should be looked at we i wear this rich shirt here because every time i'm coming in here churches over one hundred years hundred hundred twenty years in all we've been praying for water we did our part you saw the water how we got water here not only need the consulate to do their part to help us out to get our water meters so we can get water meters and not hold it because of fire protection not even for subdivisions because our people a country people families family subdivision because a family subdivision is nothing if we cannot get permits and if you can't if you can't do all the improvements which  this millions of dollars improvements for not then to save my family's life i see it as a where you store some money and weeks of tax dollars where some of the colony let's look at it this is this is a step forward let's step even more forward make it for subdivisions for families so that poor people don't need it and i ask you to consul to step forward and do this for us thank you thank you mr du pont members any need for clarification of the testimony saying none thank you thank you very much miss will and drink there is no one waiting in the chamber no one waiting in the chamber is going to offer one more opportunity for folks in the gallery anybody waiting to testify so without objections i would like to close public testimony no objection thank you very much public testimony is closed chair would also like to note the presence of bob carroll thank you ok members i'd like to again thank all of my committee for being here this morning we have a very important issue before us as you know the committee isn't one issue you are twenty eight country water meter installation our committee is in receipt of correspondence dated june ninth two thousand and fifteen from the department of the corporation council transmitting a proposed bill entitled a bill for an ordinance amending section fourteen the purpose of the proposed bill is to provide that applicants on the upcountry priority list who have been offered water meters from the department of water supply and are able to connect to the department's existing water system shall not be required to make further infrastructure improvements for fire protection under certain conditions on your desk folks is a copy of entire of the entire chapter if you want to use that for reference for years we have been faced with water you issues of all kinds of country and we have sat here for hours and hours and hours trying to creatively find a way to solve this problem it was mentioned by one of the testifiers that this is the eight hundred pound elephant in the room while the chair has discovered the wonderful job of being the tear of this committee i did sit on it when mr victor reno was the tear and i really didn't have a whole lot of empathy for what he was going through but i i have learned another six months what this is about because it is such a huge problem and it is existed for so long it's very intimidating and everything we try to do becomes very complicated because you're looking at many many facets of this issue and it's legal it's all kinds of emotional things well if you're going to take care of our country what about down country who's going to pay whatever and getting lost in all of that i don't have a whole lot of time left to chair this committee as you know i have a year and a half left on the council and i came i  up country person i am a third generation up country person i have listened to this a good me for years and years and years and i really would like to make a little dent in this issue before my term is up and if i can make a big one i'd like to try to do that too i'm desperately looking at ways we can but all we you know they tell you how you eat an elephant it's one bite at a time well i want to take a bite out of th and i see the bill before us today is going in that direction i think there are many other things that this committee can take and make a difference it will be things like were mentioned today somebody mentioned catchment i think we can look at that and see if we can enhance that i also you know have been interested in green water before i came to the council on us to seriously look at that i also want to look at the number of fixture unit is there any way we can do with that because it makes absolutely no sense to me i want to look at sprinklers that were mentioned i mean there's many many little ways that we can make this better we probably can't solve it but we can make it better and if we can make a few people qualify for meters ok we're moving things along it's better than having very few people get meters so that's where i'm going with this i don't know you know the big answer but again let's just work at it my hope is that this at ease some of the financial burden on applicants who are offered a meter it's very disconcerting to me to hear that people finally get the letter from the water department and then they cannot meet the financial requirement and so they lose their turn i just think that's really sad i can't imagine waiting for sixteen years twenty years thirty years however long you've been waiting and all of a sudden here's your letter and they say well you need to invest one hundred three hundred three million whatever it is and you say i can't do it and you lose your your opportunity so we're going to try to do something into what your chair is trying to do mr taylor knows our staff worked with the chair of the fire department with cooperation council to help draft this bill so the root problem i think has already been talked about today when people come in to get their meter upcountry when their name when their number comes up on the list we look at their specific