Simplifying Permitting for Enhanced Economic Development (SPEED) Task Force

Calling this meeting to order.

All right. Do we have feedback? No more. Alright, I'm calling this meeting to order. Welcome everyone to the Simplifying Permitting for Enhanced Economic Development Speed Task Force. My name is Gregory Ilagon, State Representative and Chair for the Speed Task Force. Today is Thursday, December 15, 2025.

It is 9:31am in Conference Room 411 with participation also available via Zoom. Thank you for your patience. We will begin with introductions. First, our Members joining on Zoom. Please state your name and let us know if anyone is with you. If not, simply say you are alone. We will start with Hawaii County. Hawaii County.

Start us off, please.

Hi. Aaron Spielman. I'm alone.

Good morning. Council Member Heather Kimball. I'm also alone.

Moving on to the Governor's office. All right, Senate. Any Members in the state? Representative.

I'm on Chair. This is Tyson Miyake. I'm on Maui in my home office.

Kyle Yamashita. I'm in my office.

Thank you. Moving on to. Any Members over in Maui County?

Hi, I'm Lance Nakamura. I'm in my office alone.

Any Members over in Kauai? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Maui.

This is Kristen Shimada from Maui County and. No, I'm. I'm alone.

Thank you. Any Members over Kauai County. Any Members in Oahu City in Honolulu County?

Aloha. This is Council Member, Esther Kia Aina. After 10:30, my staffer Gloria Palma will be listening in for me. Thank you.

Thank you, council Member.

This is Michael Catt, City and County of Honolulu.

I'm moving on to state agencies.

Hello.

This is Brian Lee. I'm alone. But with all of you here, I'm not lonely. We got a comedian in the house.

Aloha. Chair. This is Andrew Okabe from the Hawaii Utilities Commission. I'm alone. But I expect to be joined by Anand Samtani shortly.

Hello. Martin Anselini from HCDA. I am alone too.

Aloha and good morning. Clara Kahohane, Deputy Director, Commission on Water Resource Management. I'm alone.

Aloha. Diana Senes from the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development. I am joined by Seiji Ogawa, who is in person.

Good morning everyone. I'm Jessica Puff, the Administrator of the State Historic Preservation Division. I'm alone.

Aloha. Good morning everyone. Jennifer Salisbury on Maui representing Small Business Regulatory Review Board.

Good morning.

Morgan Gerdel with AIA Hawaii on Hawaii Island. I have him alone.

Good morning. Representative Neil Tanaka from the County of Hawaii. I'm alone.

Sorry, it's Denise Nakanishi. I'm not sure. My camera. I gotta figure out. I have a new computer, but I. Am in a hotel and my granddaughter. And my daughter are in and out. But it's just me.

Thank you, Denise.

Mark Clemente. I'm alone.

Perry Arrasmith at Housing Hawaii's Future. I am alone.

Jordan Odo, in my individual capacity. And I'm alone.

Is there any other Members who have not introduced themselves on Zoom?

Yeah, Brian, individual homeowner. By myself. I'm alone.

Mitchell Kuma, Hawaii County. Alone.

Shannon Matson, Hawaii County. My co worker Karina is present in the room.

Is there any others who have not introduced themselves?

Good morning. This is Monica Toguchi-Ryan, Chamber of Commerce, economic development, family business. Alone.

Good morning all. Kaaina Hull, on behalf of the Kaunee Kauai Planning Department. Alone as well. Thank you.

Anand Samtani, PC.

Is there anyone else who have not introduced themselves?

Alec Ikeda, here on behalf of Senator Troy Hashimoto. And I am alone.

Craig Clouet, former high order, now Department of Agriculture Biosecurity. Hello.

Is there anyone else who is a member of the task force who have not introduced themselves?

Good morning. Jordan Molina, county of Maui Department of Public Works. Thank you.

Did we get everybody? All right, this is your last chance to identify yourself if you are a task force member on Zoom.

Hi. Good morning. My name is Leo with Representative GEdeon's office.

Aloha. This is Representative Joe Gedeon.

Now that we have the hardest part out of the way, let's move on to the physical space and for those who are here, we have recorded your presence and you will appear in our minutes so we don't have to go around the room. Thank you, Members for your participation in the SPEED task force.

Public testimony will be heard throughout the meeting specific to the agenda item on hand. I will now open the floor for public testimony only on the second item on the agenda, which is the previous meeting minutes. Anyone on Zoom wishing to testify? It looks like no one on Zoom is wishing to testify.

We are moving on to our physical location. Is there anyone here wishing to testify? Seeing none, Testimony is now closed. Members, the minutes is on your board. It's in your board packet and it's accessible online. I will open it up for questions on the minutes. Any questions on Zoom? Any questions here?

With no questions, the chair moves to file the minutes. No second needed. The minutes is now filed. I will now open up the floor for public testimony on the third item on the agenda, which is the chair's report. Anyone on Zoom wishing to testify? Anyone here in person wishing to Testify Seeing none testimony is closed.

