thoughts with us water i was one of the people that was in the country oversight and advisory committee back in two thousand and four and that had to do with addressing the contaminated water in the geography of a country scary because there we aren't that many years ago and a quick three minutes here trying to late on what i read this morning you need to remember that it was the same mayor but it different water director than as now so i would like to speak to some of the good news and that  know road second point i'd like to point out is that today's proposed legislation includes two million for exploratory well construction in west maui so two positive steps forward some of the other indications by this today are the request for his signature on this from the director of the water department and the deputy director the first thing is that when we take a look at this today in the background that has brought us to today this reflects that the water situation has gone from bad to worse in the previous county requests including back from two thousand and four the requests were made to the safe drinking water resources fund so those five right the one here has an of water is still an issue and now we're in going up having to go after water treatment address instead of address they were originally water itself so us is and  forward please and share his thoughts with below a chair of the committee members tom cruise speaking on my own behalf today i'm speaking about to be a fifty two and chair nods with a with knowledge that i would be here to to speak on that because  last year at this time you passed an ordinance that set the tax rate for the short term rentals for commercial it also clarified what the tax rate should be for  conditional permits that have been granted the same land use rights as the short term rentals or that have been granted permits similar to bed and breakfast that differentiated between the two of them however after  pass this at first reading you included a and amendment and that amendment affected five tax payers specifically and it said you get the same tax rate as a bed and breakfast owner who's required to live on the property even though you don't live on the property those five taxpayers total tax bill was reduced by a total of forty three thousand eight hundred sixty four dollars last year as a result of that amendment that was made one of those tax payers is a billionaire and may be the richest person owning property on maui i don't know i don't want to mention her by name because i'm not here to pick on anyone but i want to point out that it resulted in one taxpayer's taxes being reduced by twenty nine thousand three hundred ninety six dollars another taxpayer who was the person lobbying for this had their tax bill reduced by nine thousand seven hundred forty eight dollars and there were three other tax payers whose taxes were reduced by smaller amounts that were affected by this one change now i recognize that this committee will not have the ability to make any changes to that today and that's unfortunate because what that means is these will continue for next year i just don't like when our tax code is not fair to everyone and clearly this one's not fair giving these tax payers this huge tax break because they're being treated as people who live full time on their properties when indeed they don't i do believe in the bigger picture that our entire tax code should be reviewed that we should review how we assess and whether  annual assessments are the right way of going about it i think we should review all of the categories and how those categories apply and i personally think that we should separate use from land that your zoning is associated with your land and that's what your tax rate on your land should be associated with zoning and that your use the use you make of those buildings may be different than zoning because of permits and because of the way that we have ministre condominiums so i think that and should look for a major change in our tax code and i hope that next year you will take this item up and that will have that discussion thank to work on as a committee members and so we'll as our district office if anybody would like to share comment from thank you so much online that he will ask this for him and is if anyone would like to give testimony zero three zero five of the my we county code relating to classification in land and building for real property tax purposes this afternoon i appreciate we have presidents from share this time with the members good afternoon chair and members nothing at the time you will notice in your binder members we do have a communication saying by the director dated november twenty fourth of this year in regards to certain questions we had forwarded to the department you verde heard my comment i think there's some ability to do some simplification in the short term dedicate and this is the advantages disadvantages and if you don't then this is just that is advantages disadvantages it's a simple thing it's not meant to be nuclear formula that is so hard to the minimum come to minium classifications i want i want the department to your division to talk about some of the things that we can talk about from a simpler fly perspective as well as maintaining fairness and consistency in the administration of our policies and i would like it to be more black and white as possible because i would not like to put our employees in a position they have to make any patient i think that is where some of the process system fails because of interpret the shouldn't and employee has to make when he's likely of what is our policy and if you have different interpretations then we get more problems down the road the amount for you a copy of what is currently in the code under three point four eight point three zero five members for your reference and again this is what we currently have in the county as part of the initial discussion i want to set off is again number one the challenges that the division department is facing in administering this section a keep my comments relatively brief but i think one of the things that we talk about with the tax code and this council is also mentioned about it being so guests of very not very clear to understand  you know one of the comments we had in two thousand and ten when this originally came up before this council was the put the possibility of repealing three and five c so that there is and if you condominium ice and you fall of the another set of guidelines and i think this council needs to decide whether or not we want to continue to have two different ways of classified lands or should we just have one i think that is one of the things that we we've talked a lot about if we