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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-05-05 Windward Exh C (Item 3 County Council Initiated PL-CCI-2022-001) WINDWARD PLANNING COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAI`I HEARING TRANSCRIPT MAY 5, 2022 A regularly advertised hearing on the COUNTY COUNCIL INITIATED (BILL NO. 120)was called to order at 10:41 a.m. via live stream online meeting, with Chairman Dean Au presiding. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Dean Au, Lauren Balog, Louis Daniele III, Michelle Galimba, and Dennis Lin ABSENT AND EXCUSED: Gilbert Aguinaldo, Wayne De Luz ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: Malia Kekai, Esq. (Counsel for the Commission), Jean Campbell, Esq. (Counsel for the Planning Department), Zendo Kern (Planning Director), Maija Jackson (Planning Program Manager), Christian Kay (Planner), and Melissa Dacayanan-Salvador (Windward Planning Commission Secretary) INITIATOR: COUNTY COUNCIL (BILL NO. 120) An Ordinance amending Chapter 24, Article 8, and Chapter 25, Article 1 and Article 4, Division 5, of the Hawaii County Code 1983 (2016 Edition, as Amended), relating to providing, maintaining, and dedicating parking spaces and charging stations for electric vehicles. The purpose of this amendment is to establish requirements for providing parking spaces equipped with an electric vehicle charging station in places of public accommodation and to establish requirements for parking in these spaces and establishing penalties for violations of those requirements in compliance with of Sections 291-71 and 291-72, Hawai`i Revised Statutes. Secretary's Note: "—" indicates indiscernible speech due to internet/technical difficulties or simultaneous talk. AU: So, let's move on to agenda Item 93. So, this is an Initiator County Council, Bill Number 120. An ordinance amending Chapter 24, Article 8, and Chapter 25, Article 1 and Article 4, Division 5, of the Hawaii County Code 1983 (2016 Edition, as amended), relating to providing, maintaining and dedicated parking spaces and charging stations for electric vehicles. The purpose of this amendment is to establish requirements for providing parking spaces equipped with an electric vehicle charging station in places of public of accommodation and to establish requirements for parking in these spaces and establishing penalties for violations of those requirements in compliance with Section 291-71 and 291-72, Hawai`i Revised Statutes. So, at this time I'd like to call up Christian Kay for staff presentation and I would also like to welcome our County Council Member Heather Kimball and Nolan [Noel] Morin. So, please go ahead, Christian. KAY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning to members of the Windward Planning Commission and welcome Commissioner Daniele. Give me a moment I'll share my screen. Okay, can everyone see that? Okay, excellent. Again, as the Chair stated, this is a series of I EXHIBIT C amendments to two (2) sections of the Hawaii County Code. It's a little bit different, I'll be going over the proposed changes and we'll have some discussion on the Director's recommendation and some proposed amendments from both the Director, as well as from Councilmember Kimball who submitted some additional changes after the original bill was forwarded. So, the Bill 120 the request and purpose are as follows. The Hawaii County Council has introduced Bill Number 120, which seeks to amend Chapter 24, Article 8 and Chapter 25, Articles 1 and 4, Division 5 of Hawaii County Code 1983 (2016 Edition, as amended), relating to electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and provision of and enforcement for electric vehicle parking spaces. The purpose of this bill is to establish in County Code requirements for providing parking spaces equipped with an EV charging station in places of public accommodation and establishing requirements for parking in these spaces and penalties for violations of those requirements in compliance with Section 291-71 and 291-72 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS). So, a brief legislative timeline to give you an idea of where this authority came from. Legislation creating both HRS 291-71 and 291-72 was passed in 2012 to require the provision of EV charging stations and associated EV parking spaces in places of public accommodation and to provide for a penalty structure for illegal parking in those spaces. Those sections were updated in 2021 to amend language around EV charger requirements, to clarify that EVs parked in designated spaces are required to be actively charging, to allow for owners of parking facilities to charge a pee,pardon me a fee for the EV charging systems. Requiring that EV chargers be maintained in good working order and allowing law enforcement or parking enforcement officers to access private property to enforce provisions of the section, provided they contain an EV charging station. Finally, in 2021, a new section of HRS was added and that's 291-73 to allow Counties to adopt an ordinance to enforce the requirements found within HRS 291-71 and 72. So this particular Bill 120 is the culmination of the County Council's initial effort to adopt such an ordinance. So, part of the changes to these sections of Code starts with definitions. The bill proposes to amend Hawaii County Code (HCC), Chapter 24 and that's the Vehicles and Traffic Code to include definitions for Electric Vehicle, Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle, and Electric Vehicle Charging System. The bill further proposes to amend Chapter 25 our Zoning Code, with the definitions outlined above and add definitions for Alternating Current Level 2 Charging Station, Direct Current Fast Charger, Network Charger, and Place of Public Accommodation. The proceeding list of definitions are largely copied from sections of State Law of Hawaii Revised Statutes. So, one of most important definitions is what is a"Place of Public Accommodation". The HRS defines it, and it also is defined in the bill as a business accommodation, refreshment, entertainment, recreation, or transportation facility of any kind whose goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations are extended, offered, sold, or otherwise made available to the general public as customers, clients, or visitors. So, in the draft bill the definition goes on to offer 12 examples of places of public accommodation, however, those examples were 2 EXHIBIT C not meant to be an exhaustive list. The intent of the bill is to be broadly inclusive of any places that meet the preceding criteria, regardless of who owns them. So, getting into the actual proposed amendments to Chapter 24. Bill 120 seeks to amend Chapter 24 with Section 24-245.5 Parking Privileges. By requiring that only electric vehicles, maybe parked in a parking space designated and marked as reserved for electric vehicles and only electric vehicles that are actively charging may be parked in a parking space equipped with an electric vehicle charging station. Furthermore, proposed Section 24-245.6 Penalties. Indicates that any person who uses a parking space in violation of the parking privileges section above shall be guilty of a traffic infraction and fined according to provisions in the HRS and those provisions are fine shall not be less than $50.00 nor more than $100.00 and the fined party must also pay any costs incurred by the Court related to assessing the fine. Moving on to proposed amendments to Chapter 25 our Zoning Code, they are as follows. The bill seeks to amend Chapter 25 with Section 25-4-54.1 Parking for Electric Vehicles, Electric Vehicle Charging Systems as follows. For any new parking areas in places of public accommodation and that's new as an after this bill is adopted. For each increment of fifty (50) parking stalls, an owner shall install and maintain in good working order at all times, electric vehicle chargers and dedicated electric vehicle parking spaces. Based on the schedule between adoption of the ordinance and the years 2023, 2025, 2027, and 2029 respectively on an increasing scale of required chargers and number of plugs and dedicated parking spaces depending on when the parking area is constructed. So, I've just provided a small table here that indicates that if you're building your parking lot and an area of public accommodation between 2025 and 2027 you need to have networks AC Level 2 Charger or Chargers that have at least six (6)plugs in that parking facility. Moving on now, the first section was for new parking facilities, the second section is for existing parking areas and places of public accommodation with over 50 parking stalls that need to come into the Planning Department to apply for Plan Approval (PA). The owner will have an additional two (2) years to come into compliance with the requirements as follows. So, instead of 2023 is the starting year we're starting at 2025 and going through 2031. Finally, all other existing parking areas and places of public accommodation that don't have a need to come in and apply for Plan Approval will need to comply with the requirements of HRS 291-71 which calls for 1 electric vehicle charger and one dedicated stall for each 100 parking spaces. I wanted to just make a quick note in my background and recommendation report I incorrectly identified that last section as needing to have at least 50 parking stalls. That's incorrect, this is essentially for any other parking area that meets the requirements of HRS that doesn't need to come in for Plan Approval would be required to follow HRS so that's 100 stalls or more. So, I'll just state that for the record and adjust the background and recommendation appropriately. So, for those parking areas that don't need to come in for Plan Approval, we asked the question kind of how this will be enforced? The answer is, it will likely be enforced by either proactive compliance on the part of the lot owner or based on public complaint for violations of the zoning code requirements that would come into the Planning Department. Additional proposed 3 EXHIBIT C amendments to Chapter 25 the section further requires electric vehicle chargers to be maintained in good working order and that a dedicated parking space with appropriate marking and signage that indicates that"Parking is only for electric vehicles that are actively charging"must be provided for all electric vehicle chargers. Furthermore, this section of the proposed bill clarifies that designated electric vehicle parking spaces shall not displace or reduce ADA accessible parking stalls. This section requires every parking facility meeting the size criteria to comply with requirements of the section, regardless of ownership except as allowed for in the alternatives and exemptions section of the proposed bill. And finally, the section allows site owners to charge a reasonable fee for the use of the charging station. Additional proposed amendments are as follows, there is this Section 25-4-54.2. Which speaks to Alternatives and Exemptions from these requirements parking for electric vehicles, electric vehicle charging systems provides the Planning Director the authority to determine that electric vehicle charging requirements can be satisfied by a smaller number of direct current fast chargers, so long as the overall charging capacity at the place of public accommodation is equal to or greater than the capacity required under Section 25-4-54.1. Additionally,places of public accommodation can be exempted from applicable requirements of Section 25-4-54.1 should the location not have established electrical service or adequate electrical infrastructure to provide sufficient current for EV charger implementation, or if the location is identified as being in the highest flood risk zone, as established by the Federal Emergency Management Agencies (FEMA) digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) or the FIRM maps. So, the Director is recommending that the Planning Commission send a favorable recommendation of Bill 