Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PWMTC 2022/02/22 2020-2022 Committee on Public Works and Mass Transit 18th Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii February 22, 2022 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Public Works and Mass Transit ORDER: was called to order at 11:01 a.m. in the Council Chambers, Kona, by Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Vice Chair(via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Mr. Holeka Goro Inaba, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member(via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Heather Kimball, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member(came in later) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member Absent& Excused: Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: (There were none.) CHR. LEE LOY: Right into the agenda, Mr. Clerk. Communication 614,please. COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 614: NOMINATION OF MATTHEW TERLEP TO THE TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated February 1, 2022, requesting the Council's review and confirmation. PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 Vote on Comm. 614: Ms. Kimball moved to recommend confirmation of (Approved) the appointment of Mr. Matthew Terlep to the Transportation Commission. Seconded by Mr. Inaba and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy —8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung— 1. Excused: None. Executive Assistant to the Mayor Pomaika`i Bartolome came forward and provided a brief narrative of the nominee's background and experience. Committee Members spoke in favor of the nomination. CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Clerk, if you could please take us into Communication 615. Comm. 615: NOMINATION OF ROSELYN MOLINA TO THE TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION From Mayor Mitchell D. Roth, dated January 31, 2022, requesting the Council's review and confirmation. Vote on Comm. 614: Ms. Villegas moved to recommend confirmation of (Approved) the appointment of Ms. Roselyn Molina to the Transportation Commission. Seconded by Ms. David and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Inaba, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Kimball, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy —8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung— 1. Excused: None. Executive Assistant to the Mayor Pomaika`i Bartolome came forward and provided a brief narrative of the nominee's background and experience. Committee Members spoke in favor of the nomination. CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Clerk, let's move on to Bill for Ordinances. Page 2 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Bills ORDINANCES: for Ordinances. Bill 120: AMENDS 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 Requires all newly constructed "places of public accommodation"with at least 50 parking spaces to install electric vehicle chargers under a tiered schedule that increases the required amount of electric vehicle chargers every two years through 2029. Reference: Comm. 608 Intr. by: Ms. Kimball and Comm. 608.1: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION FROM THE BIG ISLAND ELECTRIC VEHICLE ASSOCIATION REGARDING THE DECARBONIZATION OF THE TRANSPORTATION SECTOR AND PROVIDING DATA ON ELECTRIC VEHICLE USAGE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ON HAWAII ISLAND From Council Member Heather Kimball, dated February 3, 2022. Motion to Approve: Ms. Kimball moved to recommend passage of Bill 120 on first reading. Seconded by Mr. Inaba. CHR. LEE LOY: Ms. Kimball, go ahead. Lead our discussion. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. I have to say I—right now I have the excitement of a new mom. This is the bill that's been in progress for a long time, probably nine months or so, and involved a lot of collaborators from Big Island EV(Electric Vehicle) Association, Think B.I.G. (Big Island Green), the other counties, colleagues of the State, and I'm really excited to see it finally on the floor for discussion. Just like when you give birth to a child, they're not perfect when they come out, and it takes a village to raise a child, and so now I'm asking the village, okay, we've got this tool in front of us. It still needs a little work, and I'm hoping all of you will be as excited as I am to help this piece of legislation grow. I will take some time to go through exactly what the bill does and answer some questions about that in a moment. But what I wanted to start with—we have a guest, Noel Morin, from Big Island EV Association. There is an accompanying packet in your pinkie folder(see Comm. 608.2), with his slide show. He's going to just give us the lay of the land for EV's before we start our discussion. Page 3 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 (Note: At this time, Co-founder of Think B.I.G. Noel Morin, came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. KIMBALL: So Noel, I'll pass it over to you. Thank you for being here today. MR. MORIN: Good morning, Honorable County Council Members, my name is Noel Morin. I am a community volunteer and involved in several organizations, all dedicated to climate action sustainability and resilience. Thank you for this opportunity to talk about sustainable transportation this morning. I've been involved in EV advocacy for over a decade, and I do lead the EV as well as Hawaii EV organizations. I was asked to keep this to 30 minutes, so will jump right in. (Note: At this time, Mr. Morin provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the presentation, see the DVD copy of the proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office, or online at http:Hhawaiicounty.granicus.com. A hard copy of the presentation is made a part of the record. See Comm. 608.2.) MR. MORIN: Let's support reliable public charging so that these benefits can be enjoyed by everybody. Thank you. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you so much, Noel, and thank you everybody for taking the time to follow this information. Noel is going to stick on for questions. We also have representatives from Hawaiian Electric here, and Deputy Counsel Delilah Schlueter to answer any legal questions. I believe we also have Planning Director Zendo Kern on the line. So thank you, Planning Director, for being here. So,just to go over the mechanics of this piece of legislation. The first sections, one and two, really have to do with enforcing parking ordinances, which is identifying electric vehicle charging stalls, signage around those. It's pretty straight-forward. It's basically taken right out of Act 75, which is the piece of legislation that gave us, the counties, the authority to put an ordinance forward to enforce these things. What I want to get to is really the meat of this, which is adding the section, under Section 3, where we start talking about our requirements for charging stations. This is where you know, I don't think I need to convince anybody of the environmental climate change-related reasons for decarbonizing our transportation. But what this piece of legislation, for me, is really about is it's about the pocketbook, it's about equity, and it's about sustainability. If you can afford to, you can charge at home, and that's great; but as Noel said, if you're living in a multi-family complex, you're renting, you may not have the Page 4 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 ability to charge. And owning an electrical