were trying to increase transparency be fair to all of them maybe we should just maybe we should decide whether or not there should just be one when we have classified and that is i have  properties side by side both zones tell resort if one parcel is is has a has a house on it but his own hotel there classification is hotel because on the neighboring part parcel which is on hotel they decide to do a condominium because they have two homes on our house and a cottage so he condominium i said now did you condominium i said no it's has a separate way of classifying because now it's based on short term rental on it because the zoning is hotel resort but they don't have to they could just keep it long term rentals and that would fall into the apartment category right but if you're a neighboring parcel and you're not a you don't have that choice so that's why you see some of the confusion and i'm sure you you're going to run into more situations that are different different from what that is but that's really really the difference between a condominium i see and a to separate and create two categories one is will tell apart to a book tell only in the second category resort i can see as making it a little easier to administer since will create different classifications now and separate the two hotels that that would be a different situation as well i think right now we're talking about through five see whether or not condominiums will be based on actual use or not  i think it's a good discussion to decide whether or not hotels should be separated from resort in the sense that we continue to get testimony that the short term renters are being in the same category as hotel and that putting them together you know they're they're saying they're not a hotel so we had talked about at one point separating the truth tellers into their own category and then lumping all those short term rentals together into another category for whatever you want to title it for all properties that are used for periods or durations on their six months and nothing there would be easier if we classify everything by actual use the other responses here the division from for the most part a lot of people do comply but we're still finding situations as listed in in the response about either no response or these other situations that are going on that i'd prefer not to read a lot keep can queue for the mystic arrow any questions for a or resource people mr buzz finance department  and buildings it could be possibly separated into the buildings one day and one day i am open in the buildings especially for the non profits i have no problem at this same thing situation here it's where do we get a handle on this you know cherry no from here on out we can set parameters and zoe and how we're going to classify and whatever but there's stuff out there in the works people collecting money people showing taxes but they're just not perhaps paying their fair share and we just don't have a way to just get a hold on it and make it right so i just  to try and fix you know figure out where all this settles into place and this no one silver bullet to this issue it will take a combination of multiple solutions a comprehensively integrated to make to collect everything to do with the county then we have resources to do things that we all want done all schools look for to all of your input on this issue thank you and your guidance  or property manager or is it determining morning as to how often the owner is there or at this there are process that maybe i'm not aware of choose not to use your land to its best potential why should you get a reduction in taxes and that's what condominiums get the up the ability to do but if you're not on the medium ice you don't have that choice you're still council that there are two ways loopholes for you to lose a lot of revenue by by having two ways of classifying land so that is something that you should consider it's one of the other it's basically what you're suggesting for us to make some kind of determination we thank you a citizen many questions at this time questions at this time chair i'm just trying to understand breaker sorry i missed i want to end the circle and we saw the unintended consequences thank you i think that is what i would like to vent out yes i'm looking for somewhere where people pay their fair share that whatever classification you're using  before that classification if we need twenty five classifications i don't know if that's next that's necessary but maybe classification and subcategories like we've talked about we've seen other jurisdictions do that so there's got to be ways of doing this but yes fair taxation for what the usage of your property is agreed missed by sometimes probability things and and zoning and land zoning is not matching up so maybe we have to look at that also but whatever we can do to make the presented as their tax bill how it is calculated and of course for us to do a good many explain how we are allocating their resources for various county  ability yes i think it's time you talked about classifications because i'm going to consider for the upcoming budget cycle and i approached it many m levels that one makes fairness but it will be docked with off of the actual use category so that see if your homeowner exemption is two hundred thousand you know i residential you're in business you're going to be assessed that business number and then you take your two hundred thousand off that business or commercial number not as the old one or number but actual numba that's right as one way to approach it and i'm going to also have us review i'm going to try and get a proposal for a committee looking at home owners that that would entice the property owner to put up his room whatever it be for long term rental and resources for other items of compliance it is a big financial impact again to the county and that's not the reason why i'm saying that we should do it but it would bring a lot of revenue to the county by doing this way there are two counties in the state of hawaii to do it this way and to do it the other way so if we repealed it it would be similar to the big island and coy and like i said i think and so for me it would be pretty hard to go change from an ngo system and if we are already pushing and maintaining current market values as part of that kept relations of taxation and i don't know who i mean the majority of the counties does the current practice of the my we county does it is that correct mr riehl yes that is the most traditional way i would like to comment on those people that do reassessments their every five or ten years their staffing is much less a year you're hiring contract workers every cycle that you need to reassess so that