120 to the County Council with the following recommended revisions. So, in the recommendation that we sent we included a set of twelve (12)proposed revisions. You should have also received around the same time, a communication from Councilmember Kimball dated April 29, 2022. And this was a set of suggested amendments and discussion points for the Planning Commissions, and this largely came out of a conversation that Councilmember Kimball and I had around the proposed bill, and some of our concerns or suggested changes or improvements that she graciously went ahead and made some proposed changes to. So, as I get into our 12 proposed changes, some of them were already addressed by Director [Councilmember] Kimball's document that she supplied to us. So, I will mark our 12 proposed changes, where her proposed amendments kind of address our concerns and come into alignment. And then, when we get into the discussion and voting stage, we can go over those in greater detail. So those are as follows: Recommendation 91 from the Director is under Section 1. Purpose. We suggest to correct the reference to the HRS section from 291-71 to 291-73. The reason for this is it is HRS 291-73 that allows Counties to adopt ordinances to enforce the requirements of 291-71. Our second recommendation is under Section 24-245.6. Penalties. Again, this is to the roads and traffic's section of Code is to correct the reference to section 291-71 and delete the close quote at the end of the word"statutes" at the end of the sentence. The reason for that is the bill incorrectly references HRS section 291-71, which does not make mentioned to any fine 4 EXHIBIT C schedule. The correct reference should be 291-72. The close quote after the word"statutes" at the end of the sentence is likely a typo. So, in this case, if you look at the document that Councilmember Kimball sent under her Section II.B of that document, she proposed amendments to address this recommendation to make the changes that the Director is recommending. So, the Director agrees with the proposed amendment and recommends that the Commission adopt this change. Under Director's recommendation 93 Section 3. Definitions. Consider changing the term "Networked charger"to match what's in the body of the bill. The reason for this is the term specifically as presented and that's "Networked charger" is not used anywhere in the body of the bill. The word"Networked" is used four(4)times and the term, "Network-capable" is used in the definition of"Direct current fast charger". So,the Director suggested to consider expanding the term "Networked charger"to include those alternative references. However, in Section 11. C of Councilmember Kimball's proposed amendments she addresses this recommendation by shortening the term to the word"Networked" and that would kind of similarly solve that situation. The Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends the Commission adopt this change. Recommendation 94 under Section 25-4-54.1(a). Again, in the Zoning Code that the bill should clarify the size or type of parking spaces required to be considered a dedicated electric vehicle parking space under the requirements of the bill. The reason for that is the Zoning Code allows for different types of parking stalls for compliance with our parking requirements for example there's a possibility of compact parking stalls which will likely not work for an EV charging station. So, Director recommended that the County Council consider adding the qualifier, full size or provide specific minimum dimensions required for a dedicated electric vehicle stall. In her proposed amendments in Section I.A. It was addressed by recommending adding the qualifier"standard size" for the type of required parking space. The Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends adopting this change to send up to the County Council. Furthermore, the Director recommends the "standard size" qualifier be added to Councilmember Kimball's proposed amendment under Section I.B. which we'll talk about next. So, under Section 25-4-54.1(a). The Director recommends that the bill should clarify that the number of electric vehicles designating parking stalls shall correspond to the maximum number of plugs required under the development schedule that's laid out in that section of the bill. The reason for this is the section is unclear as it is currently written that each required plug needs to correspond with the number of dedicated parking stalls. For example, after 2029 each increment of 50 parking stalls shall include eight(8) electric vehicle designated parking stalls because that's the same number of plugs that will be required at that time. In Section 1. A. of Councilmember Kimball's proposed amendments she addresses this recommendation by adding language indicating that the required number of electric vehicle stalls 5 EXHIBIT C corresponds to the required number of plugs. The Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends adopting this change. Recommendation 96 under Section 25-4-54.1(b). Change the term "plan review"to "Plan Approval" and clarify the reference of an additional two (2) years to comply with subsection (a). The reason is there's no such reference in our Zoning Code to "plan review", however Plan Approval is the process through which parking requirements are reviewed by the Planning Department. Additionally, the reference to an additional 2 years is somewhat confusing. The intent of the provision should be clarified. So, in Section 1. A and 1. B of Councilmember Kimball's proposed amendments it still references "plan review", so the Director maintains his request to change this to Plan Approval and under Section 1. B of Councilmember's proposed amendments she clarifies that the reference to an additional 2 years or she clarifies that reference by including similar installation schedule to account for the additional 2-year timeline. So, the Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends that the Commission adopt this change. Under recommendation 97 under 25-4-54.1(c). There should be a trigger identified for existing places of public accommodation that are not subject to Plan Approval requirements. For example, within a certain amount of time from the code change or based on public complaints or what have you. The reason is the requirement for existing places of public accommodation that are not subject to Plan Approval to comply with the requirements of State law has no time compliance trigger or other enforcement mechanism so, it's unclear how existing places of public accommodation meeting that size criteria will come into compliance. So, the Director's recommendation is to add some language on how those places will come to compliance. Recommendation 98 is to clarify the apparent conflict between the number of parking stalls required for each EV charger versus each plug on an EV charger. We talked about this a little bit before but there's another section of the Code where there's a disconnect or a conflict. So, the recommendation here is to clarify that. So, under Section 25-4-54.1 (a), it appears that the number of dedicated parking stalls corresponds to the number of plugs available and that's what Councilmember Kimball's change actually proposes. However, there's another section of the bill 25-4-54.1 (e), that requires a dedicated parking stall for all chargers which can include several plugs. So, the Director is recommending that subsection (e) be amended to match the proposed changes to subsection (a) that require the number of dedicated parking stalls match the number of required plugs. Recommendation 99 states that Section 25-4-54.1 (f), does not allow EV designated spaces to displace or reduce ADA accessible parking stalls, but it does not address the requirements for ADA accessible electric vehicle stalls. So, the Director wanted the Council to consider adding a section referencing ADA requirements for electric vehicle stalls. The reason for this is in 2012 the State Disability and Communication Access Board (DCAB) issued an interpretive opinion relating to the requirement of EV charging stations to be accessible for all public buildings, facilities, and sites constructed by or on behalf of the State or any County. According to this opinion, where EV charging stations are provided a minimum of 5%, but not less than one of 6 EXHIBIT C each type of EV station shall be accessible. In addition, the opinion articulates design requirements for an ADA accessible EV parking stall. So, in this case Section 1. C. of Councilmember Kimball's proposed amendments addresses this by adding the requirement that at least one of the designated EV parking spaces shall be an ADA accessible EV install. The Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends adopting this change. Recommendation 910 under Section 25-4-54.1 (h), we asked that the bill define what is considered a"reasonable" fee. The reason for that is, if you look at the HRS section, it allows owners to charge a fee it doesn't use the qualifier"reasonable", and the Director feels like the qualifier"reasonable" is somewhat subjective and difficult to enforce. So, we suggested that the County Council consider adding a fee cap or a fee schedule based on the number of kilowatt hours charged. To address this in her proposed amendments, Councilmember Kimball proposes to delete the word"reasonable" and so it's just that they can charge a fee. The Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends adopting this change. Recommendation 911, under Section 25-4-54.2 (a), consider including a ratio, formula, or equivalency table to compare the charging capacity between alternating current Level 2 chargers and direct current fast chargers. Again, this section is the one that gives the Director authority to require fewer EV chargers as long as the same charging capacity is there by using direct current fast chargers. The Director feels like this tool will help the Planning Department to determine charging capacity between the different charger types. According to Section III. C., Councilmember Kimball's proposed amendments, its address by proposing a ratio allowing one (1) Direct Current fast charger to replace six (6) Level 2 plugs, as long as there is at least 1 other Level 2 plug to accommodate electric vehicles that cannot charge on Direct Current fast chargers. The Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends adopting this change, and then, finally, to Recommendation # 12. While Section 25-4-54.2 (b)(1) allows for an exemption to the requirements of 25-4-54.1 if the location does not have established electrical service or lacks adequate infrastructure to provide sufficient electrical current for EV charging implementation, there's no similar exemption if internet access is unavailable at that place. Other reason for this is the bill requires both the alternating current Level 2 charger and direct current fast charger to be"networked" or"network capable"respectively, but there's no requirement in the bill for an internet connection to track charger use or to be remotely accessible. So, the Director wants the County Council to consider clarifying whether an internet connection is a requirement for implementation of the proposed bill. And so those cover again the Director's 12 recommendations and again, many of them were already addressed by Councilmember Kimball's communication. There were a few more additional proposed amendments in the communication, so they are as follows . 