site and apply the existing ordinances the limiting factor with infrastructure improvements tend to be tends to be fire flow you need a certain amount of infrastructure of let's say pipeline sized for your normal domestic flow but a greater flow for fire flow so fire flow tends to be a limiting factor which takes someone who might otherwise be able to accept their meter with no improvements or limited improvements and the fire flow improvements can be much much more than that so what this bill does is says essentially that if you fit into these criteria we're not asking for a large subdivision as defined in nearby you know one hundred i think what is up to a three lot subdivision of it says only the domestic flow requirements apply to when the fire flow requirements don't so it would just make it easier for these relatively small applicants to not have to meet fire for requirements so what it does from a policy standpoint it says in this more rural area the council's ok with a little lower lesser level of fire protection has been talked about in exchange for making it easier for people so that's what it does the department has no problem with it we would just pass that somewhere in your discussion just so we hear the reason and pass it on to applicants that the council's very clear about why it's being applied only to upcountry and not other areas we're just expecting them people come in and you know why hey are han our molokai and say well what about me we just want to be able to say well the council discussed this and they decided to include those areas or areas or not to for these reasons so we have no problem with the language we would just ask just to hear some commentary about why it is just up country so we can pass it on to help like and when they talk to into the weeds as far as exactly how some of the ordinances work and jase is really our expert on that so with that madam chair will be more than happy to help the council in their deliberations thank you very much mr taylor and i do want to thank the fire department one think the water department and the legal department who have worked very very diligently on this you know it may seem like a very simple bill that's sitting in front of you but i tell you it was complicated to get where we are and basically wan key there different they've got to comply no matter if it's one lopped or three lots or whatever you know so but it's a policy decision to subdue you guys so when you're talking about  if you go to max lots of three lots there's no fire protection each of those lots can apply for it really permits and is the first and second the only exception so possibly you have  any fire protection ok that's the possible ramifications that's why in this bill we recommended so you mean that the applicant signed a release right now it's going to be county water day example not to dwell in so fire would not even have a say in it as it less when it comes to a garage or a utility building then we have our requirements of being five hundred feet from because we're going to be stuck in the same situation what is going to say i approve we're going to say we need fire protection so we have to work on our rules to amend it and i want to show some things out there seems ok with the three lot subdivision  we're going to put in regulations so far as building size maybe a larger set back and far position is if one buildings burning is pretty ok our trucks are tanker truck probably have enough supply but we have closer buildings  there thank you thank you very much tenet very very clear actually you know i was very surprised at the wonderful cooperation that we have received from the fire department you know poor things they're often held to be the people that hold things up they hold them up because of the laws that exist and they have to comply and you know they're working very closely with us in china to reach our objective and i want to think that it finally got to this point i thought it was very curious that misting these all star weekend you that you mentioned the two dwellings really you don't have any c n n you know they can go in and build it but if they add an extension a carport a garage utility building then you would step in as far as fire floor restrictions am i correct in hearing that when you were speaking earlier the way to rules are written on between the water rules and fire the  that's what's ok no no i'm not blaming you i just seen i just wanted to be make sure i was clear on that so that the public's clear on that and i find it strange so that's why i think some of these amendments are necessary i like the idea of you having a lot farther farther setbacks because i agree madam chair if we're going to give these guys let's fire floor they're not going to be able to fight a fire and if you've got buildings very close to each other you're talking a disaster waiting to happen and so and to answer the question earlier about insurance it does you all want to five mile radius from an insurer from a fire station i don't care what fire protection you put in you don't get any disco scuse me i said if you do an internal sprinkler system so i can tell you that you can put in front of the house it doesn't make any difference as far as insurance and saving money in that respect let me go on to the next area which i thought was very important i know ma chair you have and for many years we've looked in the it up country but i'm going to tell you right now and not only speak from my colleague from well ok but i'll speak for all my areas and i got as many as a country out there kako law i got he got areas that are in the same predicament and soul if we're going to change something i tend to agree to testify or let's