is something that i'm sure would go through the union because if we did every five year i would think that my staff would be cut cut down tremendously and then would need to find contract workers for the years that you do assessments and then you can out the large number of appeals that you probably have to contract out because i don't think i could stay i'd we would probably be on a case by case basis even if we had it in correct we always have the ability to amend it notices and do the corrections if we were incorrect so i think whatever it is counsel would want to and i'm thinking of properties or projects that have been titled and we just had a list that another committee a couple of those have no intention of building now that back in the day they came here back in this house full of people claim and housing housing jobs jobs and we gave them all the entitlements and green lights now they're telling us we're not building but they're yet this ag land sitting fowl all these years now has all these wonderful entitlements so where do we go with something like that i think we can this legal counsel mister i because in the past counsel has now the highest and best use became to this other level from ag to this entitlement through the entitlement process should they not have been pain that type of taxes now although they did not put use would have changed obviously if you have one law that you can only build one home go through a process where you can build ten homes the value of the land increases so i would say that the value of that lot that would that had the title is as long or if you do please let us know the space or any other ideas or thoughts you might want us to follow up on this maybe something that we have to do separately chair but we're going to we're talking about don't call me a situation and the problem is s three experiences going on and when i talk to people who can't be problem and they said this to me recently because we talked about it and that was giving them a break on their taxes dollars in taxes but my tenant really ruined my house and i'm out thirty five thousand dollars putting in new cabinets and new fixtures and you know because i see this it happens in the neighborhoods i live in their concern was above that so the tax break is nice but it's a bigger problem and that's why i don't want to rent because of damage so i just want to keep it as a something for us to think about you know you're looking for an incentive to get people to rent long term you've got to handle this problem damage you chair and i like your idea about giving long term rentals homeowner doing long term rentals some type of incentive did you have a deals of how old that scale would be her real ability yeah i sure like the thought of that idea i don't know with department have any comments about this just hearing it for the first time right now in anything to say i don't think at the amount loss i think that's maybe good for you to understand then we can identify how much for the exemption and the amount i mean if it's even significant significant but for me to respond the only thing i would respond is what w should have gone from something to something else so i don't think it's a lost revenue the rate may be the same but the value would maybe be relatively low and maybe ten fold i don't know it might be better to get the actual parcel so we can research but secondly we need to identify whether or not that parcel is still receiving agriculture use because even though it had been title mistake it's still fair to keep the land for our use so that's what we would have to  us on these properties that are classified but i also understand if you're classified as a bank you may get all your entire minutes but you haven't built you haven't done any infrastructure improvements are you still sitting there as  land and maybe follow but it's still sitting down not being used and i correct me to ria because you haven't done anything you've just got in title means is that correct but in title meant still affect value of land i mean the process of getting entitlements will ultimately we're just measuring what somebody willing to pay and if that is maybe that if it took you ten years to get in and get the entitlement probably ten years before that we gave you had to discover for ten years to go through all that process of going to labor because it is time and money so i would think that it would affect value because ultimately if somebody had two pieces to buy one with entitlements on one without there's no way they're going to sell for the using the land they five cattle in there and they're they're actually doing some kind of agricultural diversification whatever it might be pro but it's cattle way so dandy still be eligible for agriculture because they're still doing an agricultural be even though they have entitlements to build and develop right right so they're not so i'm trying to separate their market value would be increase right if you're still receiving agricultural benefits there's no change in ultimately the bottom line because you're still receiving values you kind of hit it on the head i mean that is one of the reasons why we can't move forward is because if seventy hasn't been settled so we are still doing agriculture we're asking if we can move these measures forward it will help us do it one way into a good just a clarification so that we truly understand the differences and that's what my concern is you know again impact and the word impact always comes up and if we do something that has a negative effect a lot of people don't have you know a country for example a lot of people still have lands and haircuts because they can't get their water meter they can't do anything with their land so would they be adversely affected you know so i'm just trying to find figure ways out they got a bernese that's it dangle ok we can do it this way but every day people don't have land they've waited to use for their family and now the and i use up country as the main measurement but there's here and why  thing same to canada used to land because of certain reasons and they got into animals but they cannot finish up what they have because whatever the process is they're stuck in the mud so that's all i want to know you know and then so i you know wh we bring forward i guess that equitability would be very important you know that your assumption that make sure that the negative impact doesn't help or hurt i just see the small land owner of the small family that's been waiting for the development of their and i think my message is is maybe being mitt not can be can be correctly what we're trying to do is we're an assessment division we're just trying to do it one way the assessments when we're