7 EXHIBIT C The Councilmember proposes to delete Section 25-4-54.1 (g) which states that every parking facility that meets the size criteria must comply with the requirements of this section regardless of ownership, except as otherwise provided in Section 25-4-54.2, which is the exemption section. The reason for this is this section contradicts the aggregation privilege provided in HRS 291-71. And what that aggregation privilege does is that allows owners of multiple parking facilities within the State to designate and electrify fewer parking spaces than required in one or more of their own properties; provided that the scheduled requirement is met for the total number of aggregate spaces on all their own properties. So, think University of Hawaii that's a statewide system. If they max out the number of charging stations in their facilities on Oahu to meet the overall requirements, they may not have to add those charging station and a new parking facility here in Hilo. So that's the State law allows that kind of aggregation privilege and because that privilege is enshrined in State law the bill cannot conflict with that. Additional proposed amendments from Councilmember Kimball are under Section 25-4-54.1 Parking for electric vehicles; electric vehicle charging system. She proposes to add with the appropriate item lettering, "electric vehicle charging stations shall only be required to be available for use by the public during such times as the place of public accommodation is also open for public use." The reason for this is to clarify the times that EV charging stations are required to be used, and so the Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends adopting this change. There is an additional proposed amendment to Section 25-4-54.2. Alternatives and exemptions parking for electric vehicles; electric vehicle charging systems Section (b ) (1) to read as follows. So, there's an exemption if the location does not have established electrical service or lacks adequate electrical infrastructure to provide 240-volt electrical service for electrical vehicle charger implementation. The reason for this is to clarify and to quantify what was meant originally by sufficient electrical current. The Director agrees with this clarifying amendment and recommends that the Commission adopt this change. Another proposed change is under Section 3 Definitions. The Councilmember proposes to amend the definitions for"electric vehicle charging system", "alternating current Level 2 charging station", and"direct current fast charger"to delete references to installation compliance with Article 625 of the National Electrical Code as it is already covered by Chapter 5D, which is part of our Building Code of the Hawaii County Code. So, I believe the Councilmember felt like it was kind of redundant, since our County Code already requires that. So, that the Planning Director agrees with a proposed amendment and recommends that the Commission adopt the change. This next proposed change was not part of the document that was provided to you from the Councilmember. However, she would like to add that under Section 25-4-54.2. Alternatives and exemptions; parking for electric vehicles; electric vehicle charging systems she'd like to add a subsection (c) which would be worded as follows. Owners of multiple parking facilities within the State who intend to use the aggregation allowance provided in Section 291-71, Hawai`i Revised Statutes, shall provide the Director with documentation to demonstrate that the electric vehicle charging requirements have been met at the time of application for plan review. And so, 8 EXHIBIT C this is addressing what we just spoke about with that aggregation privilege. The bill is proposing to require actual evidence that the owner is meeting that aggregation requirements. The Director agrees with this proposed amendment and recommends adopting the change with a suggested change again from the term "plan review"to "Plan Approval", so that it's consistent with our Zoning Code. So, those are the kind of the proposed changes. In the memo from Councilmember Kimball there were a few other kind of discussion points that she wanted to bring up with the Commission to consider strengthening the bill. The first one is for existing places of public accommodation that come in for plan review or Plan Approval and would be subject to Section 25-4-54.1(b), what other criteria should exist for the EV charger requirement to be triggered. The statement here is some plan reviews may not have anything to do with parking should they have this requirement. So, this is something that certainly the Commission can discuss as they feel necessary. However, because the Commission may not be intimately familiar with Plan Approval and how that works. The Director is kind of going to make a response and statement, and that is that places of public accommodation where electric vehicle parking requirements are considered under this bill would occur, thus all will have a parking component. Additionally, most circumstances where Plan Approval is triggered, required parking is already considered. So, the Director feels based on this the current language of the bill would be sufficient. But again, if the Commission disagrees, and then we can have that discussion later when we get to here. Then the second discussion point is for existing lots, if the electric vehicle charging parking stall requirements put them in violation of any other Zoning Code parking stall requirements due to needing an ADA accessible stall. Which is going to be larger than a normal stall size and perhaps converting stalls from compact to standard size, what should happen? Can the Director approve a variance? Should they be exempted from putting EV chargers in those lots or be allowed to modify the requirements? So, this question is more around those parking lots that are kind of maxed out on parking. So, when an applicant comes in for Plan Approval our County Code lays out how many parking stalls should be required, based on, for example, gross square footage floor area for commercial uses or other requirements based on different uses. So, in the case where if this bill is passed, if now an owner who's maxed out on that parking needs to provide an ADA required stall which may knock down below that minimum Zoning Code requirement for parking stalls. How should we deal with that? And so, the Director's response, again, is as follows. While the Director does have the authority to grant a variance from the requirements of the Zoning Code. The Department would prefer that adoption of a new ordinance would not create a non-conforming circumstance that would require a variance. Instead, the Director recommends that the bill include language to allow a maximum number or percentage of sorry that should say parking stalls not lots. That can be converted to accommodate ADA compliant EV parking stalls, even if it does reduce the overall number of stalls that would otherwise be required by the Zoning Code. So, really here if there was language in the bill which would be adopted as part of the Zoning Code, it would essentially allow for a certain number or percentage grace to allow for that possibility of having to convert existing stalls to ADA stalls. 9 EXHIBIT C So, I know that was a lot of information and again we can get into each of the proposed recommendations, later on. But, right now Councilmember Kimball and Mr. Morin and have been graciously made their time available to provide some more information on the context of the bill, and the reason for it. So, she's asked to provide a presentation and then from there when we get into the discussion or really the next steps are the Planning Commissions may approve all, some, or none of the Directors suggested recommendations, and this includes kind of the updated recommendations based on the proposed changes from the Councilmember. The Commissions may also offer their own revisions to the bill and ultimately both the Windward and Leeward Planning Commission's recommendations will be forwarded separately, but at the same time to the County Council for their consideration and decision. So, in two weeks we'll be having the same presentation and discussion with the Leeward Planning Commission and once we've got recommendations from both bodies, we will package those and send those up to the County Council for consideration on Bill 120. With that I will end my presentation here and happy to answer any questions, either now or when appropriate. AU: Thank you for that presentation, Mr. Kay, that was a lot of information, thank you very much. So, at this point I would like to call Councilwoman Kimball and Mr. Morin on, but I do have to swear you in. How about we take your presentation first and then we can take it to the Commissioners for questions. So, can both of you please raise your right hand so I can swear you. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth on this matter now before the Windward Commission? KIMBALL: I do. MORIN: I do. AU: So, before you speak just,please state your name and the town you live in. You may go ahead, thank you. KIMBALL: Good morning, my name is Heather Kimball. I am the County Councilmember from District 1 and I live in Papa`ikou. I just want to say mahalo to you Chair Au and all the members of the Commission for joining mein this sausage making. This is what we're doing today. I'm not sure if any of you have ever had the opportunity to go through legislation like this, but as you can see it's an evolution and I'm grateful for your time today to help us improve the language of the bill and bring more thoughts, more ideas to the concept. Before I go into it a little more, Dean I just wanted to say mahalo to you and for all your service and leadership with the Commission. I'm sure you'll be greatly missed here. So, I just wanted to take a moment what we're going to do. I'm just going to give a little context hereabout the bill. I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty as Christian just did an amazing job of going over all of the language. Thank you, Christian it's a pleasure to work with you and then I'm going to pass it over to Noel Morin, who is here from the Big Island Electric Vehicle Association. To give us just a little bit of the lay of the land in terms of what the market is like right now for EVs, what the charging situation is and in particular, which I think will be of 10 EXHIBIT C interest to you folks what are the opportunities for businesses to find funding to implement this program. So, starting off this obviously adoption of electric vehicles is in part about reducing emissions, clean air, and getting us off of fossil fuel. So, it is an environmental bill. However, for me the reason that I chose to move forward with introducing this and enforcing the HRS is it's really about equity. In order to be able to take advantage of the lower cost of ownership of electric vehicles, which is you know you're not paying for gas every week and you're not paying for maintenance fees for oil changes, for changes to carburetors, things like that. In order to take advantage of that lower and moderate-income folks that don't have the opportunity to put chargers at the residents need places of public accommodations to make sure that they're able to use these vehicles and to get around. The market for electric vehicles is changing it used to be kind of a luxury item. As Noel will talk about the cost of an EV Sedan now is almost equivalent to a nice vehicle, an internal combustion engine vehicle. And then like I said, the cost of ownership over the lifetime brings the cost of ownership down significantly. In addition to just creating these places of public charging in compliance with the HRS. Let me just remind you that the HRS already establishes this rule and then just gave us in 2021, us being the Counties the ability to enforce this rule. We made some modifications because we're the Big Island and due to our geography people just have to drive more to get school, to get to work, and to get to the doctor's office. So, the ratio of one charger per 100 stalls just didn't seem appropriate for the level of use that would be necessary to really make EV adoption in Hawaii County accessible to all. I also want to just make a final note that providing these vehicle charging places, the place of public accommodation also allows us more readily loop in the rental car companies and allow them to provide more EV vehicles as part of their fleet. So, the visitors coming to our island are also reducing