Last month, days before the sixth anniversary of the July 2017 deadly and destructive Marco Polo condominium fire, City Council Chairman Tommy Waters informed the Waikiki Neighborhood Board that lobbyists for high-rise condo owners were pressing to loosen or repeal fire-sprinkler retrofits and other fire safety requirements prompted by the blaze.
“These things are very, very expensive,” Waters told the board on July 11. “AOAO (association of apartment owners) lobbyists have asked me to repeal that law. So I want to hear from the residents themselves.”
While Waters declined comment to a reporter on his recent statements, he did say late last year that “all options are on the table.” There’s certainly nothing wrong with a Council member seeking to understand public opinion — but ultimately, it would be misguided for the city to repeal the lifesaving fire safety measures.
In 2018, a year after four people were killed in the blaze at the 35-story Marco Polo, the City Council acted to require that residential high-rises vulnerable to fast-spreading fires be retrofitted with sprinkler systems or provide certain minimum protections. Pushback among condo owners has been uniformly due to the high cost of the sprinkler retrofit; this can cost as much as $22,000 per unit, according to estimates from the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services in 2022.
And there are a lot of units involved: In November, the fire department told the City Council that of 302 buildings evaluated for fire safety under the 2018 law, only 21 met safety standards.
By July 2022, only one building falling under the law had installed a sprinkler system: the fire-ravaged Marco Polo, at a cost of more than $6 million — roughly $10,500 per unit. Other condo properties have begun the process of planning a retrofit.
This year, in a step in the right direction, Senate Bill 855/Act 199 became law, requiring Oahu condo associations for buildings not assessed as safe to include estimated costs for mandated fire safety protections in their budget. The law also requires that loan or special assessment options be provided, so that owners are informed about costs over time to make improvements.
In 2018, the city established a $2,000 property tax credit for owners who did retrofit their units, and that incentive remains in effect. Both city and state lawmakers have proposed other measures, including across-the-board property tax exemptions, to help pay for retrofits, but so far, none have gained traction.
An all-at-once payment to install sprinklers in a high-rise could indeed far exceed a condo owner’s typical annual maintenance fee. But as this year’s SB 855 makes clear, associations can explore borrowing to cover retrofit costs, spreading out the expense over time. And delay in moving forward on safety measures is very likely to result in higher future costs.
Condo associations also have the option of passing a life safety evaluation (LSE) without installing sprinklers, by establishing protections such as fire doors and barriers that protect against fire spreading throughout the building. Estimates of the average cost to meet LSE requirements are just under $6,000 per unit.
Loss from fire can be far more devastating, and expensive, than the cost of a retrofit or safety measures. And fire danger is not a hypothetical worry: The Marco Polo fire caused four deaths, and damaged or destroyed more than 200 units, with property damage exceeding $107 million.
Automatic sprinkler systems detect heat, quench fire earlier, and are far more effective at preventing fire and smoke damage, injury or loss of life than any alarm system or fire barrier. Even in cases of large fires, automatic sprinklers reduce the heat, flames and smoke produced, and save lives by providing residents more time to escape.
The option to loosen standards or put these safety requirements on hold should not be “on the table.”
As the Honolulu Fire Department stressed in a statement last week: “The HFD understands the Life Safety Evaluation is costly. We also know the cost of a life is immeasurable.”