vehicle, over the course of ownership, there is so much cost-savings, whether it be in the cost of fuel or in the reduced cost of maintenance. Everybody should have equitable access to this benefit of being able to drive a truly affordable car that's also good for the environment. The other thing that it does, you know, increasing the usage of electric vehicles in Hawaii County, is it increases our sustainability in the sense that it reduces our dependency on a very volatile fossil fuel market. And so as much as we're getting our energy from renewable sources, we're plugging our vehicles into those renewable sources, we are less dependent on that highly fluctuating barrel price. At the very bare bones, what this piece of legislation does, amending the Zoning Code, Chapter 25, under Section 3, is that it enforces Act 75 for existing lots; which is if you have 100 stalls, you have to have an EV charger if you're at a place of public accommodations. This is law. That's the floor, okay. In addition, you have to keep them in working order. Again, this is Act 75; this is the floor. But then we wanted to do something a little more, and this is what I think where we're being innovative. We're leading the way as we should be, and I'll get to that in a moment. When we were in D.C. (District of Columbia), and we'll talk about this more later, we had the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, was talking EV, $7.5 billion investment in the country in EV charging stations. We had the President of the United States talking about EVs, building capacities to build batteries in the United States, $7 billion in the Department of Energy to bring battery productions in the U.S.;plants in Michigan, plants in Florida to develop chargers and cars. There's a huge investment right now. So when you're paddling and that big wave is coming, you don't just keep at the same pace. You start cranking it so you can catch that wave. And you know what, right now we got an EV wave right behind us, and so we've got to start cranking it. And so that's what this does for new lots. Instead of saying we're going with the floor that the State set, we're going to say, "Okay, we're going to do 50." Every 50 stalls you've got to do a charger, up and to 2025, and then it goes up to two per fifty. And so we're having this incremental increase in chargers, so that we are increasing the availability of chargers in the public sector. And I see that my time is blinking, so I'm going to kind of wrap it up here. There's a couple of things that need to be changed in this, and I'm going to highlight it right now. Under (b) of—let's see, Section under Section 4, when we're talking about Section 25-4-54.1, and we're talking about existing places of public accommodations and that they would have to comply with this incremental increase during plan review, at this point, I just put in plan review as a placeholder. I think this is where we want to have a discussion about what type of plan review would actually trigger this requirement. Probably should be Page 5 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 something more than just a tenant improvement, it probably should have something to do with a number of stalls, the amount of usage of the site. So, that's one area that I think stronger minds can contribute. The other thing that we need to take out is under(g), "Every parking facility that meets the size criteria must comply ... regardless of ownership." That actually doesn't jive with the law, which does provide a provision that businesses entities with 100 stalls or more can aggregate their parking and satisfy their charging requirement in a single location. It's not a great thing, and so we're going to have to work at the State level. But Deputy Corp. Counsel Schlueter explained that this is a benefit that's provided in the HRS (Hawai`i Revised Statutes), and so we do not have the authority to overwrite that. So that is something that is going to have to be removed. And then looking at Section 25-4-54.2, we're going to have add a new mechanism for the Planning Department to verify that aggregation when people who are using that benefit. So that's kind of what this bill does. Like I said, a lot of effort went into this. And I do want to thank Deputy Corp. Counsel Schlueter and Director Kern for their input, as well as Leslie (Chow) at LRB (Legislative Research Branch). This is a change to the Zoning Code, so it will have to be referred to the Planning Commissions. So look forward to the discussion, your comments, your thoughts on it today. Hoping that if there are amendments, we can kind of keep it here in Council, or send it on to the commissions and let them discuss it and provide some feedback to us about how the bill should be amended. But looking forward to everybody's input on this. And I'll just say in conclusion, that we are leading the way on this, and I know that was a concern in one of the comments was submitted to us. But, we're not alone. Actually this is something that I've been discussing with our colleagues in the other counties for quite some time. We decided we were going to pull the trigger and be the test case to see how this works. And it makes sense, because we are leading on renewable resources. People drive here more than they do on the other islands, and so we do have more need for those charging stations around. And yeah, we're just—we're Hawaii Island, you know. Let's lead the way on this; let's lead the charge. No pun intended. Thank you Chair. I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kimball. I'm going let you to take a deep breath. And again, thank Noel Morin for being here. As Ms. Kimball mentioned, we have Deputy Corporation Counsel Dalilah Schlueter here. In Zoom, we have Planning Director Zendo Kern. I believe we have in our Council Chambers Ikaika Rodenhurst, Director of Public Works; and also John Andoh, from Mass Transit, in the chambers. I'm going to jump into discussion right now, and I see Ms. Kierkiewicz's light is on. Ms. Kierkiewicz. Page 6 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Mahalo nui, Chair. The first kind of point I wanted to make was I wonder if we might need to amend the motion that was originally brought forward to hear this measure. My understanding is because it is touching Chapter 25 that it needs to go to commission; Council Member Kimball did highlight that. But I wonder if the motion should be to forward this bill to the commission for their review, and once that's done, it comes back to the appropriate committee for review. Wondering if Corporation Counsel can kind of weigh in. Just want to make sure that we are doing everything correctly procedurally, because this is a good bill and provides an excellent starting point. So Corporation Counsel, Judge Strance, are you available to kind of weigh in on the correct motion that we should be raising at this point? CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz, for that. We have Deputy Corporation Counsel Dalilah Schlueter here standing in for Judge Strance. (Note: At this time, Deputy Corporation Counsel Dalilah Schlueter came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. SCHLUETER: Good morning. Dalilah Schlueter, Deputy Corporation Counsel. As for Ms. Kierkiewicz's question, yes, I believe that's correct. That the current motion on the floor, being to send it to Council, as Council Member Kimball had discussed, this will make it go through the Planning Commission. So, an amendment to that motion would be appropriate. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. MS. SCHLUETER: Okay. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you. I do have comments, but I also do want to respect the fact that this was introduced by my colleague, and so do you want to defer to her to kind of make the amended motion before we get into discussion? Would that be amendable to you? (Note: At this time, County Clerk Jon Henricks came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. HENRICKS: Madam Chair, if I may, before proceeding? CHR. LEE LOY: Sure. Go ahead, Mr. Clerk. MR. HENRICKS: Thank you. To Ms. Kierkiewicz's point, I had recommended or offered to Ms. Kimball that she could make the main motion to forward to Council, which provide broad space for discussion on the bill's merits as opposed to the motion to refer; with the understanding that the motion to refer would be made before voting this out of committee, because it's a Section 25-243 of the Page 7 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 County Code says that, "Council initiated bills to amend the Zoning Code must be reviewed by the Planning Director and the Planning Commissions prior to first reading." So Ms. Kimball, I believe anticipated making the motion to refer to the Planning Director and the Planning Commissions at a point where it appeared discussion on the bill itself, and deliberations on that, and any other discussion about amendments or postponements, had been thoroughly taken care of. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay, thank you, Mr. Clerk, for the clarification and insight on process. I think it's the first time we are kind of touching Chapter 25 in this term, and so just appreciate knowing the mechanics of how things should be kind of flowing through the legislative process. Council Member Kimball, this is really welcome legislation. I think we were all really jazzed at the NACo (National Association of Counties) conference to hear all of the investments that are going to be made with regards to just improving our infrastructure and ensuring that it is sustainable and resilient, and that we are growing green industries and solving some of our climate-related issues, and I think that this legislation really helps to solve for that. I did have a couple of just comments that I wanted to make. Really looking forward to the day that Toyota is going to come out with an electric Tundra or Tacoma. I am a hunting, fishing, beachgoing family, and so as soon as that is in the works, I'm going to be one of the first to kind of sign up for that, because having-or just having trucks are really part of our island lifestyle. Wondering if I could just get the comments from Planning and Public Works on how we might be implementing this bill within the County. I'm really curious around particularly Section 25-4-54.1(b) and the plan review piece. Just wanting to make sure that we have the systems in place to kind of flag for this because we have seen over the last few years a lot of different ordinances coming before this body that were attached to various projects that we just didn't realize really existed, until we were pretty far down the legislative review process. So just want to make sure that we have everything in place on our end to really roll this out very smoothly. Director Kern, if you want to start there. And then, Director Rodenhurst, if you want to just kind of weigh in on how this would impact any of our County facilities. Thank you. (Note: At this time, Planning Director Zendo Kern and Public Works Director Ikaika Rodenhurst came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. KERN: Aloha, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity. Zendo Kern here, Planning Director. I did have a chance to review it. From a plan review perspective, I feel that we can plug that in to our criteria; and we'll have various triggers, or have the trigger when that hits a certain threshold. We can also have it within our EPIC (Electronic Processing Page 8 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 Information Center) workflow system. So I feel good about incorporating it into our plan approval process. As far as compliance, it will be complaint-based. We don't have the staff or the bandwidth to actively go out and monitor whether or not the charging stations are working. So what we can do is as we receive complaints, we could have a mechanism in place to notify the owner, basically with a Notice of Violation, that they're not complying with the Zoning Code and having to correct that in a timely manner; and if they don't, then they would start receiving fines, et cetera. The other area that I am mostly trying to figure out is just the requirement to make sure that the applicant is providing us with accurate data as far as what they have to comply with, and that I think is going to be a little bit more challenging, but still doable. So, those are my initial thoughts. When it's referred through, we'll have an opportunity from the Planning Department to review it. My team will get into it, we'll make comments. It will go through the commissions as well, and then back up to you folks. But overall, I feel like we're moving in the direction that we need to. Obviously I think climate change is a really big deal. I think we're going to have a lot of EVs on our island at some point. And it's going to be that timing of, you know, the chicken and the egg, if you will, with charging stations with EVs. And how do we make this work in the most equitable manner? So those are my initial thoughts from that. I think there's ways to make it work. Might need additional staffing, but I'll try to make it work without that. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thanks, Director. It's great to know that we'll be using the EPIC system and not just tracking this on a spreadsheet, or manually, so thank you for that. Director Rodenhurst. MR. RODENHURST: Hi. Ikaika Rodenhurst, Director of Public Works. Yeah, real quick, Tacoma, I believe in December 2021, they had some concepts and talks about it. I don't know where that's at. But that's something I saw and looking forward, too. As far as the plan review, yes, EPIC would help out with some of these issues, where it's a lot of different data to review at once. The system has some robust reach that would—even in some of our building aspects. It's problematic, if it wasn't for the automation involved. So I'm glad to hear Zendo can use that. As far as the new plans, that is really more the planning review side of it. For how it affects our current County facilities, that part is still being assessed across Page 9 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 the board. We still need to get information from Parks, as far as if that's going to be something that's accessible to them and able for them to upgrade, as well. And then looking at what are current facilities are, I know that currently we have about six charging stations in West Hawaii, and about—maybe about four over here and four over at Aupuni. I know that we are having some issues with repairs on those that we're addressing. We have had discussions with R&D (Department of Research and Development) and the Mayor about what we were doing to upgrade our fleet, and what we can do to do that. I know that DOT (Department of Transportation) has had a big push to get electric vehicles. And as Zendo mentioned, it's kind of a chicken-egg thing, where as much as these vehicles are improving, the most important thing is having a reliable power source to charge them. And especially with our County functions and the critical functions that we provide here, we want to make sure that we have a reliable source to charge. It is a little aggressive for us, but something I think that we're going down that path to get done, and it's going to take us a true assessment of what that looks like for all our facilities, including parks. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay aggressive. But you folks are willing, and ready, and able to kind of meet the challenge? MR. RODENHURST: So long as we have the budget coming forward. And really the most important thing is what type of charging station is going to be the go-to, the kind standardized one. Because repair parts—and as these technologies are improving, it does give us that plateau of where you have interchangeable parts. But till we get to that stage, where we have a standardized type, it becomes difficult when you have parts break down or vandalism to the charging station. Those are some of our biggest concerns and some of the things that we've seen here at the County. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for that, Director. So in addition to that, also showing that we have the folks with the expertise and education to be able to make those maintenance on the chargers. Is that being handled currently in-house or do you contract out for that? MR. RODENHURST: So for this one I believe we're going to have to—we'll have to look at that. But if it's something that's going to be handled in-house, we'll have to provide that training in that appropriate use. If it's something that's going to be contracted out, we have to make sure that's very well-stated; and the requirements are clear in that contract of what's required of these folks to provide the maintenance. Page 10 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: But bottom-line, this a job that needs to be filled. A green and clean job for the future, so we have to make sure we have that educational pipeline in place. MR. RODENHURST: Correct. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you for that. I also see Administrator Andoh. If you could come forward, John, and just kind of illuminate for us where you see collaboration of installation of these chargers within bus hubs that are being planned for our island. (Note: At this time, Mass Transit Administrator John Andoh came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. ANDOH: Yes. Aloha, Council Members. It is our plans to, as you know, can start converting our fleet to zero-emissions technology, and as part of that, we're going to start the process to install electric chargers for the buses at the Mass Transit Agency baseyard in Hilo. And as we construct the one in Kailua-Kona, we'll include that in those plans. There's also our plans to have charging for buses as well vehicles that would park at the various transit hubs that we intend to construct island-wide, starting with the Pahoa transit hub, Kailua-Kona transit hub, Mo`oheau bus terminal. And we are working in conjunction with Research and Development to engage a private investor who can help us in installing the electric charging infrastructure for the hubs and our baseyards island-wide, that we'll be bringing actually before Council. Hopefully in the next month, for consideration. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Okay,perfect. Thank you for that. Council Member Kimball, great work, kind of pulling all this together. I know that electric vehicles, this concept and technology is really your baby. So thank you for taking the initiative to work with the various departments at the County and the State level to make this legislation happen. The moment is now, right? We cannot be putting off our kuleana for future generations, where we have these mandates about having clean renewable energy, 100 percent by 2045. We have to do everything we can to invest now and making that happen, and not kick the can down the road like has been the case for other issues, and then it only becomes more expensive. So, excited for Hawaii Island to be potentially leading the way in this front. So thank you, and look forward to further discussion with my colleagues on this, Chair, I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Here in Kona, I don't see any lights. Oh, Mr. Inaba, go ahead. Page 11 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 MR. INABA: Real quick. Thank you, Council Member Kimball. Really, a lot of information here, and it's the direction we need to head, you know. I think a lot of the concern oftentimes is—it's that—what is it? Range anxiety, I think he used. And I think something that we just need to consider is that, for this requirement, you know, with the 50 stalls, and in preparation for, you know, if we pass this and some of these public accommodations, when we do get that in order, do we have an idea of what it cost to not just install, but the cost of the actual chargers themselves? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you for asking that question. I believe,probably Noel or our friends from Hawaiian Electric can respond to that. And I did neglect to note in your packet, that was included in all the slides, is a table from the Federal Department of Transportation of all of the different rural funding opportunities there are to put in, both in commercial and public spaces charging infrastructure. So, there's a lot of money out there, places where you wouldn't think. USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) has money to put in chargers at farm businesses, as an example. So there's a lot of money available right now. But Noel or Michael from Hawaiian Electric, or Jennifer, if any of you want to talk a little bit about the cost. And a lot of the cost has to do with the actual electrical part, so they can talk about their Make Ready Program for commercial locations. MR. MORIN: Michael, do you want to take this one? (Note: At this time, Michael Colon, Hawaiian Electric's Electrification of Transportation Policy and Program Development Manager, came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. COLON: Sure. Aloha, my name is Michael Colon. I'm the manager of Policy and Program Development for Electrification of Transportation Department, Hawaiian Electric. So, we cover our full-service territory. Yeah, the costs do vary a lot. I want to start with a lot of caveats in terms of—it depends on the complexity of the site itself as well as the technology you're looking to install;proximity to service drops, existing service drops, or additional work that needs to be done to improve power-supply to a given location. We've looked at a lot of different installations. We've had a lot of conversations with actual installers of various technologies, including what we've done in our past/present space, we've had a pilot since 2013. You know, rough-level estimates can vary quite a bit. But for the equipment costs themselves, we can look at a Level 2 charging station, which is what Noel referred to. Kind of the second tier down, using essentially like a 220 volt plug. Page 12 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 The estimate for that equipment can be between and $6,000 and $10,000 for a network charger. Network meaning it's connected to the internet; provides bill and data, point of sale kind of information. So that's the kind that you would typically expect at a public charging setup as opposed to a private wall-charger, or maybe one that doesn't have a payment mechanism. And then for fast-charging, which is the most expensive; you know, the fastest rapid charge, what Noel had referred to as