emissions, helping the environment along with our residence. With that I will pass it over Noel, to give again just a little bit of a lay of the land and then I'm happy to answer any questions about the content of the bill after that presentation. So, Noel over to you. MORIN: Thank you very much Heather. Good morning, commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Noel Morin. I'm a resident of Hilo and I've been involved in electric vehicle advocacy for about a decade. I lead Big Island EV as well as Hawaii EV and I'll be sharing information about electric cars and electric vehicle charging for maybe the next 10 minutes or so and it will also be available for questions. I'd like to be able to share my screen here. Let's see, I hope you can see that. Let me stick this off to the side. Okay you're able to see it right, the screen. KIMBALL: Yes, we've got it Noel, thank you. MORIN: Okay. So, let me start off by just indicating that electric cars are just one component of our solution for sustainable transportation. We need to reduce the need for passenger cars to begin with, and there are many different ways to do that mass transit, bicycles, shared mobility, etcetera. These are all really important. It's really important because it's almost like an 11 EXHIBIT C impossible task to expect that all of the 1 million cars in the State or 185,000 cars on Hawaii island they will be able to overnight transform these into electric. So, this is really important. The other thing is optimizing transportation efficiency, and this is a really easy thing to do. It's really about public education and changing habits, so that we can be a bit more less wasteful I should say about our transportation patterns. So, trip planning, carpooling, even just making sure your tires are properly inflated will do a lot to save on transportation dollars. And, of course, we're not saying that we need to do away with a car, the passenger car. There will be a need for that especially here and our recommendation is that if we must drive in a car, let it be an electric car and I'd like to share the reasons for that. Well, as Heather mentioned earlier the key reason is our ability to immediately contribute to climate action and, as you know, transportation emissions are a big contributor to global warming and climate change right which we're all experiencing. Importantly, ground transportation contributes to air pollution, local air pollution and they have consequential health issues and then it keeps us addicted to fossil fuels. I'm sure you may know that a lot of the fossil fuel that we import comes from countries like Libya and until recently Russia. So, our dependence on fossil fuels also contributes to this energy security risk that we all should be concerned about. Lastly, there is an impact to cost of living. There's a lot of price volatility associated with fossil fuels as we see these days and it doesn't help that our traditional vehicles, gas vehicles are very inefficient, and I'll expand on that in a moment here. So, why EVs? Let's zoom in, and I think this dovetail nicely with Heather on your focus on equity. There's a tremendous number of pocketbook benefits right, and this should be available to everybody, not just the well to do. So, the first thing is that, because EVs are very efficient. They're up to 100% efficient, in fact. Because when you slow down the car and you take your foot off the accelerator, you're going downhill and you're just letting off the accelerator. You're actually recharging the battery. You're actually collecting back the energy and transforming that into electricity that goes into the battery. So, you're essentially able to recoup energy that you use when you're propelling the car. On the other hand, gas cars are up to what 30% or so efficient and what that means is that 70% or so of the energy dollars that you put in your gas tank is actually wasted. It's wasted as heat so there's a fueling efficiency component here that everybody should be able to avail on. The other thing that is important is that they're easier to maintain. I've owned an EV since 2011 and one of the cars we have, the original brake pads are still on the car right because you rarely use the brakes. No fuel. I'm sorry no oil changes as Heather mentioned earlier. The cost of ownership total cost of ownership is actually very low compared to a regular gas car. There was a consumer reports study that was published recently, and it showed that the average savings over the lifetime of an EV is around $4,600.00. So again, that is fueling and that's maintenance savings and again everybody should be able to avail of that. So, the other thing I want to highlight here is affordability right it used to be that to be able to afford an EV you needed to be high income, it had to be something for the wealthy. That's quickly change. There are so many different EVs now. They're long range over 150 miles per charge, and they are accessible to everybody. So, the point is I'm trying to make is that with competition, with economies of scale, with policy pressures to decarbonize, and also consumer 12 EXHIBIT C demand. You have a lot of companies now that are stepping up and producing the cars and the prices are coming down. Lastly, utility. So, it used to be just sedans and now you have EVs of all forms, all shapes and sizes and I predict that once the trucks land here like the Ford F 150 and the Rivian we're going to see a lot, lot more people getting behind the wheel of electric cars. A really important development is, and this is where I'm referring to as policy pressures that many governments across the globe have already started to declare that they're going to be phasing out gas cars in the future. You'll see that we have some states in here as well. So, what this is saying is that it's actually a message to manufacturers and consumers that at some point it's going to be very difficult to purchase a gas car and I think it highlights the importance of us to future proof Hawaii. This slide here just highlights all the different, it could have changed by now. The number of manufacturers that have responded with these commitments to phase out new gas cars in the future. So, as you can see a number of these are really familiar brands. At some point in the future, it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible to go to a dealer and ask for a gasoline powered car. So, again this just emphasizes the need for us to look forward and ensure that we're future proofing our infrastructure and ensuring that our communities, our people will be able to move forward. I'm going to now talk about public charging, and I think that this is one of the top enablers for the equitable adoption of EVs. This slide here just talks about the different types of charging. So, Level 1 is what you get at home. It's 110. You can plug your car in there and maybe you get about 40 miles overnight, and some people actually rely on Level 1 charging. My mother-in-law own some Nissan Leaf, and she just relies on this exclusively. Level 2 is 240, and this is what you typically would see in the public charging space. But you also have this at home if you have access to a 240 outlet or a dryer outlet for example and something like this will give you about 20-25 miles of range per hour that you're plugged in. The last one is the DC Fast Charger, and this was mentioned earlier, this is the quickest and most convenient and this one will top off or charge most of the battery in about 30 minutes or so. So, these are the different types of charging stations. Now, on note on home charging. Many of us who own EVs who have access to home charging relies almost exclusively on home chargers. If you have a 240 or even a 110 depending on how much you drive, you can actually just plug in when you get home and when you're ready to go again your car charged. It's very, very similar to your mobile phone, however, not everybody has this opportunity. As mentioned already we have many people who live in apartments and condos. They rent homes, where they can't actually modify the charging situation. In situations like that they're going to require access to public charging to be able to make the transition. If they don't have access to public charging, they're not confident with that then they're just going to have to continue to rely on their gas vehicles. So, it is a key to equitable transition for transportation. We have a quite a few EV chargers on the island already and you'll see here a number of these Level 2's and Level 3's you'll find them all over the place. Shopping centers, government 13 EXHIBIT C offices, businesses, etcetera. However, one of the challenges and we've known this for a while, is that some of these because they haven't been maintained or just not operational; You have some of these charges that haven't been working for years. So, there's clearly a challenge. Now, this is a couple of maps that I got from Plug Share. It kind of highlights the location of the chargers around the island. On the on the left, you'll see the DC fast chargers there 8 of them I believe, and then on the right, you see the Level 2 chargers, and there are about 33 of them around the island. The main reason I wanted to highlight this is that you'll see the tool icon there that just highlights that it's not operable. But, more importantly, there are these gaps. Like these deserts where you just don't have any public charging. So, if you're living in Hilo and you need to go to Kona for work or for shopping and you need to charge, and you can't access a charger that's going to be a no go for that individual. They're going to just opt to not do it or find an alternative way to get there and back. So, I just wanted to again highlight that this is as Heather mentioned, this is an environmental issue, it's a planetary issue, it's an economic issue but there's this big social equity piece that we need to be concerned about. My hope is that Bill 120 will facilitate this. Now there's this question. So how do you pay for all this? Like what does this mean for local businesses? I wanted to highlight that my view is that this is a win, win this can be a win, win for local businesses. Hosting an EV charger can actually be a competitive advantage, and it'll hopefully be clear as we go through this. So. first, as far as offsetting the cost. There are incentives and there's another slide for this as well. So, there's a Hawaii Energy Commercial Charger Rebate Program that will offset the cost of charges that are installed. There's also Federal Tax Credits that site owners can take advantage of and then Hawaiian Electric has also special rates that are available for site owners. So, they can actually have reduced commercial rates for hosting a charging station and there are a couple of Dockets in front of the PUC. One is especially interesting because it's called the EV Charger Make Ready Program . Where a site owner can actually avail of the utility coming in and dealing with all the infrastructure up until the point of the charging station and sometimes that could be very costly. So, with that Docket hopefully getting pass the utility will have the opportunity to actually contribute as well to the cost of getting these charging stations installed. As far as benefits go, I mean very clearly there's the contribution to sustainability, customer loyalty, there's also the opportunity for to leverage the fact that when you're a customer and you're plugged in at a store you tend to linger. You'll be there for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour and you may actually linger more because you're waiting for your car to charge. There have been studies. There was one that I read about Target, for example,just proving that customers that have EVs that are charging actually linger more, linger longer in the store. So, there are actually benefits that are associated with having a charging station. The hosts can charge for the energy. It shouldn't be free. I firmly believe it shouldn't