do it all around because to me if you're going to do for one you should do it fall just like when we kept the water meter hoke up charges the feet same for all not just a country so i believe there's some importance that i may be proposing it as we go down the road and make it so amendments to yours i think you cover most of the areas that i grew it and i'm happy that we finally culminated after years of going back and forth back and forth back and forth you know and again all these people through the years i was there always was very gracious in trying to work out the problem but we always had this one or two stumbling blocks and then again fire code has been changing over the last few years we've adopted new fire codes resent with new for restrictions it's like whoa i can never get ahead of the curve every time i think i'm going to get it done something new comes out so i think right here and now i think i'm willing to make those decision today i'm willing to take what you have and incorporate some of the amendments i'm going to propose and one of them is that all of the colony of  option and take that risk then to me i want to get more look i want to give what he want to give other areas what they were is that our father we fund the fire station don't have adequate fire fill the same opportunity so i'll let others ask questions there's a so cooperative with this it's really a fire issue not a water issue whether or not there's enough water to fight fires is really their role our role is to say how much water we can get to a certain place if from a fire protection standpoint this is deemed good policy in more rural areas it's ok with us we don't have a position on that so as long as it's clear and we can implement it we will we have no problem with whatever action the council takes in that area thank you very much question why are you distinguishing our country versus everybody else it may be so much just if you need a justification and there's just a vacation is this the priority list is only  a country replace else there's no waiting list that's the decision distinguishing characteristic and the justification to apply this just to a country without that you want to open it up everybody well that's a policy decision but i think the bill as it is can be supported and defended because of the party list if i may add one more thing to think about it although it's hard to define i know legally you might have some definitions of urban and rural and these kind of things we sort of know it when we see it there's clearly a difference between a central why do goo and central to kalani i would consider you know kalani more urban if you want to call it that but as you go to a public that's really more rural whether or not you want to county wide up country wide or just certain areas that sort of fit this very vague definition of you know where when are you in town and when are sort of you outside of town that might be something you want to consider is this just something you want to apply in these areas that are considered you know sort of outside of town where is if you're in town you know you have to meet the standard requirements so that's also something i think it might be hard to define in the same way we had a difficulty with infill it's going to be hard to define what we mean by you know in town in rural areas but that's that's also maybe something you want to keep in the back your head issues and that becomes to my mind you fall pinup just like when we did the water meter feet we wanted to rigidly for just a country and then we said no you have to open it all because why he other areas have the same problem and the problem exists colony white so again i won't try to hold this up just because of that issue but i will see the country middle east is just one issue for contrie there is the risk that a colony and i'm going to tell you no this is going to lead to a suit somewhere along the line somebody says well if they can't why can't we and i guarantee you that's going to come down somewhere along the line my feeling is if we're going to make fire flood the issue and this is seem to be what we're trying to get to at this point by then i'd like to see the whole colony done if you're talking source's you're talking other issues then there's a differentiation between upcountry and central system no question  excellent discussion of course this is very similar to what went on in our little staff committee and you know there's a lot of back and forth before we finally came to agreement with the legal department and fire and water to put what is before you but back and forth thank you chair you know i really appreciate you you know you take action on this this bill at least starts that we'll making it for real  i've heard about the upcountry lists for many years even if i'm from all ok it's something that has been ongoing i guess my question first of all would be how many applications and as far as specifically how many are specifically three lots of divisions i couldn't tell you often and for me to understand when we say you know an exception for the  where the department sort of explain as to what will not necessitate additional charges or infrastructure for the fire flow  could you repeat the question i'm sorry i'm not sure what i just i just want to know the average are we say no capacity  installations those types of things and this is where fire department agreed to all of this this group will let me offer some information you know where we started working on this we initially said well let's put in in the law well instead of it in line you can put up for in july not three inches for six inches and it got so complicated that it was our decision to keep it very