kind of a bottom tier for charging the fastest, most rapid, anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000 for that equipment. It's a highly specialized, high-power charging station which requires much more power to be served to that location. So, that's just for the equipment. And then the installation really does vary quite a bit. You know, an installation can vary between $20,000 and $50,000 for Level 2, and anywhere between $40,000 and $80,000 for a fast charger. So again, I wouldn't want to focus too much on those specific costs because it could be much less than that. If it's a perfect kind of situation, where you don't need any power upgrades. It's right next to a service-drop. Minimal construction. You're not digging underground. You're not doing trenching. You're not going through any you don't need to do conduit work. It could be much—it could be on the lower end but, you know, it depends on the complexity again. Some just want to provide that range. MR. INABA: Okay. So just to clarifysorry, did somebody else have ? MR. MORIN: Yeah, I just—pardon me, I just wanted to add also, that in the event that the project is a swap-out, right—and there a number of Level 2 chargers we have across the island that are just not working, in the event that something already exists, the cost is minimal. And I got an estimate of about $1,000. That's just a starting for a simple swap of an existing charging station. MR. INABA: A swap of an existing, non-working ? MR. MORIN: Exactly, exactly. So an example might be Home Depot. It's been out of order for three years; if the company decides to swap that out, they've already gotten infrastructure, the wiring. It's essentially a swap-out of the actual physical equipment. And something like that is a lot more affordable. It costs less. MR. INABA: Okay. YeahI mean obviously we care about the environment, but we've got to know the cost involved. And it's good if we can get—you know, whatever those ranges are. If we're saying $10,000 for a Level 2 plus installation, than at least we have some kind of number insight, as these businesses and organizations will be impacted. But thank you for also pointing out a lot of those funds that are available. You know, it makes it less scary. Page 13 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 So thank you, Council Member Kimball. That's kind of all I have right now. I know you have some amendments you want to put forward prior sending it over to the commissions. But very happy too, that we were able to discuss this and move our island towards, you know, options. So we might all join you on the electric vehicle front. Chair, I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Inaba. I see—Mr. Richard, your light is one. Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Mr. Inaba touched on it as cost. First of all, Heather, I agree this is the right direction. You know me, and I'm all about electricity and going forward. So, I've heard the installation cost, but what I haven't heard is what kind of service that we need for the rapid-charge, which is I know substantially a higher demand. So what kind of service do you need to service those high-capacity chargers? CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Richards, maybe if you would to direct it to MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, I don't know who to ask the question. Is it three phase, 240? What are we talking about? MS. KIMBALL: I think that's a question for our HECO (Hawaiian Electric Company) friends. And I wanted just to make sure that it's clear that the floor here is a Level 2 charger, so there's no requirement to do the fast chargers. However, you can satisfy the requirement. And I'll go into that more in detail, while HECO responds to your question. Did you hear that, Jennifer and Michael, about MR. COLON: Yeah, I believe the question was, what type of service power or quality is needed for a fast charger? So yeah, you would need to replace power. And it would depend on the location, too. You might need a transformer upgrade. It would have to be a case-by-case basis. So if someone was interested in installing at a particular location, we would work with one of our utility engineers to go and assess the location specifically, to figure out if there is power upgrade needed. A lot of times it's not, but it really does depend on the location. MR. RICHARDS: Where I'm going with this, this is Big Island and people are not going to have hours to charge, and so I'm thinking we're going to have to look more towards a rapid charger, which is mean capital investment. And I was looking through here; haven't had enough time to digest it, but is there a size of parking lot? Because what I'm looking at is small business; and if they're required to install this, is there a way for them to recoup their investment into this? I think we are moving beyond the stage of free-charging. We need to bill. Page 14 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 I know that hassle says there's no fuel tax in here, so there's no road tax, and that's something that the State's working on right now, and I recognize that. I'm concerned about the little businesses being saddled with more debt. How are we going to address that? And I'm not sure how to ask that question yet. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah. So the threshold here is 50 stalls. So if you have fewer than 50 stalls, you have no requirement to put in a charger, And that's how we exclude those smaller businesses. The other thing that I wanted to talk about was the fast-charging, and I wanted to highlight this because I think it's a particularly elegant solution. Is we have those benchmarks of Level 2 chargers; but as you know, there's these high-capacity chargers. There may be other technologies in the near future that are even faster. So what we said was, "Well, when you go in for your plan review with the director, you can come up with an alternative to satisfy the floor, that was established with the Level 2s, as long as you get at the same charging capacity." So what that's going to mean, is that if your requirement for Level 2s was six of them, you can actually satisfy that requirement with a high-capacity charger. We didn't want to write that math in there because that may change over time. But the thing that I wanted to get to is that if you use a high-capacity charger, you actually need you have a lower threshold as long as you're meeting that floor capacity that's established in the Code. Does that make sense? You're looking at me critically. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah. No, I get it. If you charge faster, theoretically you can charge x-number of vehicles per hour, and that makes sense. As Planning has stated, they're not going to police this, but that's another conversation for another time. But let's say we have a grocery store that wants to build, and they had to put in x-number of chargers. They're going to want to put in probably rapid chargers because no one is going to hang out in the store for two hours waiting for their car to charge. I think you know where I'm going with that. I understand what we're saying here. For commuter vehicles around the town that's fine; but I think we're going to need to look at a rapid charge, and then I'm concerned about how we're going to fund it. And I appreciate there's grant funding there, but if we have a store a store that puts in a charger, do we have a way that—if they can recoup their investment as well as bill for the energy that's being used through that? And I don't know if that's right I haven't dug through this deep enough, as of yet. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, I'll just refer for you to item (h), under 25-4-54.1, which does say that, "Site owners are not precluded from charging a ... fee." So if they institute these charges there, absolutely able to charge a fee. And that's in alignment with the State code, or State law, as well. Page 15 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 MR. RICHARDS: Okay. All right. Excellent direction. I've got some questions, but I think we can work towards those, and find that common ground. Okay, thanks, Chair. I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Ms. David. MS. DAVID: Thank you, Chair Lee Loy. And Council Member Kimball, yes, thank you very much for bringing this before us. I think it's been talked about, like we said, for the longest time. I think I have a question, probably for Planning, because this will definitely go for further discussion at Planning Department. (Note: At this time, Planning Director Zendo Kern came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MS. DAVID: Hi. Hi, Director. I have a question. MR. KERN: Good afternoon. MS. DAVID: When this gets to you,procedurally the application, how is this going to work, when someone comes in that hasn't proposed development, that obviously will require a parking facility in excess of the 50 stalls. You folks would have the first inkling, right, when that happens? So my question, you will, in this process then, when it gets to you, would you need to actually create new rules to address this bill, this proposed bill? That's number one, which I think you may have to do that. And question number two, is something that has been coming up recently. And you mentioned that you, basically the Planning Department, would be on a complaint-driven process on people that have not kept their charger stations. Would that be the same? Or will you address that complaint-driven situation? I see it not resolving itself on being the complaint-driven, once this bill passes. So you're going to address that in your rule-making? Because I see a lot of questions coming up, and once that happens there's been a lot of complaints already on some of the chargers that have not been working for like three, four years now, and they were complained about many times. So that process I think needs to be finetuned because it's been brought to the attention of the County, and they're still not working. So just some food for thought, because if we're being complaint-driven or we're reacting to resolve an issue based on complaints, then there should be a process of addressing those complaints to resolve it, is what I'm just putting out there. Because I think it's an important thing to do when we create something like this, and not be complaint- driven to the point where they give up complaining because there's nothing being done. So,just my thoughts on this before it gets to you guys. Page 16 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 MR. KERN: Sure. So I can touch base on both of those briefly. So the process, we'll have to update our procedures to the plan approval process, which is done administratively through the department. So during that time, we look at the number of spaces required, based on the use, loading zones, landscaping, and all of those things, so we'll have this. Depending on how this comes out, but these requirements will be put into that process. So we'll be saying, "Okay, it's that trigger,"we'll then look and make sure that they're compliant with that. So I'm not worried about it from a plan approval process, it's just really updating our process. Not a big deal. The complaints side of it, I think it's going to be a little bit different. We can obviously receive the complaints. The challenge is the expertise to go out there and verify, you know, that it's not working. And maybe if we had an EV, we could go plug it in, and that would be simple. But the person power to go do that is going to be tricky. I think the big difference though, between the current complaints that we have and how these complaints would work moving forward, is right now they're just that. They're a complaint; it's not working. So maybe something gets done, maybe something doesn't get done. With this mechanism, as a complaint comes in we will actually issue a Notice of Violation saying, "You're supposed to have your fuel charger stations working. They're not working. Get it fixed within 30 days," or whatever the time-period it would be, "otherwise daily fines would kick in." And then you're going to have the fines accruing and stacking up, and at some point it would be much more cost-effective to fix the charging unit than it would be to let those fines stack. So we'll actually have some teeth within that now, around the complaint. Outside of that, if we were actually going to go to say police it more, then we would need people with that type of expertise, and we would need additional staffing and bandwidth to do that. MS. DAVID: Thank you. And I think the yeah,the question is pretty much a follow-up to Council Member Richards' question regarding cost. In this upcoming budget season, it seems to me that if this is something we're moving towards, that these things are taken care of as far as implementing some sort of a repair process, or a process on getting these stations repaired. And then that's my own just my questions as we start on this the beginning of this, because I think we need to kind of like figure out the totality of how to enforce these things, because this really, really benefits the public. And enforcement of everything has been such an issue. So thank you for your answer. And just throwing it out there. And Ms. Kimball, thank you very much. Great discussion. Thank you. I yield. Page 17 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. David. Ms. Villegas, go ahead. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you so much, Council Woman Kimball, for your diligence in following through something that's very complex in its capacities. But the timing is right. I guess I just had one question about the capacity for—it's kind of the ironies in dealing with electric vehicles. So then you're charging it from fossil fuel chargers. So is there components included in this, or idealized for utilizing something like solar to be the charging stations? Because as we were Council Member Richards and I had some conversations ages ago about electric buses, and just looking at that technology. And how do you make sure that you're just not transferring it from the gas tank to just the gas and the charging capacity? MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you for that question. There's nothing built into the bill right now that like focuses on chargers that are tied to solar. But again, one of the larger reasons that I think Hawaii County needs to lead on this is that because we're furthest ahead right now on having a renewable energy backbone. That said, and I think I hope Noel is still on the call, in terms of fossil fuel usage, even when you are plugging an EV into a socket that is ultimately having energy coming from a fossil fuel burning source, you are still reducingI think, is it a third less emissions, even when you're plugged into fossil fuel energy source? Noel, am I correct on that percentage? MR. MORIN: I don't have the actual percentage,but directionally that is true. There are studies that demonstrate that, even if you're plugging in to a coal-powered grid. Yeah, the