be free, so the fee that they charge the EV owner can actually be used to sustain the operation. There are certain arrangements that can also be made where the placement of ads at the charging stations can offset the cost of the operation. So, there are a number of opportunities here for local business owners to offset the cost, but more importantly, taking a look at the net impact is going to be really important because there are also these other financial benefits. I mentioned earlier, 14 EXHIBIT C the commercial charger rebate program you can find this on their website hawaii energy.com. So, for a new station it could be $4,500.00 per network station and then for the DC fast charger it could be $35,000.00 per network state. Now, the important thing here is that there was a State law that was passed last session, not this one last year, and where the program is now sustained with three cents on the barrel tax. What that means is that there could be over $500,000.00 of rebates annually that will be available to site owners to take advantage of, and that will help facilitate the installation of these chargers. So, these rebates can be used by local businesses, by non-profits, condo associations, apartment owners, even governments. So, this is a very powerful incentive for site owners. I think that was it on this one, and then lastly federal funding. So, Heather you may have the latest here, but my understanding is that there are monies that have come, that have landed or can be utilized by the State. My understanding is that the State DOT has the mandate to put together plans that would allow for the leverage of those funds so that they can actually build charging station hubs across the State. So that will also help increase the number of charging stations. I'll summarize now by just saying that. One decarbonization transportation is critical to enabling our climate action. We need to address the climate crisis, reducing the need for personal cars, and optimizing efficiency are really important. However, since cars are going to continue to be relevant moving forward, we need to figure out a way to allow for the equitable adoption of electric cars and public charging is the way to make that happen, thank you. AU: Thank you Noel for that presentation. Thank you, Councilmember Kimball. Commissioner's do you have any questions for staff or for, yes Commissioner Lin? LIN: Actually, I have quite a few questions but I'm in support of electric vehicles. I've actually buying a plug-in hybrid waiting for that to come in. But the question would be what is the cost to the businesses? Well, this HRS is requiring that you have to put in a stall, but what is the offering costs? The price of electrical supplies and materials is very expensive right now. What is the cost of labor to put it in? I'd hate to put this up bill in and require people to put in EV stalls. It's a big offer of cost to them, they pass on the cost to the consumer so that's one question. So, maybe I'll start with that. What is the cost of putting in an EV stall? KIMBALL: Sure, thank you, Dennis for the question. Starting just to clarify the HRS does require both the installation of the parking stall and the installation of the chargers and so for 100 stalls at the minimum. So, the cost of installing these chargers a large portion of it is that actual electrical infrastructure out to the charging locations. The chargers themselves, depending on what level you're purchasing could vary pretty significantly and maybe Noel can actually speak to some actual costs. So, that's why the electrical charging infrastructure for new lots is going to have to be there anyway to get to at least the one thing and then adding the additional chargers becomes less burdensome because you've already got that primary electrical infrastructure. The PUC Docket that Noel mentioned would actually allow HECO to provide that infrastructure for the customers and we hope that PUC Docket is resolved before this actually returns to Council for introduction. So, a lot of that cost for that the infrastructure piece would be developed by the utility. So, it can vary depending on how far you need to go from your current 15 EXHIBIT C electrical service out to the charging locations. There are things that you would have to put in, like the concrete barriers, labor is a highly variable so you're looking probably anywhere from $20,000.00 to $120,000.00. Noel maybe you have better numbers on that, depending on all those different variables with the respect to the site. MORIN: Yes, the top figure you mentioned is reasonable for a DC Fast Charger. While the equipment can be around $50,000.00 or so. When you factor in permitting and all the infrastructure that needs to be put in, it could be well over a$100,000.00. This is why I think the Make Ready Program that you mentioned is very much relevant. Now the cost for Level 2, again it really depends on the location and the amount of trenching, and all the infrastructure will have to be brought from the building to the actual location. So, costs will vary based on that. But the actual equipment itself the commercial Level 2 charger they're anywhere from $6,000.00 to $10,000.00 for a unit. I can get something more precise. I've requested that before and share that with this group. But yeah, so if it's a Level 2 you're talking about $10,000 to $20,000 dollars depending on what's already there. In some cases, if you have an existing charging station that just needs to be swapped out that is minimal cost. If you need to trench quite a bit, then that's another situation that would be another consideration. AU: Thank you. Thank you, Noel and Heather for trying to answer that question. It's a moving target like Commissioner Lin said, the cost of materials is so high, but I appreciate you trying to answer that question. Any other questions I know each Commissioner probably has questions. So maybe we can just stick with one Commissioner first so Commissioner Lin, can you go ahead and ask your questions. LIN: Sure, I guess the other question would be that fee that lot owners would charge at each station. I'm very concerned, I guess, in terms of how much they would charge because it relates to how many chargers are available to the public right now that have no cost. And then if you're going to implement in putting installs and chargers that vary in pricing it comes down to well, I know that, perhaps KTA or the County building has a charger that I only pay so much money for. But if I go down to this gas station, I have to pay double that amount. So that comes down to I think there's not one amendment about the fee. So what fee, what is reasonable? KIMBALL: I should respond initially by saying if you guys have other amendments or wording changes that's perfectly acceptable and we can accommodate those. Originally, we had the word reasonable in there and it did make sense with Director's recommendation to take that out because reasonable is not defined anywhere and that could mean different things to different people. The Director's original recommendation had been to set a cap or some other specific amount which I'm also willing to consider and explore. There may be legal issues with that, and the ability for businesses to conduct themselves. So, if that's something that the Commission feels is important to set a cap on it that's definitely something I can research in terms of would we actually have the jurisdiction or authority to apply something like that. In the interim, my reason for just saying okay let's just take reasonable out is that the market should actually drive the prices to be reasonable. Because if you, have it too high nobody's going to go there and utilize that charger. So yeah, that's kind of not a succinct response but, 16 EXHIBIT C again, we are in the sausage making process so I'm absolutely willing to take whatever the Commission's recommendation is on something like that. LIN: Thank you, Miss Kimball because what it relates to is that you have these stalls are now on private property. If these properties are close to the public at certain hours. What's availability for other people who are hey I'm traveling across Saddle Road right now, and I have 25% left in my battery, where do I go to charge. KIMBALL: Right and so that's actually speaks to one of the comments made by the Director about the whole network issue. While we recognize that there are parts of the island that are network deserts at this point in time. The reason that it's important that these charges be networked is for the exact reason that you mentioned. If somebody's coming across Saddle, they need to know if a charging location is available. That would be something that they could use one of the apps to identify. That provision that we put in not require gates to be open, so that people could use chargers. If facilities that are normally gated during non-business hours was really just in respect to their potential security concerns of leaving a parking lot open to make charging available when there's nobody there to protect this site. So, I think that addressing a couple of issues there about that amendment, about not having to keep the thing open, but also that network components. So, that people will be able to check and make sure that there are chargers available before they make their trip. Noel I see you maybe want to chime in on this too. MORIN: Well, the previous comment or previous question regarding charging rates. There's actually precedent. We have all of the DC fast chargers there is a fee for use, so there is information there that we can garner and leverage. They're fifty-one (51) cents to sixty-one (61) cents per kilowatt hour and then the same thing goes for Level 2's. It's rare these days to see a free charger and well Home Depot used to be free. Well, it was free until their system broke down and all what we're seeing is that these charging stations that are being replaced are being replaced with network systems and they're also going to be required a fee for use. So, there is precedent, meaning, we can take a look at what's happening right now in the marketplace and base it off of that. But I think Heather as you described if we leave it to the market the rates will govern themselves. If someone's charging too much their charging station will not be used. Anyway,just wanted to comment on that that we have precedent. LIN: Chair, I have one last question and it comes down to the cost per kilowatt hour. So, maybe it's two parts. One is Noel, you mentioned that the fee is like 51 cents, or something to a kilowatt hour. I pay residentially forty-seven (47) or forty-six (46), forty-two (42) something like that in the 40's person per kilowatt hour. How much does it increase your electric bill by charging it as a 120 volt versus a 220 or having it charged at a DC charger— MORIN: Sorry. LIN: -: So, because the other part is that what is Hawaiian Electric doing to subsidize the costs of electric vehicles. If they're still using fossil fuels to generate electricity and they're passing on that costs to those charging stations for electric vehicles that kind of contradicts itself. 