Gov. Green signs Ninth Proclamation for affordable housing

Gov. Josh Green signed a proclamation today, relating to affordable housing, placing a “pause” on the automatic adoption of county building codes.

The proclamation gives “the counties additional time to review, amend and adopt the latest state and national building codes to suit their particular safety and design standards and needs.”

This is aimed at “bolstering efforts to build more than 13,000 affordable housing units for working-class families over the next three years,” according to the Office of the Governor.
 
“We know that the key factor affecting Hawai‘i’s cost of living is affordable housing and my administration has been working from day one, with the counties and our partners, to break down barriers that can impede housing development. This is another step forward on the progress we have been making,” Green said.
 
The previous Emergency Proclamation Relating to Affordable Housing suspended the State Building Code Council, but it did not suspend the counties’ authority to update and amend their own countywide building codes according to their own building and safety standards. Under the current proclamation, counties retain the authority to update building codes at their discretion, the Governor’s Office said.
 
Adopting the county building codes is part of a complex, three-step process that takes years to implement. The International Code Council, National Fire Protection Agency and the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials publish model codes every three years.
 
These model codes are generic and are not tailored to the unique geographic and climate challenges in Hawaiʻi.
 
Under state law, the Building Code Council has two years to amend and adopt the model codes, or the model codes automatically become the statewide code. The counties then have another two years after that to update their building codes to meet these building and safety standards, or the state code automatically becomes the county code.
 
The 2021 building codes (published in October 2020) were automatically adopted by the state, and the counties have until the end of October of this year to adopt them, according to the Governor’s Office.
 
Suspending the automatic adoption of the latest codes will allow the state and counties to leapfrog over amending the 2021 statewide and model codes and focus their review efforts on the 2024 codes, the office said.

“This will provide more consistency and stability in the construction of affordable housing,” the Governor’s Office said.
 
The Ninth Emergency Proclamation Relating to Affordable Housing continues the “groundbreaking work” by the Green administration and the many housing stakeholders. According to the Governor’s Office, these initiatives are in previous emergency proclamations, and they include:

• Prioritizing state and county affordable housing projects to create new low-income and workforce housing units.
• Expanding the affordability threshold for projects. (Developers must now produce 60% of their units at 140% area median income or less to benefit from the waivers and exemptions allowed under the proclamation.
• Exempting certified affordable housing projects from school impact fees and general excise taxes automatically to offset rising interest rates and increased construction costs, to keep the cost of units as low as possible.

The latest emergency proclamation will remain in force for the next 60 days.