Council passes controversial building code measure

BY NANCY COOK LAUER | WEST HAWAII TODAY

HILO — An unruly crowd chanting “kill the bill” forced two recesses of a County Council meeting Wednesday and brought a dozen police officers to council chambers.

At issue was the county building code, which went through its seventh draft as the council tried to find common ground between the public and the Department of Public Works, while meeting state and federal deadlines for an updated code. The council later in the evening passed the new code 7-2, with Hamakua Councilman Dominic Yagong and South Kona Councilwoman Brenda Ford voting no.

Yagong said the abrupt recesses — one of which lasted almost two hours as uniformed police officers flowed into chambers, ordered the crowd outside and reviewed a video of testimony that sparked the outrage and caused fear among council members — was unprecedented in his years in county government.

“How fortunate we are to live in a democracy where people are free to express their opinions,” Yagong said when the meeting was reconvened. “But no matter what, we always want to provide a place where people feel comfortable, where people feel safe.”

Puna Councilman Fred Blas in particular felt targeted when R.J. Hampton, aide to former Puna Councilwoman Emily Naeole, singled him out in a diatribe from the testifiers’ table, saying he was a “cancer” with an agenda to benefit his own property holdings and letting his constituency down by not advocating on their behalf.

After the room was cleared, police escorted Blas back to his office. Blas told West Hawaii Today later that he felt threatened, but he declined to elaborate.

The latest concern for protesters is a section on “substandard” structures that opponents said was added to the code without the proper Ramseyer formatting, so the public couldn’t see what was added and struck through in the bill. DPW Deputy Director Brandon Gonzalez said the substandard language came from a separate county housing code that was merged with the building code.

Most of the 48 people offering public testimony also objected to the inclusion of safe rooms and the potential for fines and imprisonment for those not bringing their structures up to code.

An estimated 30 percent of structures on the Big Island are not up to code, according to council members.

“As if the homeless problem is not bad enough, this bill as written will create even more homelessness,” said Puna resident Bob Petricci. “These building codes are a very big part of the reason we have so many foreclosures right now. They have driven the cost of homes so high that people had to borrow beyond their means just to have what you call an affordable home.”

Deputy Corporation Counsel Kyle Chang said if the county doesn’t enact its building code bill, Bill 270, by the state-imposed deadline of April 15, the state building code goes into effect for the island.

Ka’u Councilwoman Brittany Smart, the sponsor of the complex code who met for hours with people on both sides of the issue, said after the meeting that some people are just philosophically opposed to a building code at all, and everyone did their best to make the code as lenient as possible, while still protecting the health and safety of the island.

“We did a lot of fixes,” Smart said. “Is it a perfect bill? It will never be a perfect bill.”

ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com