17 EXHIBIT C MORIN: Yeah, well so, the grid is being decarbonized. So, if we're buying electricity through and we don't have solar on the roof we're just getting off the grid directly or we are using the DC fast chargers that they have. It's clearly there's still some fossil fuel input into that system but we're seeing it change over time. We're decarbonizing as we go and that's one of the beauties of the electric car is that it gets cleaner as time passes. But to answer your question about cost. Even with the 51-61 cents per kilowatt hour for the DC fast charger which is costly. It's costly or more costly than doing it at home. You pay for the convenience and there's a lot of costs associated with a DC fast charger, which I believe is part of the fee. But I've done some calculations and even at that rate let's say 50 cents a kilowatt hour. That's comparable to gas and I think what's important is that it's a situation where there is a financial benefit for going electric that doing so would allow you to get more for your transportation dollars and we're seeing that. Even with that rate of 50-60 cents a kilowatt hour the cars are just more efficient and it kind of trails with gas. Electricity will eventually go up, but gas would also be up there, and based on the comparisons I've done they are at par. When you do it at home it's even better. If you have solar on the roof it's even better. So, there's clearly some education that we need to also do as we move forward with this, but to your point the 61 cents seems a lot but if you compare it to what it would cost to fuel your gas car it's very much on par. Comparing to similar size cars I don't know Tesla Model S with the model or a BMW 5 Series, for example, you take a look at that, and you'll see that's very similar price wise. KIMBALL: So just to give you some context Dennis, I have an electric vehicle myself a Chevy Bolt and I go charge it at Walmart from time to time, and the first 2 hours are free, and then it takes me about 3 more hours to get full charge. So yes, 5 hours and they charge $2.00 an hour. It cost me about 6 bucks to get fully charged, which gives me about 300 miles. The other point I wanted to make about what HECO is doing as Noel mentioned for commercial businesses, they are offering reduced electrical rates for EV charging. So, they are part of the solution here and trying to incentivize the adoption of EV installations in commercial spaces. LIN: Thank you that's it for me Chair, thank you. AU: Thank you, Commissioner Lin for your questions. I guess, can we take it over to Commissioner Galimba. Do you have questions? GALIMBA: Sorry, I didn't raise my hand, and I think the other Commissioners have more pressing questions and if I have a question, I'll raise my hand after them. AU: Okay, thank you, since you're the vice Chair, I want to give you a chance first but go ahead, Commissioner Daniele. DANIELE: Yeah, actually I got some questions and comments. I think this is great. I guess one question is really going to look at what's the lifespan of the equipment that you're going to be putting in? I'm personally off grid completely and run my whole life on solar. Invested quite a bit of money up front, but I know this equipment that I purchased I might have for twenty (20)to 18 EXHIBIT C thirty (30) years. So is this equipment that we're going to be putting in these parking lots as robust. Because, then that defrays the cost over time of the infrastructure and things like that. So that's one question. KIMBALL: Okay I'll start with that and good on you for being off grid. So, definitely the chargers and their lifespan and their quality have improved significantly since we've started seeing some of these charges go out. In addition to the federal money that Noel mentioned on the slide. A significant portion of that is going to developing in the United States, the manufacturing process both for the batteries and for EV chargers. So, the newer models are definitely more robust and have a longer lifespan than some of the early models. We've got what 4 chargers in front of the Aupuni Center where my office is, none of them work right now. The 4 over by the judiciary building that I think Christian has used none of them are working right now, and these are the older models, and they just weren't as sturdy. One of the really important parts of this bill is that requirement to keep the EV chargers in working order. In addition, there wasn't typically at the early stages the level of service available that is now currently available for these charges. There's a whole employment sector developing around both EV maintenance and charger maintenance that didn't exist before. So, you have both higher quality chargers out there and better ability to maintain them, which should improve the lifespan. I did also want to mention just in respect to one of Dennis's questions about connecting to the grid which still has some fossil fuel tied to it. Because of that efficiency that Noel mentioned even when you're charged the grid and the grid is using fossil fuel, you are reducing emissions by two thirds because of the increased level of efficiency of electric vehicles. So sorry to diverge. I just remember that, and I wanted to make sure I put that out there that it's even if you're tied to the grid, you're still doing good things if you're in an EV. DANIELE: Yeah, great. Thank you, thank you. Just a couple like observations I guess reading all the public testimony on this. Everybody was for this. There was really no one, not for this, and I think as a County, I think as a State, I think, as a Country, we all see where this is heading. There's going to be more and more electric vehicles being in service certainly over the next 5, 10 years. So, I think that being very proactive on this is a very good thing. But the whole repair issue seems to be the other issue that kept cropping up in the public testimony. I think you just address that with newer things coming out, newer models, better equipment, and things like that. So, I would imagine that most folks that have a parking lot with over 100 parking spaces would be able to absorb costs associated big corporations like Target and things like that. Would be able to absorb putting these things in. AU: Excuse me, Commissioner Daniele, can we just stay on track. We're asking questions. DANIELE: Yeah. AU: Yeah, we're just limited to just questions. DANIELE: Okay. Can you please go over the aggregation thing a little bit? KIMBALL: Yeah, so this is one of the provisions- 19 EXHIBIT C DANIELE: Thank you. KIMBALL: — in the HRS which allows the owner multiple parking lots across the State to satisfy their requirement in one location, rather than distributing or a fewer number of locations than distributing across all of their lots. And so, the example that Christian gave was right on. University of Hawaii can put all their charges in at Manoa and then, when they go to develop a new parking lot at UH Hilo, they don't have a requirement because they're using this aggregation provision. I will say that I think the aggregation provision is fundamentally flawed from the standpoint that it is those larger organizations that can actually take advantage of it. and what we see already is that they're putting all of that charging infrastructure in Honolulu and they're leaving out the neighbor islands. So, I'm hoping over time that this the State, may reconsider making that aggregation provision, maybe County-wide rather than being Statewide just because it puts our neighbor islands at a pretty significant disadvantage. DANIELE: Thank you that's all that I have right now. AU: Thank you, Commissioner Daniele. Commissioner Balog do you have a question or a few questions? BALOG: I actually got a question pertaining to what percentage of vehicles we have are currently electric vehicles, and what that growth looks like and maybe that pertains to that whole aggregation thing as well. KIMBALL: Yeah, Noel, do you have that slide around? MORIN: I'm looking for it. KIMBALL: Okay, if you'll give us a second, I believe Noel has the slide with the current level of adoption and the rate we've seen and increased adoption over the last few years here. There has been a market uptick in the level of adoption. I'm sure you see it on the streets, and you see more of those vehicles around. Do you have another question while we wait for Noel? MORIN: I can respond. So, I have a data slide here it was from the last count from January 2022. So, Hawaii island we have 1,272, a thousand two-hundred seventy-two EVs as of earlier this year end of January. We have about 180 to 185,000 or so vehicles here so it's less than a percent. Statewide we're close to 19,000 electric cars and we have over a million cars in the State so it's less than 2% for the State. The growth what we're seeing is the last I looked it was like 30% year-over-year and so it's climbing, it's accelerating, and if I may share one of the slides that I have here, I can show you that trend. Hang on let me just do this really quick. So, this here, this is again from January, as a period ending January and it transit from January 2006 all the way to earlier this year. You can see the trajectory of growth. I don't have a track for Hawaii island, but we see something very similar. When I started with the EVs here, we had like I don't know less than about 30 or so back in 2011. So, I hope this addresses the question that you have. 20 EXHIBIT C BALOG: Yes, it does, thank you for that information. I guess my other thing is the bill seems "—"very good presentation so far, seems very specific to passenger vehicles or personally owned vehicles, and I am wondering about how this will relate to you said there's going to be trucks. I'm assuming there will be commercial vehicle considerations and how that would be addressed. KIMBALL: Yeah, so the market right now there are not plug-in heavy-duty type equipment. There's nothing on the market available for that yet. That is in development. We also have electric vehicle bus or electric bus infrastructure happening. We have 10 electric buses coming in and the appropriate charging to go with them. So, there is a commitment at the County level, at least for mass transit to electrify their transportation. It remains to be seen what kind of charging infrastructure will be required for the heavier duty vehicles. We may see some hydrogen come into that particular area. The hydrogen is less efficient than the battery electric vehicle and as far as the passenger industry the technologies is just so much further ahead with battery electric than it is with hydrogen. That I don't see us switching but you may see some hydrogen come into the heavier duty vehicle market. Noel do you want to contribute at all to that question? MORIN: Yeah, if the question was around trucks? Was it around passenger trucks or heavy- duty trucks like freight trucks? BALOG: I'm going to side of both a little bit because I think they're going to cross over because I think we're also seeing that some of these vehicles will impact businesses and it's going to eventually get better. MORIN: Yeah, so the trucks are coming. The Ford F-150 electric. It's already being launched and there's a heavy demand for that. The Rivian is out and there will be other electric trucks as well, and the charging infrastructure for those trucks are going to be no different from what we're talking about here. So, there'll be very similar to whatever DC fast charger, Level 2 charger that's installed out there, so those will be compatible. For the heavier trucks so tractor trailers and those freight trucks those are coming as well. They are available, and they will require different charging infrastructure. So, whatever is installed, we're talking about this being major fleet like County, for example, or State. They're going to be looking into or that would be part of the package to be able to do that, that type of transportation you would also need the heavy-duty on charging infrastructure. But it would be a different class altogether compared to what we're talking about here. KIMBALL: And I should mention along those lines that there's also development in the agricultural industry for electric farm equipment and USDA is putting fund towards rural infrastructure, charging infrastructure for specifically for farm businesses. As another source of supplying the charging requirements for commercial vehicles. BALOG: Thank you. My only question was actually battery cost, because as Noel mentioned actually maintenance of these vehicles was lower because like you said you haven't replaced your brakes. So, I'm wondering what a battery cost would be because that to me would seem the only thing that might actually be costly. 