efficiencies associated with the electric vehicle allow the owner to actually have material impact on emissions. So, it's really about the efficiency of the vehicle and the opportunity for the owners to be able to maximize the energy that goes into it. Fortunately in Hawaii, 60 percent here on the island is renewable, and there's pressure obviously—immense the pressure to further that. So, it gets better over time. MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Council Member Kimball, for that. And thank you, Noel, for this really thorough presentation. I know that it's a hot-button item, talking about disposal of the batteries when it comes to EVs, and it's ironic and tragic in its own cycle; but then we have this incredible technology, that then continues to get pooh-poohed because of, well, the mining of some of the really precious minerals that are used in creating the batteries. And then, what do we do with the batteries after? So as we continue to strive for circular economy and utilizing the resources that have already been extracted from the earth, that weI'm excited to hear the different data and numbers that show that that is what's happening, and there are changes being made and ways to in fact eliminate the use of—who was I talking to? Somebody recently that basically said all raw cobalt is gone. And as we look Page 18 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 at the international climate of potential war, you know, a lot of that's been fought over these kind of minerals. I just want to thank you for this very inclusive and deep dive into what's happening right now with electric vehicles. And thank you to HECO for being here, and for your continued support for these transitions. It's going to cost money, but thankfully federal government is kind of ready to write some checks it sounds like. And if we can have these shovel-ready projects, as they like to call them, then we can take that charge, as Heather said, and keep the momentum. So thank you for this. I appreciate. Thank you for answering those questions. I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Villegas. With that, Ms. Kimball, I know you have some amendments, and I know there is going to be a need to shove it down to the Planning Director. But, I did have a few questions. And what I'd like to do is ask my questions, round this all out. Go ahead move your amendments in, make the motion to send it down to Planning Director and Planning Commission. Just give them the kitchen sink. Just pack this cooler and let those within the Department of Planning, Public Works, Mass Transit, and maybe even DEM (Department of Environmental Management) evaluate this bill and start to put it in so we can get a real comprehensive look at what this does, and just the different areas that this bill touches. Because Ms. Villegas just touched upon it, which is the life-cycle piece, right? And maybe DEM might need to take a look at this. If that's okay with you, Ms. Kimball? Okay. Yeah, with that— MR. hatMR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair? Before you go ahead, if I could? CHR. LEE LOY: Sure. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Thank you, Ms. Lee Loy. Ms. Lee Loy, I appreciate you bringing this forward. I don't have any concerns with the bill. I like the requirements that you are putting into place, that are really driven by the State laws, as you eluded to many times. I just like it. I like the intention of the bill. It's just time, period, and we're going to have this this kind of decisions and this is where we need to be headed. We're considering the RUC, the Road Usage Charge, and that is in light of how many electric vehicles are hitting the road, and government is wanting to get ahold of that tax income from the loss on the fuel tax. And so these charging stations are much needed. Noel is a wealth of information; I appreciate your presentation today. I would you have my full support for this bill regardless of needing amendments. Today I haven't heard too many negatives, on what's being brought forward. There will be some learning curves on behalf of the County and the departments, and those impacted by it. But Page 19 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 ultimately you're doing a good job by bringing this forward, and that's what I support. So thank you for your work and thank you for the presentation today. Just on a personal note, I've helped to install these fast charging stations. Sorry, not the fast charging stations, but EV chargers in my time as an electrical journeyman. People rely on this technology, and it's very safe, it's efficient, and I too, I'm hoping for an electric vehicle one day in my future. It would be amazing. No oil changes. Plug and go. It's just an amazing ability, and I think we're—as a population and as a human species, we're way behind the curb. This should have been place decades ago, and we're playing catch-up. So I appreciate the movement. I appreciate you pushing this through, and giving this to Council. Great move. I'll be supporting this today. Thank you. I yield, Chair. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder. With that, Dalilah, if I could ask you a few questions just procedurally. Because it's coming through Public Works, but we're going to send it over to the Planning Department. When it comes back, will it come back to us or should it come back to Planning Department? This one is a little clunky because we're touching two different parts of the Code, and procedurally I just want to get this one right. Because we're all supporting this, and we all see the potential and the funding, and I just don't want this to get—have a procedural defect. MS. SCHLUETER: Thank you, Council Member Lee Loy. I'm being cautious about answering this for sure because I want to take another look at the procedure to be amending the Zoning Code. Director Kern may have a faster answer, but I just want to double-check before I answer this affirmatively one way or another. I'm happy to even send the entire Council, you know, an email with exactly the procedure. Just to confirm it, and confirm it with the Code. CHR. LEE LOY: You know what, Ms. Schlueter, yes, I think a written memo to that effect so that all the members understand this process. And then this question is directed to Director Kern. Acknowledging that the department will have to evaluate this bill, you yourself, Director, and both Planning Commissions, I'm hoping and as a suggestion, that the department could actually invite comments from other agencies,just like any change of zone application. So, reaching out to the departments. The Mass Transit department, of course DPW (Department of Public Works, themselves, maybe even DEM to talk about some life-cycle issues that this bill may touch upon, in which they might want to go get their Rules and Procedures and/or Code amendments adjusted all at the same time. Is that something you think your department could handle, as far as evaluating this bill? Page 20 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 MR. KERN: Yeah, that was the game plan, to treat it very similar to a rezoning application. We would intake it. We would route it for comments to various agencies. We receive their comments back. This one is going to be a little different because it's active legislation. And either let Council Member Kimball know or have their suggestions come in as we tweak any of this proposed bill, and from there, it would move forward to the commissions. We have 120 days to do that, before we get it to commission, so that's timeframe that we're looking at. And yes, I believe that will be exactly what you're asking about. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you for that, Director. And maybe a communication, Ms. Kimball, to DEM because they also have their own commission—for their input. But if they need to also be doing work within their respective area of the Code, I really want to make this a comprehensive, big-lift so things are not getting left behind. Or like you said right, "We've got to paddle hard to catch this wave," and I don't want other areas of our Code to kind of handcuff us from moving forward. So with that, those were my comments. I'm looking forward to where this all takes us. I was completely interested in the process itself, because we adopt legislation but I'm more of how do we implement it. The funding you know, just our own assets, our owned County assets, will be impacted by these decisions and so I really want us in the best position. Oh, and Director Kern, if there's a possibility to look a that financial piece with a fiscal impact statement or some thumbnail sketch around the cost so that our legislative body can get ready to start guiding that funding, I think will also be incredibly valuable for us. Director? MR. KERN: I will do my very best with the resources that we have at hand; and if I'm running into any challenges, I will communicate that effectively in the appropriate way. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Director. So with that, Ms. Kimball, if you want to go ahead and move your amends in, and then make the recommendation to forward this to the Planning Director and the Windward and Leeward Planning Commissions, I'll go ahead and entertain that motion. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, thank you, Chair. I wasn't planning on introducing any amendments today. I actually think that we should just send it onto the commissions and the director for review because things may move around such that it's an extra step that's not necessary. So I just want to go ahead and make the motion to refer it. And I see, Director Kern, are you raising your had on purpose, or was that—? Okay, go ahead. MR. KERN: Yeah, on purpose. Page 21 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 MS. KIMBALL: Okay. MR. KERN: Sorry, I just wanted to make sure. That I would send those somehow to us for a feedback to incorporate; because if there are substantial amendments made when it gets back to the committee, it will have to reroute again. MS. KIMBALL: Yeah, these are not substantial amendments. There were the two the one being in the removal of item where is it (g), under 25-4-54.1. And then in addition, like we talked about, under the alternatives, where you would confirm the use of the aggregation provision. So when these go before your commissions, I will come in and I will talk with them about the bill. I'm committing you to that, and talk about those changes that are necessary. But I think the ones that are going to be more meaningful, that are going to be recommendations that come from your department and the commissions, are going to have to do with that plan review and whatnot. And so let's just wait for that and have the smart people tell me how you want it done. MR. KERN: Very good. Thank you. MS. KIMBALL: Okay, great. Before I do it, I just want to make a couple of comments to what Chair David was saying about the enforcement piece. There was actually a conscience decision to put this in Chapter 25 because an enforcement process already exists. And so we didn't have to invent a whole enforcement. There was already this Notice of Violation, these fees. It's already there, and so we're not having to create a whole bunch of new codes to do enforcement. Recognizing that this may be a little bit(inaudible) at first, and that's when we can start to have discussions with the department of needing extra staff or whatever. You know, to Council Member Villegas' point, I'm very conscious about the you know, the circular economy, the impacts. And there was just recently a study, in this last couple of weeks about recycling lithium, and actually finding that it was improved in its ability to be used as a battery, in its recycled state. You know, in addition to the funding for charging infrastructure, federal government is putting forward they're putting $7 billion in the Department of Energy, for looking at battery production and recycling. So this is a very conscious decision. And just finally point out, like we're not comparing this to nothing. We are comparing this to decades of the fossil fuel industry. Starving people, creating wars, destroying forest, polluting, you know. A lot is being done here. So, you know, I think there's a really interesting market too, in that circular economy. When I bought my EV, I actually did pay an EPR (Extended Producer Page 22 PWMTC-18 February 22,2022 Responsibility) fee. I paid a recycling fee up front when I purchased it. So there's a lot of forethought, I think, right now into that. Thank you or the recommendation, Sue, about getting the Environmental Management Commission involved. I'm sure they would be really excited to weigh in on this. So I'll talk with Corporation Counsel about the proper process to do this. County Clerk, if you would actually—do you have any thoughts on Sue's concern about whether or not this is in the right committee right now; and is it going come back here, or go to the Planning Committee after referral the commissions and the department? Are we okay? MR. HENRICKS: It's okay. I don't think the referral to this committee was inappropriate since it amends two different chapters. So, I guess it could have gone either way. And process-wise, if this was referred out today, the Planning Director and Planning Commissions would have 120 days, not separately but total, to provide the recommendations back to this committee. And then when we receive those recommendations, we would then put it on the next earliest agenda, and where it would be, your motion is to move it out. A favorable recommendation would be on the floor at that point and time. And I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disagreeable with Mr. Kern, but if the committee then decides to amend it further, I don't believe it needs to go back to the Planning Commissions for their additional review. The Code requires the initial referral out of committee. This committee could, if it makes sweeping changes or substantial changes, elects on its own accord, to refer it back to the Planning Commissions for additional review, if he feels that to be a prudent move. But again, I don't mean to be disagreeable. I just wanted to lay that out so that you guys can plan accordingly. And if I'm incorrect, I'm sure Corporation Counsel will opine and provide a different opinion. But I would note that there have been many bills in the past that the Council has amended. Even at second reading to Chapter 25, even zoning changes, that the Council has proceeded without additional review by the Commissions. MS. KIMBALL: Thank you for that, Mr. Clerk. So, I think we're okay. And thank you for reminding us of our sweeping power, right? With that, I just one more time just want to thank all of the people that helped to contribute to putting this together, and it's really been a team effort. And all eyes are on us from the other counties. I'll tell you that right now. They're very excited to see what we do. So with that, I'll make the motion to refer this Bill 120 to the Planning Director and Planning Commissions. Page 23