Aloha, welcome to the ninth session of the policy committee on public works and mass transit.

I am your chair and presiding officer James Houstis.

We are here in the Hilo chambers at 10 30 a.m.

joined by members Kimball, Galimba, Viegas, Inaba, Oneshi, Kirkowitz, and Kagiwada.

Absent today is Councilmember Coniley Kleinfelder.

Mr.

Clerk, do we have any testifiers for today's committee?

No testifiers for your committee this this morning, Mr.

Chair.

And thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Before we move to the on the only item on the agenda, I'm gonna pass the chair roll over to Councilmember Inaba for further discussion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I assume chairmanship of the committee, and we can proceed with Bill 127.

Last chance if anyone would like to testify in Bill 127, please speak up now.

Hearing and seeing none, Bill 127 amends chapter 5 of the Hawaii County Code 1983, 2016 edition as amended relating to establishment of a construction code commission.

Establishes a construction code commission to advise the mayor, county council, and director of public works on the adoption, updating, amendment, and interpretation of the county construction codes introduced by council members Kirkowitz and Hustis.

Chair motion set forward bill 127 to the council with a favorable recommendation.

Second.

Moved by Councilmember Kirkowitz, seconded by Councilmember Houstis to forward Bill 127 to council with a favorable recommendation.

Councilmember Kirkowitz.

Thank you, Chair.

Earlier this term, Councilmember Houstis and I had advanced a charter amendment related to creating a department of building.

There was also a component related to a building commission that folks on the on the dais had an appetite around.

And so just because the building department idea did not move forward, we still wanted to advance on this commission because I think that there's a lot that members of our community can share with the with the county in the review and adoption of various construction codes.

So this is not new.

We're looking for everyone's continued support on this, and we certainly want to make sure that we're able to move forward on this particular language.

We don't want to be excluding anyone with any kinds of experience in the construction related field.

We certainly want to keep it open to folks with licenses with folks that have actual experience in building to weigh in on the codes as they come through the county.

So looking for everyone's support on this.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houstis.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Councilmember Kirchowitz, for this, you know, continuous dialogue here with the body with some good discussions about the department building earlier this year and part of last year, rather.

But yes, this was a piece that I think everyone kind of was interested in and having a further discussion about this piece establishes it in code.

So unlike the charter discussion before, this will be in code and really providing that advice to this body, to administration, from community members that have those specific skill sets in the construction trading industry on a variety of different sectors.

So it's it's definitely shared there.

Really wanted to have that insight provided to this body when we consider changes or updates to the code, construction code.

So curious on other questions that maybe you might have, and happy to have that conversation here.

So thank you.

Councilmember Views.

Yeah.

Thank you for bringing this forward at a time.

Um God.

I remember going through the adoption of the building codes and how traumatizing that was.

Um so I think that it it would be helpful for us to have the expertise uh from those that live and work in our communities in the fields and to bring some of that simple wisdom and knowledge versus um just the book side of things and the number crunching side of things, but the actual hey the we can make this for this and it's safe.

So yeah, thank you.

I'll be in full support.

Councilmember Onyishi.

Thank you, Chair.

This is a great idea.

Um it's like I mentioned to Ms.

Kirkkowitz when I was on council previous um Mayor Kinoi's administration, his public works were really aware of what's what's happening with the new, like I guess I think it was a 2008 international building code that we have to adopt.

But they really reviewed it.

They had amendments and the council worked with the different departments to to help change it to make it less of uh I guess costly for anyone to build a home.

And so we like for example, I I worked with fire because the requirement was going to have now any new homes with catchment would have to have two separate catchments, one for fire use, one for um home use.

So working with fire, we created one catchment.

Half of the tank would be for home use, and the bottom half was for fire.

So they saved on that.