talking about taxes in dollars that's a different part because if we can streamline up our operations on how people are affected there's exemptions there's other things there's other measures that can make them nontaxable or get an exemption so that we're just trying to push forward legislation t will simplify the assessment process how it impacts people is it's a it's a formula right it's assessment type tax rate because what you're going to pay so this body has the ability to change the rates for classifications if you want to impact what the taxes are or you can afford exemptions so there's different ways so if we can where do what i'm just trying to preach that we try to keep assessments very simple and how people are being taxed that's a separate formula ok thank you jeff   law and that was the idea that keeps coming up about the property tax exemption homeowners and possibly have been indexed rate so that homes over a certain value would not saved the same as homes have i am very open to that i think you know when you think about what the whole idea of having it was for it was to help the the homeowners hang on to their house and pay their taxes group of i rescind the forty that have different kind of income based on what they were doing previously which is not equitable to the plenty she retired re stealing would like one twenty seven a part you've got to get rid of one of them and which is just one way of doing things because i can imagine mr wolf in court trying to defend why we do things multiple different ways and come up with all these different numbers then why not this number is the right number versus this other number because he's the one that's going to have to defend why we have more than one way of assessing the justification or i think you would just prefer to see it the county has only one way of doing it and we do it for everybody the same way is that a good way to have us understand the situation is  i don't blame him you know the chances of winning is not good sometimes if you know what our record has been i mean i'll show with that being said chapter i'm all for and on and i have some ideas i will submit along with i guess are my colleagues to you so that we can come up with something that we'll we will give the department some simplification i agree and some one path to run on and then we are exemptions and others need to be put in because one of the seniors the other area and we don't talk about this very much but this is very important our workforce did we are being almost as bad as our seniors palm did all the time with changes and they also don't have the ability to always pay more and i think we all see that that's why i mean young now are being forced to move away i have units and housing being sold around this town all plantation homes fifty sixty five six hundred thousand dollars and they're cash buyers right buying them out what happens to damage if we cannot find a way to control this so that they can live and raise their families because they're the workforce that we need  i'd be all for that so long as we see a protecting those fight of course services of the people that do a lot of the core services one of their hotels what are police fire i don't care what they work here and we got to give them a chance to be able to stay here  is our last local level of as far as tax appeal court we're still we haven't had a trial date in a long long time so i can maybe get you guys back in the bears but i think the numbers i gave you most recently i think those are the probably the same numbers in total so like i said moves very slowly so i think i can get this body an updated number and just to reiterate and just follow mr vick during those question it's that's why it's so important for you to review the circuit breaker ordinance i mean that in that situation when people are financially burdened or limited it is the circuit breaker that's supposed to be there to save you so make sure you have all the required stuff you think would would be affected by people in that bill i mean that's why the bill came up for reconsideration thank you very much mr terry  thank you very much finance would take a five minute recess and then ring up our less adam for the department of water  we have one less i don't for disaster noon so thank you for your perseverance made there were a queue to be if fifteen main this comes under the heading of intergovernmental agreements with various water projects first to spend the department was funded through the budget appropriation with the state revolving fund loan monies that for a countywide upgrades or replacement project in the total amount of eve million six hundred thousand dollars made up of various projects as there you can see listed in the actual s r f authorization bill the project itself in the budget ordinance is appropriate but the language in the in the authorization bill had being split it department you know by each by each project specifically for a certain amount requires us to amend the authorization to allow the department to spend appropriately based on the budget excuse me th i mean if i fifteen budget let me just focus on three projects that were included there was the law booster pump station which was a booster pumping station nearby and a little road there was an almost piotr two point one million values were also listed in in those agreements so we opened bids on the o b o tank and the heights booster pumping station and they were both higher than anticipated those two projects are both existing systems that are essential for continued operation we want to go ahead with those two projects so we want to move some of the money around and push off the line a loon a booster pump station while we design it a little smaller that's something that doesn't yet exist it would be an improvement but we've lived without it to now so we can live without a little longer on the other hand the the tank that is the main tank that serves all the other tanks in upper kula if that tank fails there's really no water for anyone in upper cooling in order to it's a steel tank it's welded it's already rusted through once before we're after a place that on site while the old ones working or we have to try to rehabilitate the old one which would mean taking it out of service meaning while we're doing a lot of that work people in upper cool would not have water for some extended period of time so we think it's very important to go ahead with this tank replacement at the same time in the while the booster pumping station that's a booster pump station that boosts water to the highest tank again if that's out of service no one of the upper levels well water so we keep moving ahead with these two projects is vital they're both