simple and simply that you will be exempt from these requirements and it makes it simpler because if you say you know like severance is if you have a four inch line and they want an eight inch line here we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars and yet there is adequate so that you have water in your house for that you need and for your garden or whatever and so we didn't want to get too detailed because then it becomes slow cumbersome and saw big that you get into this inertia of we can't do anything here because we might miss something so it was our decision to trying to keep it as broad as possible thank you and i appreciate it and i also understand  where concent victory now is coming from but again we're going to say you can't do this you can't do that and i'd like for pro choice that we're going to take some small steps and see how we can make it happen and make it homes but thank you very much the chairs focus is on being able to build affordable housing you know we're all sitting here work seeing eloquent about how we're going to do it i kind of development is really giving affordable housing and if this is one small way to make some people build a cottage or for their kids or home or whatever i think we need to get out of the way i really support this with the same covey outs that my colleagues have mentioned already the question i have since the water department is up there and so we don't go bouncing back and forth between water and fire  do you have any idea how many meters have been declined by people who couldn't afford the improvements for fire flow test mentioned what about those guys yes from the numbers that we've been accumulating so far it's been about a fifty to sixty percent acceptance rate overall as far as people who have declined and for what reason i can't say specifically some people they don't even respond at all so i don't know the rationale for for not responding so you know then they're taken off the list and then that madam chair i don't know if you discuss that in your in your group but that might be something we want to take a look at after this gets i mean i fully support getting this in and then tweaking where we need to tweak it including go in the other districts and cetera  the other question i have is madam chair talked about affordable housing affordable i mean housing generally uses a five eight or three quarter inch meters that is that right department typically are there any meters on the list very any requests on the list for anything higher than a three quarter inch meter well the way the code reads as far as water service requests  there are allowed either a secondary five eighth inch meter or one meter size operate from whatever their existing meter size is so if there is you see meters a three quarter inch and they're applicable for a one inch meter is there to do homes typically get a one meter one inch meter because it sounds like that maybe that might be moving into the commercial realm and i'm not sure that that goes to the  chairs desire for affordable homes from what we've been seeing i mean as far as building permits not typically i mean even in even in the central section five eighth inch three quarters is typically the norm one inch is kind of an outlier would it be beneficial to limit it to five eights in three quarters or is that going to cut somebody off from potential home i mean a one inch meter at a home is that's a pretty big home that's not going to be an affordable house cut i just might get through a whole list of ideas that people have called and talk to me about and one of those ideas that we do limit to two inches or less to prevent commercial right because some people might take this and you know go right ahead is it a situation where i mean because rules you have administrative rules or is it all done in code it's all in the foreign code ok so it would be ordinance change then that we would have to do correct that  boggles my mind a little bit that you know we're requiring all these fire hydrants at a very rural remote place or a fairly remote place generally the response time for instance one of the testifier says i live on lower chemo road have a minimum two engine companies probably call and coolest responding rescue truck in a tanker and the pins where they are from the fire hose is legacy vehicle so the cool cool might get there in five minutes three minutes ten minutes and then mark all right behind the keys hopefully the working smoke alarms everybody's out of the house right early notification if you get there we can make a good often so attack and hopefully save the house if we get there too up in the l a fire department and i was asking him about some of this stuff and he's saying that sprinkler systems are much better fire protection for especially for rural areas because they  just they take care of a lot of the fires and if it were up to him he would be more like requiring or heavily suggesting getting sprinkler systems in these in these requires fire sprinklers state to cold as far it is not allow any column t to enforce it into two thousand and seventeen right now all you coming foot building permit on to be within five hundred feet of a hydrant put on site think or spring create a house you have those options those options ok so you know and madam chair there are other options yes we have the indemnification so that's idea i just want to add you know because that sounds so easy i'll just have to make it a little more complicated our understanding is the sprinkler systems require a three quarter inch meter to get enough volume so a five  meter will not support enough volume for a fire sprinkler system unless you put it in a tank up in the ceiling or say