21 EXHIBIT C MORIN: Yeah, the battery certainly would be one of the most costly, if not the most costly component of the electric car and depending on the vehicle and depending on the size of the battery. It could be substantial. They are rated to last; I mean the warranties are 8 to 10 years. There are electric cars out there with over 100,000 to 200,000 miles on the same battery. To give you a scope for example, the Nissan Leaf, for example, a new battery through the manufacturer is probably anywhere from $6,000.00 to $8,000.00 to get that thing swapped out. It's going to be more with the bigger EVs. So, there is an expectation that they will last a while, and if there is an issue with the batteries to get replaced under warranty and if they're out of warranty then clearly that could be a costly repair. But you think about what you would need to do to overhaul a gas vehicle replacing a transmission, replacing an engine, or something along those lines. I'm not going to say it's comparable,but you know it's going to be a major expense as well. KIMBALL: And I will add again back to federal infrastructure spending the American Jobs Act included 7 billion dollars going to the Department of Energy to look at battery recycling and like I said local US battery development. So, we can improve the recycling market and that should drive down costs of battery replacement. There was a recent study published out of MIT which indicates that the lithium and in EV batteries when it's recycled is actually as good if not better when put into a new battery. So, the possibilities for recycling in the EV battery market are quite high. BALOG: Thank you both I'm done with questions. AU: Thank you, Commissioner Balog for your questions. Commissioner Galimba, you have questions? GALIMBA: Yeah, so I just wanted to ask some more like the process question. So, I just want to understand, so this already has been passed by the County Council once. Is that correct and is now out for recommendation or— KIMBALL: No, the Council, the Council voted to send it to you guys. So, because this is a revision to the Zoning Code Chapter 25, it needs to go through the Planning Commissions and, so our vote was to refer it to the Commissions. That actually provides an opportunity to briefly discuss why we're putting it in Chapter 25, and the reason for that is the HRS gave us the ability to adopt an ordinance to enforce these rules that they had already established. By putting it into Chapter 25, the Zoning Code there's already enforcement, a whole enforcement mechanism, Notice of Violations through the Director, fines, and whatnot that's established. And so, we don't have to reinvent the wheel and create a whole other enforcement mechanism. We're just kind of piggybacking on the enforcement mechanism that already lives in the Zoning Code and that's why the decision was made to put it into this chapter. GALIMBA: So, follow up question that I had. So, this Commission or this department is the only department that's being asked for recommendations then that goes to the County Council. Is that correct? 22 EXHIBIT C KIMBALL: Actually, I should say so before I even introduced this, I did farm it out to all of the departments for their feedback and comments that's just kind of the way I operate working on legislation. But, in addition, as part of the background from the Department they sent it out for review and feedback from the departments as well, and you can see, in your notation there wasn't anything provided. KERN: And, if I may, Mr. Chair. AU: Yes, go ahead. KERN: Yes, so this process is very similar to an applicant submitting an application, except it comes from the County Councilmember and it started up at the County Council they get that referral. Once it hits the Planning Department, we process it as similar to an application. Send it out for agency comments, reviews, and, as you saw our staff did a whole background report and recommendations. Worked with Councilmember Heather Kimball on this, to come up with the recommendation and some of the little fixes or tweaks or suggestions that we have ultimately to then come to you folks. Both Commissions will look at it, send forward recommendations and ultimately arrived back at the County Council for them to deliberate and potentially pass a bill. So, it's really gone through that really complete comprehensive process, thank you. GALIMBA: Thanks. So, some of our recommendations are that the language is unclear or vague. So, are we making the clarifications at this level, or are we just sending it up to the County Council and asking them to make those changes? KERN: So very similar to say a rezoning request, at Commission it can be deliberated, talked about, amended, voted up favorable or unfavorable or adjusted, it could be deferred to have more time to discuss it and think about it. So, this really does give the Commissions the opportunity to really opine on it, how you folks feel. KAY: And if I may jump in Mr. Chair. So, what we did is we looked at the draft bill to see how it fit within our Zoning Code and our standard practices here in the Planning Department and then made some suggestions for improvements. Councilmember Kimball and I had some great conversations, so we could express to her some of our concerns, some of the issues and some of the clarifications that we were looking at. And so, the outcome of that was her memo that she submitted that you have, and so the reason in the presentation that I went over our 12 recommendations and several of those that were kind of fixed or addressed by Councilmember Kimball's proposed changes. Where that if you are to adopt the Director's recommendations, they would be as amended by Councilmember Kimball's proposed changes as well. So, as we go through again, you have the opportunity to adopt all of those changes wholesale and make that recommendation up to the County Council. You can adopt some of them and not adopt others of them, or you can propose your own amendments to the bill. All of that, again, then gets packaged up both the Windward Commission and the Leeward Commission and these are just additional pieces of information that go up to the County Council for their consideration of the overall consideration of the bill. 23 EXHIBIT C GALIMBA: So, with some of the issues that were brought up here say, for instance, like what is a reasonable rate. It's sort of like we say the Planning Director's recommendations that we should define reasonable. So, do we need to define reasonable before we sent it up? KAY: Right. GALIMBA: Like 60 cents, or whatever or 20 cents? KAY: Right, so this is a situation where in our background and recommendation report are the Planning Director's recommendation was initially,please further defined what reasonable means. In response, Councilmember Kimball said, well let's take away that reasonable qualifier and so the Director agrees with that change and so that's now his kind of new recommendation. And, if you agree with that as a Commission, you want to send that up deleting that kind of reasonable language qualifier than that would go up as kind of your recommendation. Then the discussion we had here about letting kind of the markets set that rate would be what they would discuss up at Council. GALIMBA: Okay, so we can send something up and they can further deal with that at Council, right? KAY: Yeah, much like a rezone this is just a recommendation that's coming out of this body, the Commissions. Ultimately the final decision maker on this bill is going to be the County Council, as it is a code change. GALIMBA: Okay. KIMBALL: And if I may Chair. The recommendations that memo that was sent to you folks from my office is an official document and an official part of the records so as you deliberate you are able to reference it as, we approve the proposed amendment in such and such a memo. So, it is an official document that way and it will go through. So, it comes back to the Planning Committee at the Council, so it will go through the Committee hearing we can continue to massage it based on any recommendations you have today, and then, if it passes through the Committee, then it will go through the two hearings that Council as well. AU: Okay, thank you Commissioner Galimba for that question of process. It clarifies everything. Do you have any more questions, Commissioner Galimba before I ask my question? GALIMBA: I'm good, please ask your question Chair Au. AU: Okay, so I have one question for Noel and Heather. I don't know if he can answer this question or I'm sure you can, but I don't even know how much detail. What are the conversations, or what is the engagement with HELCO through this whole process? We're talking about costs, there's questions about cost, questions about you know whether this is good for the environment. What kind of engagements have you had up to this point and I'm sure they're pretty extensive and if you can or want to share with HELCO? 24 EXHIBIT C KIMBALL: Yeah, they have been pretty extensive in terms of us understanding what their capacities are with their ability is to help support the commercial side with either subsidies or rebates, or you know the Make Ready Program as mentioned. I will also just say that, as part of farming this out, I did share it with all what we have five Chambers of Commerce on Hawaii Island. I only received feedback from the Japanese Chambers of Commerce which supported the bill from the standpoint of where it enforced the HRS. They felt like the expansion beyond the HRS, which is that stepped up increased chargers per unit. They did not support that. So, they support the basic underlying bill, but they did not accept our expansion. Just to from a legal standpoint, the Council does have the legal authority to be more preemptive than HRS, so we are legally allowed to do that with new infrastructure, and new laws. The aggregation provision that's a privilege provided by the HRS, and the Council does not have authority to take away a privilege, and that is why we had to eliminate that one statement from the bill and add that exemption. So, it went a little bit beyond what you were asking, but just to directly answer the questions that we have had quite a bit of involvement and Jen Zelko would have been here today, but she had a commitment at another meeting. AU: Okay, well, thank you for that. Moving forward I think that would be a huge question on where HELCO stands on this. So, Commissioners, if you guys have no further questions. I'm sure we all have things that we want to discuss so before we get into the discussion if there are no more questions. I'm ready to entertain a motion. Well, first let's go well actually I'm going to make the motion. I would like to make a motion, but I want to ask all my fellow Commissioners do you have any more questions for staff or for Councilwoman Kimball or Noel? Go ahead Commissioner Daniele. DANIELE: Yeah, one quick question. This is a little bit more technical or when you get up to let's say 8 stalls or 8 plugs. Is it one charging station per stall or can there be one charging station servicing multiple stalls? KIMBALL: So, actually the way it's been defined in the revisions, so this was not in the original bill it was an area where there was a lack of clarity. It is one stall per plug. Now a charger may have multiple plugs. So, you may have a scenario where we have a charger that has 4 plugs and those have got to be able to go out to 4 different stalls. So, it's not based on the charger but it's actually on the plugs and that was a revision we made for clarity. I've been working on this legislation for probably about nine months it's like birthing a child. And when you're so close to something everything's crystal clear to you, but then you have other people read it, then all of a sudden, it's like oh they don't understand that in the same way that I do. So that was one of the revisions suggested by the Planning Department that we were happy to accommodate to clarify. DANIELE: Thank you. AU: Okay, Commissioner Lin, you have a question? LIN: Yeah, I have one question for the Planning Department. So, how many parking lots would be affected if we implement this bill? How does that improve the disparity of charging stations across the island? 