replacements of existing systems which if they both fail the consequence of failures are many people will be that without water service as far as the some of the funding issues the tank replacement was originally supposed to be funded with four million dollars of us are off and a two and a half million dollar grant from this state so by moving ahead with this we get to keep that to an aft million dollar grant if the project were cancelled we might not ever get that again in addition the big we're all relatively close seven million eight million eight point five million there's no reason to believe that if we rebuilt it it would be any lower so we think because of the importance of the project the consequence of failure plus the financial issues it's best to move ahead with a project now a similar issue with the why we are pumping station the bids were all around one point eight million dollars although they were higher than our estimate of one point four it doesn't seem likely that rebuilding them would be any lower and there's it's really such a bare bones sort of project there's nothing to reduce in scope so for that reason we think they're both vital we see that it's they're going to have to happen so we think moving forward at this time with regarding their request thank you very much mr chair as chair of the water resources committee i had the opportunity to discuss this very carefully with director taylor and you know i represent our country and i'm really really worried about this like go replacement tank because it does you know that area and we have to keep it on line while we build the new we can't let it go offline because then nobody will have any water same thing of course with the way  tank so i am in full support of the request and i asked my colleagues to please let's move this now because time is of the essence and you know when we get our hands on any kind of ramps we better use it we better get it done and i think mr taylor is just as anxious as we are to take care of this issue so i think you chair for bringing it up thank you mr cochran and i thank you chair and thank you department for being what's the use of this if should we build it thank you ever cochrane for the opportunity to explain that because it is my recommendation i want to be very clear that we're we're not doing a project we told you we were going to do so i wanted to be really up front about that there is a some possibility that a feel high and surface water treatment plant goes out of service there are some areas where that is the only that's the primary way to serve customers so by putting a booster pumping station at a certain location we could get water from a different source to those customers so it would be a nice backup to be able to have a dual method of serving a certain area of customers in the line a little road area like i said we haven't  and we've made do so any improvement to a system to me is a lower priority than keeping existing things functioning because like i said we've lived without it before where we couldn't possibly live without these other two things  down there is no other option it's on down before and we've managed to with changing valves and pressurising different areas get water to everyone so it would be an improvement to that area but again we've gotten by without it so and that plant has gone down before so as i said it's an area improvement but we've we've managed to operate without it so we will still come back for funding at a future time to move ahead with that project but right now we've already opened bids for these two projects the tank and the y the pump station the money lapses at the end of december we think what's best we're ready to go we're ready to start construction we've got this grant money to move ahead with these now and whatever because we hear the stories from missed your mr han's you know we don't forget about him up in valley and if that caves in god forbid so anyhow ok you know we'll just trust your judgment there director taylor and so if we're with the water you said we could you with this booster in line only you would be able to pump water else from elsewhere where would those sources be well there are a number of wells and another treatment plant even in west maui so that west maui i know that's not part of the discussion but it's on this is this is that can i ask a question on that because i think it's going to be it's in the loan there you're asking for two million for the exploratory well for it's been a target you asked the question is this the well in west maui that we hit that geological feature that road block where we have to now forgo this well no this is actually a nother well after that well three years three or four years because not only now this is been something in the works for a long time and i'd hate to see to lose this money for the upcountry people and more importantly an opportunity to get a tank i just have to make one correction to you missed by so this is not a gran our early what's on what's on the agenda today which is home is the loan thank you what i'm saying is there is also a two and a half million dollar grant from a nother program right there was also going to fund this thing so if we don't do the project that's two and a half million dollars that we may not get in the future when we do the project so although this item isn't about this budget item it's not about the ground the grant money are also wrapped up with this project ok i just want to clarify i just want to clarify because when you said loan i mean grant there was nothing in this resolution that said anything about the grant you know so i knew that that graph was out there but it had nothing to do with what we're trying to put together it is d s r us right yes that's right and thanks for the opportunity ok year this chair does not respond to what either my staff or in the departments i don't respond to actions well from the departments so to avoid things like dish charges which i am not a very keen supporter  opening dates and want one for projects in a timely scheduling so that if they need the budgetary amendment consideration it will be done in the normal committee process and not going to look other than death i understand the department's need to continue for reaching to have required operational infrastructure in place and all of this is bahrain but we have a good interest rate versus the geo rate currently members and so i'm going to we're going to i'm going to recommend the for all because this is i you know will be on fridays council meeting agenda for coun request is to get this done by the weather end of this calendar year so i'm going to let this cool but i'm given for a 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