i'm sorry so there are solutions we've been struggling with this about what happens if if the code changes how do we support fire sprinkler systems when everybody has five meters should we get rid of five meters and move everybody to three quarters should there be a second connection just unmetered connection with a separate can actually know how do we physically paper this when you need a larger connection and we're all based on five meters so there's a whole nother plumbing issue relating to this but it's my understanding correct me if i'm wrong lieutenant that if they have the tank and it's not a huge tank that they have to put in the attic or on top of the roof that is sufficient for a large amount of instances there are different ways as for coming off the county supply it's a little bit more reliable you put a tank in a pump hopefully it's working ten years from now on all the water system is always reliable because when you don't have water you caught a lot of apartment so if we can get the water department to supply the sprinkler system is probably be a much more efficient system ok i have plenty more but i just will if we hit him on the second round thing yes well let me tell you about the tears intent is going to take a break at ten thirty this morning we're going to spend our entire morning talking about this but the chair is trying to gather today members feelings about and members  we would then take all of those back to our staff committee and we'll meet again we'll try to come up with answering the suggestions that are made and if we can include them we will if not we won't and will bring back another recommended draft for you to take a look at we do not we will not make a decision today i think that there's many ideas and good thoughts that have come up in this process is a review that we want to look at again and see should we incorporate them shouldn't we and i want the group to have the opportunity to meet informally to talk about it so just so you know this is information gathering so i ask your questions so that we will address them before we come back to you again i saving time or time is too precious i don't want to sit here and you know yeah kick in and try to pass something and then come back is it well we forgot something it's not good ok so let's take our time and do this right i think we waited all these years we can wait for a while meeting this cochran thank you very much chair and thank you for bringing this forward in relation to the initial the first comments from mr couch as in dr polies testimony according to his sure did not advance because of specifically due to fire protection upgrades so that's his number in his testimony so i don't know where this came from and if department has any comments to this because i think you mentioned answered mr cultures question with no idea but there seems to be something written here so i don't know the validity of the figures here and with that sorry in the follow up of answer says that just seventy five parcels will not be able to reapply so we pass this out these people will  about reading dr polies response i believe what he wrote is the number from us saying we've moved the list forward by seventy five names right and that's a separate sentence from that some people have not been able to accept there's i don't believe and i see him shaking his head from the audience that i don't believe his letter says that he's stating that seventy five people did and walked away because they couldn't do improvements we've advanced the list by seventy five names ok so some so perhaps maybe not all seventy five but there's a figure out of the seventy five it seems were due to the cause of the fire protection and so if we change this code out my next question then is will they be able to reapply oh that's a question about if you if the council wants to write language into this proposed bill that says if you were offered a meter within the past you know thirty days three years whatever and you turned it down for certain reasons you may reapply or insert you at the front of the list to mean if if that something the council wants to do to give some people a second shot then you would have to add some language stating what those parameters were what i think i had just happened a bit ago and now if we're going to push this through on the next meeting and these poor people and their sole reason was because of fire protection and now we're exempt of that i think personally i feel like it should be fair for them to come back and say hey great now he can you know move forward with our water meter because of this exemption that we don't have to put forward all this money for upgrades and fire protection that's one question think you and the other for fire in regards to changing fire code how is this going to be impacted by the international you know the fire codes i think we just passed through  mean i think because we cannot be less than but you know we can always be more more stringent this sounds like weird sort of down grading in a fire protection ought to last at the region and they're building ten thousand square foot homes known as not going to happen because we're going to be met with by so when we do have fires in areas that there's no water we commit a lot of resources from other areas and we leave areas open i call really key here we bring all the equipment all our appliances up there to try and protect those homes because there's no water so we got are you going to get a balance between those too if we're going to ask former thinkers for the ru create wider set backs in areas to not just the size a dwelling but also i mean if you're going to put two homes on and then the next lot they add two more and