25 EXHIBIT C KAY: So, it's somewhat difficult to say I don't think, I know we as a department haven't gone out and done an analysis of parking facilities island wide. So, that's why the bill itself has provisions for new parking areas, existing parking areas that need to come in for Plan Approval, and then existing parking areas that don't have a requirement to come in for Plan Approval. So those parking areas at like Prince Kuhio Plaza or Target or Walmart those areas largely already have those chargers and that infrastructure in place. I'm assuming largely because of the change in law back in 2012. And so just to give you an example of a new facility or an existing facility that needs to come in for Plan Approval. Our Zoning Code says for commercial uses it's one parking stall for every 300 square feet of gross floor area within the structure. So, you're looking at that 50-parking stall trigger would be at about 15,000 square feet of gross floor area within the structure. So that kind of give you an idea of size wise. So, yeah, it's a roundabout way of saying we don't know exactly how it's going to impact, other than to say that this at least provide some guidance on what to do in those situations where it's new existing with the possibility or the kind of the catch of the trigger at Plan Approval and then for those that don't need to come in for Plan Approval. So, for instance Prince Kuhio Plaza. They've already gotten Plan Approval when they built the original mall, the existing mall. So, all that parking that was required was based on the PA that was required then. The only other time they'd have to come back in for Plan Approval would be if they were building additional structures. So, when they built the additional kind of structures, where Verizon is and Genki Sushi is and things like that,they had to come back in for Plan Approval, which then we would assess them for other stalls. In other situations where the structure is already built there's going to be no more expansion that's those situations where if there's an existing facility, but no requirement to come back in for Plan Approval that either that a lot owner would have to proactively come into compliance with the HRS or it would be done on a complaint basis. So, in terms of enforcement of the provisions of the bill that's kind of the hooks where we would apply it. LIN: Yeah, thank you Christian because my concern would be like if we implement this and there's not that many parking lots that have that requirement, you might not actually increase the availability of charging stations on the island. Like if you're down in Pahala how many places in Pahala have more than 50 to 100 parking stalls or if you're up in Kohala, Kapa`au or whatever that location is. You're not going to have that many parking stalls up there either. So, how do we think about that, when we're looking at this bill because we couldn't be looking at existing parking lots like KTA or Target or Safeway. But in smaller areas where you only have like 10 parking stalls, but you don't have any charges in that location, what do you do then. KAY: I mean so —I'm sorry go ahead. KIMBALL: I was going to say, thank you Dennis your kind of just nailed it on the head as one of the reasons why we wanted to reduce that number is because we don't have the same volume of very large parking lot as they may be doing in Honolulu. I will also say that I did reach out to Parks and Recreation before I introduced this bill to get a sense of how many areas that they 26 EXHIBIT C would have and at the 50. It's about 20 that would have this requirement. Once you go up to 100 if you decide to revert it back to that it cuts that by about half a little more than half. KERN: If I may add to that. I feel like this is one step of many that are going to occur over the years. Right now, we're at an interesting point where we know that we need to move in this direction. We haven't quite hit that that delta where we have so many of EVs, so this is a movement, and I think to get people moving in that direction. With the understanding, starting with the bigger parking lots and, as time moves on more EVs come in we'll probably see this refined down. We'll probably see this number increase over the decades to come, even over the decade. So, I feel if we were to go smaller right now might be a little bit much and too much, and this is a good step in that right direction. It also doesn't take away the ability for somebody to put them in on their own and be able to utilize that and offer that as a service to get folks to come in, as I said, actually there's value there. So, as I said, we support this, and I think we'll probably be having another conversation and in a couple few years depending on how the EV adoption goes and things change here in the world. Thank you. KIMBALL: Yeah, Punalu`u Bakery actually has one. Just to draw people in because they know that's one of the few spots that people can stop and charge down there. AU: Thank you Commissioners for all your questions. Thank you, Heather, Noel, staff for all that information or if there's no more questions, I'm ready to make a motion myself. So, if there's no more questions. No! Commissioners? Okay, I move that a favorable recommendation be forwarded to the County Council on Draft Bill 120 with the Planning Director's recommended revisions, which shall be adopted. Could I get a second? GALIMBA: Yes, I'll second that. AU: Thank you Commissioner Galimba. So, let's go right into discussion. I'd like to go first. I think this is a good framework. This is a good start of what is coming. We all know it's coming it's here already. Noel has all the information, like Director Kern said, there's going to be many, many, many more conversations, a lot of the questions that we had this morning will lead into discussions of everything that's going to be addressed. Cost is always the biggest issue. I think at this point cost is moot because we don't know what's going to happen. The Federal Government might make laws, and we cannot control what the Federal Government does. Which will reduce costs for developers or who knows the way the rates are going right now, and the way things are going it's going to be super expensive. So, cost at this point, I think is moot. I think what the intention of this bill is to just move forward in the correct direction and the issue of cost will be addressed through those next many phases. It's good to think about it, but we really don't know what's going to happen. We really don't know what's going to happen with cost and but that's just my comments for discussions. I would love to hear from other Commissioners. 27 EXHIBIT C LIN: Chair, I think you're correct in the terms of costs because material prices, fluctuate daily, but I am concerned in regard to availability is one. Two would be the cost that each charging station would charge. How do we determine that or if we leave it to the market, what is the market going to charge and then third would be accessibility? If it's on private, like I said, if it's on private parking lots how do people get access to it. But I do believe this is a great effort. Like I said I'm getting a plug-in hybrid, so I'm involved in this discussion as well. But that's some of my concerns and I think those will reflect with the public as all. KAY: If I can address the accessibility issue. The places of public accommodation are for both public and private properties. So, that is something that there's a proposed change to kind of limit access to normal business hours at this point,but the place of public accommodation is very broadly defined so. AU: Fellow Commissioners would you like to share any comments that you guys may have? KAY: Also, I'm sorry to interrupt Mr. Chair. I'm happy to go through, if you have specific recommendations that you want to look at, the Director's proposed language and then his recommendation to adopt some of the proposed language from Councilmember Kimball. Providing that as an opportunity, if you have specific questions about anything I can share the screen again. GALIMBA: It seems to me that there was sorry I just went. But it seems they largely we're in agreement if there's a place where they were not in agreement, could you highlight that. KAY: I think, for the most part the conversation was good, and all of the situations where the Councilmember Kimball's proposed changes addressed, one of our conditions, the Director has largely agreed with them and propose and recommends adopting them with those changes. In some cases, there's other caveats like please change plan review to Plan Approval or something like that. And then the other situation, I think there were 5 or maybe 4 that weren't addressed in in the memo that would still like to send up with just kind of have the Commission send up as part of their recommendation. Then there were a few more in here that were just cleaning up the bill, like putting the requirement that if they're using the aggregation privilege to have that be stated as part of their Plan Approval when they come in for Plan Approval those types of things. So, yeah, I don't think, and Heather please correct me if I'm wrong that there were too many situations where we were not in agreement to changes and I think Councilmember Kimball done a great job of being open minded and trying to kind of tweak this in such a way, where it's palatable and acceptable. KIMBALL: Yeah, I think all of the recommendations and then the proposed amendments that I put forth the Director agreed with. With the exception that I get confused whether Christian told me I needed to change everything to plan review or everything to Plan Approval and I did it backwards. So, I just need to go back the other way and even now what am I supposed to do Christian make it right. KAY: Plan Approval, yes. 28 EXHIBIT C KIMBALL: Okay, got it Plan Approval. So other than that syntax everything was agreed to. GALIMBA: So, in order for the memo to go up and be official do we need to add that on to our recommendation? KIMBALL: No, it's already been reported with the Clerk as an official document. GALIMBA: All right. KAY: And, as part of our action letter, depending on how this vote goes it's going up as a favorable recommendation as recommended by the Director and the reason I put in the situation's here where the changes that Councilmember Kimball made were amenable to the Director is so that you can send that all up as a package and our act action letter will correctly reflect that. AU: Commissioner Daniele, did you have a question or discussion or comment? DANIELE: Yeah, I just a quick comment. I think the Big Island, Hawaii County is very well suited for this having the most renewable energy resources out of any other island in the State. I think we're poised very well. I know more renewable energy is coming online and I think this would be a great benefit overall. That's all I wanted to say. AU: Okay, Commissioners if there's no further discussion. Christian, we can take the vote. KAY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair AU? AU: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Galimba? GALIMBA: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Balog? BALOG: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Daniele? DANIELE: Aye. KAY: Commissioner Lin? LIN: Aye. KAY: Thank you, Mr. Chair motion carries five (5) nothing (0). 29 EXHIBIT C AU: Thank you, everybody for your time. Thank you, Noel, thank you Heather, thank you for being here and explaining to us in detail and we look forward to seeing what's going to happen with this. KIMBALL: I just want to thank you all for all your time. I know this was a lot of information all at once and I just really appreciate your service to the County and your contributions to this particular conversation, so thank you. MORIN: Mahalo. Respectfully submitted, Melissa Dacayanan-Salvador, Secretary Windward Planning Commission 30 EXHIBIT C