how much closer is that going to be so if one house caught it called brush fires that sprinklers are not going to help and the fires that do this probably the most devastation because we have going we haven't gotten too bad over here but we do have a few fires that few homes damaged from those type of fires that sprinklers are not going to help so we still need some kind of fire protection in the area like i said we have to get together our office and fight it for five branches side with the chief discuss what we want and discuss it with water department so we can come up with a call that's pretty much be best for both worlds ok very good and lastly chair if you don't mind you know going regards to mr just until his comment about rain cap systems is it currently prohibited for people to utilize that as a fire i guess i mean it would be just common sense because i have room barrels all around my house and my you are grab a bucket is tart down seen here i was going to prohibit me from doing that but as in i don't know the tank in trickle down i think mr dupont lot to talk about today's meeting is now in recess w a country affordable housing issue is certainly one that this will help solve and i really appreciate your your hard work on this and i appreciate the department both the fire department and the water apartment working on this  i do have a question for mr english the thousand gallons per minute fire flow requirement that's currently in place what has that been historically for ok i guess we have to ask mr victory no explain whether that as how well that's worked for us but i appreciate your willingness to look at other ways of i also agree with mr cochran that those folks that have been bypassed on the list should should be got for the second shot so whatever you can do to modify the language to allow for that i think would be certainly very fair and and with that you know i'm i'm very supportive of the direction you're taking i understand mr victory in those concerns about providing this for the up country area and not other areas in the county but at the same time a country is the only place where we have a waiting list and so rather than applying this to the  rest of the county at this time i think it's appropriate for us to use this as a pilot project and see how it works out and what kind of challenges it brings to the department and brings to the  the fire department as well so i appreciate all the work on this and thank you for getting us to where we're at now thank you very much we're on the same page i too am concerned about the people that had to give up their opportunity so we'll get together again and see what kind of language we him put in here to take care of that ok mr carroll to get you usually a country is a special duryea it's only it was a waiting list it needs to be taken care of we've talked about other things into addressing other issues in different places in a cult if we're going to just sit i don't think it should be to do really think would be for us is what we should be addressing i would do to also hope that some of those people have that second chance because i won't get into it but i know there's a very extenuating circumstances  a meter or who have passed on waiting i just wanted to say that i was informed by the water department that the lady that was mentioned earlier our dear auntie ruthie got her meter right before she passed away and she was really happy and it sure makes me feel good because i said too many of those meetings and listen to her heartfelt testimony over and over and over so you know this is a big issue it's been a big issue in our community for many many years and it deserves our attention and we may have to do something that's a little orthodox so you know something out of what we normally do but maybe that's what is going to take and like always  we put these bills in not in concrete we put them on paper and we put them in computers now which is even easier to change and so we try and if it doesn't work it's our job to monitor or future councils to monitor and say well maybe we need to tweak this again but you know trying to find a perfect bill and i feel i'm channeling mr victory no i heard him say this so many times trying to find the perfect bill puts us in to him we don't want to be there  members will go for a second round mr victory no thank you and you know again i brought up the entire county i have no qualms i said i would not hold this back to me show of countries taking care of you know if anybody understands the situation up there not because i lived there because i did live there but i have family and friends that have more generation that some of you in this room saw i got the picture and so i want to do everything possible to make this work so what i want to make sure that the rest  county understands and you know it's funny how sometimes everybody says a we should include everybody's district in other times whatever you know it's no big deal in my mind moving right along first of all to answer your question about insurance there's really three aspects when it comes to insurance one is fire protection which is a key element the second part is distance from the fire station itself which is a five mile radius and that's all the insurance companies determine that and number three is the type of building material you put in your house if you build hollow tile in concrete the likelihood of burning down is a lot i love best in my boarding and what shall i mean this material is distance and fighting fire fighting ability once the fire department gets to the scene hydrants always are more important than any other type of firefighting because it gives you the pressure and generally you have enough water flow to give that fresh air half of a country is within the five mile radius of houla same thing with same thing with a wall but many of them still get rated nine in ten why because don't have a fire standby and that doesn't do it if you recently remember we had a major fire out in costco a little didn't do anything because they had standby and the fire department took too long to get there and that house went up in flames in fact they had to bring in a helicopter dulce the fire so i'm keenly aware this is my world i understand that but with that being said i want to exploit that when ever and wherever possible what the other part of this aspect is is i agreed with you you know when you have speaker system that's great if the fire starts in the house but of these areas fires are going to start from with the outside of the house brush fires  and things of that nature so you know that's not going to help you because if your house also starts burning but the same that sprinkler keeps on sorry you've lost about a third of your house already without even it would we do without even moving on i think we're really close m chia i think the other suggestions that are made i agree anyone that had a chance should be given a second chance and that wording can be worked out i believe that can be done and finally i will say this you know you  get the icing you get the finish the cake we started this years ago stirring the pot right and you were here somewhere you were here somewhere you weren't we stirred the pot year in and year out got the seventy five percent for for development fees so that we could take care of some of the infrastructure that was required yeah we did all these different things to make this possible and i'm proud to see a man of that we did live to the point of seeing upcountry water meter being issued yes and let me put another thing on the table it's online today because of the tremendous effort by this council to take it from eight nine zero shut down to an eight one and i don't care what that person says it will help people up country for years to come it will help people for years to come and i'm proud to see that is the culmination of all of this can move forward now thank you man now will come back later for the the rest of the county and a few other things just one more question for tenet lincoln  name you know you talk about a thousand was it gallons per minute or ok thousand gallons per minute but that that changed because i mean used to be five hundred for rural and urban i mean agricultural it used to be to fifty it just changed because of the equipment we have or  why why did it get bumped up to the newark dock old that was adopted in two thousand and six i believe had residential building that all are within the five minute five mile radius but you have a lot outside too and by the time you get there you're already discussion of like you said cooling nails or quicker trucks to get there we have more stations to back up the truck so we can make all i can say we get there quick enough we can save the house if you take too long to get there no matter how much hydrants how much trucks it's not going to get the difference ok  yeah because that some of that fire plugs it sounds like in all the discussion that you know if you only have five hundred or even seven hundred fifty gallons a minute then that the house is going to burn down it's not quite there it's i mean you still have an opportunity to fight the fire and fill your truck up just not as fast because because when you go there is it in my understanding right you go there with a truck full of water and you the hoses come off the truck and you fight from the water that's in the truck or do you go straight from hydrant to the on on a working farm normally the hydrant would be connected to the truck at the same we're probably going to be fighting the first minute or so with the truck sorry lieutenant and so the just hearing what mr carr said again the new mention may need another tanker so that would mean is that what you mentioned home catches on fire hopefully everybody gets solved and we'll do our best to try and contain it normally one two trucks will be enough if we have like a working brushfire that's protein a whole neighborhood we're go lot of resources on the other areas and leave them open because we don't have hydrants up there or ok so it's on the table to discuss perhaps another vehicle if i mean use have to i guess us all the seller did you mean on a fire stand you mean the more staff committee will get together again with all resources and we'll try to draft responses to the suggestions that were made today and include the ones that we can include and if we don't include yours then we will that be able to explain at our next meeting but i do want to thank all of you for your active participation and your positive remarks i want to think the public for coming out to testify i know that it's very difficult for you to be here and i know you tired of it i hear it over and over i'm told over and over how many more times in my going to have to come to the consulate to talk about this and i really appreciate your being steadfast i promise you we're not going to drop it we're going to try to do whatever we can like  says we're getting to the point now we can you know make take some actions and do some things everything is in place we have certainly a group of people that want to make a difference and to me that's what it's all about it's about political will and we can solve a lot of problems i want to thank the resources very very much i want to thank the departments who work very closely with me and think my staff and without further the business today this meeting is a