Members for my Chairs report, I've been conducting presentations statewide to share the task force work on simplifying permitting. I share this to ensure transparency and keeping with sunshine laws so the public knows where these presentations occurred and which task force Members were present.

Since since our last meeting on September 11, I have continued outreach and delivered speed task force orientation presentations to stakeholder groups statewide to share what we were working on and how the public can stay engaged. Here is a brief summary. On September 15, I presented to the Chinese Chamber and no task force Members were present.

On September 18, I presented to the Small Business Regulatory Review Board. Task Force Member Jennifer Salisbury was present. Was there any other task force Member present in that meeting? Since no one has responded, there was only Jennifer Salisbury. On October 7th, I presented to the General Contractors Association of Hawaii and no task force Members were present.

On October 14, I also presented to the Hawaii Chamber and no task force Members were present. The format was a webinar format, so if any task force Member were present in that format, please speak up now. No one in Zoom and no one in the physical location so there were no task force Members present.

And finally, on October 22nd, I presented at the Land Use Commission Board meeting and Brian Lee, Seiji Ogawa and Mary Alice Evans were present. Were there any other Members present at that meeting? None on Zoom and none in our physical location.

So to the public, if your organization would like a presentation at your meeting, please please feel free to reach out. I'm happy to present what the SPEED Task Force is about and share updates from our collaborative efforts. Any questions Members regarding these presentations? Any on Zoom? Any in the physical location? No questions.

Also under my Chairs report, I would like to introduce our new SPEED Task Force Coordinator, Reginald T. King. Reggie brings a strong background in intelligence analysis and public service. He served in the U.S. army, including assignments at Schofield Barracks and Fort Bragg and worked as an all source Intelligence Analyst supporting the National Ground Intelligence Center.

Reginald joined OPSD through the Internship program where he contributed to a GIS project for the Environmental Review Program. He is currently pursuing a degree in Information Systems at Kapiolani Community College. I'm not sure if the camera is showing, but to my right is Reggie. Hand camera to right. Reggie, welcome.

We are grateful to have you supporting the Task force as the Speed Coordinator. Let's also thank Deanna Sentnes for her work in this role and training and getting Reggie up to speed. Do we have any questions for Reggie from the Members? Anyone in Zoom? Anyone here? All right, no questions. Welcome on board. Reggie, one final remark.

I want to share a quick preview of how we will handle recommendations on our January 6, 2026 meeting. This is very, very important, so please listen with care. Because not everyone was able to participate in the pigs, every Task Force Member will have the opportunity to submit a recommendation for a vote.

Any member listed on the Task Force may do so and there are 34 Members.

If you would like to submit a recommendation, please email Reggie, our speed task force coordinator at [email protected] after we vote on all the key recommendations from our pigs who are presenting today, member submitted recommendations will be taken up and the order received on a first come basis for discussion. We will use a structured format.

We will take one speaker in support and one speaker in opposition per round for up to three rounds total. This guidance is specific to the January 6th meeting and we will share additional details as we are closer to that date. Any comments from Members before we move on to our presentations on all the remarks? Any on Zoom?

Any in person? All right, Members, we are moving on to our next agenda which is item four, a presentation from the Building Permit Permitted Interaction Group or pig. Public testimony is now open. Anyone on Zoom wishing to testify on this item. Anyone on in Person with none on Zoom, none in person testimony is now closed.

There will be no Q and A immediately following the presentation today, discussion, debate and voting on recommendations will be scheduled for our January 62026 meeting. We will now transition to the presentation from the Building Permit Pig. You will have 20 minutes to present Representative Sue Keohokapu-Lee Loy, Chair of the Building Permit. Please proceed with your.

Presentation.

Thank you, Chair Ilagan. First, I'd like to start off with thanking all the Members who participated in the Permitted Interaction Group for the Building Permit Pig. We had lively and very robust conversations and if we could get to the slide deck. I'm not sure. Cherry, who's handling the slide. Deck?

Let's take a quick recess and make sure that the slide is up and ready for everybody. Recess. Thank you Members for your patience. We have our PowerPoint presentation up and Chair Keohokapu-Lee Loy, please proceed with your. Presentation.

Thanks, Chair Ilagan as I started. Again, thank you to all of our Speed Task Force Members that participated in the Building Permit Pig. Some of the key highlights for our meetings. There was a collection and discussion of 79 SWAT recommendation forms. The building permit pig convened seven meetings.

The membership represented 15 different disciplines, technical proficiencies and business expertise. Approximately 270 hours were invested in the investigation and in the evaluation of The SWOT recommendation forms. Next slide. Just again, high level. We were tasked and the scope of the PIG was to investigate the swap forms and strengthen the construction permit process and improve permit issuance times.

At the beginning, at our very first meeting, we did some level setting. So I'd like to say a big mahalo to all of our county building code officials.

What we did is walk through what we call the family of construction codes, which includes the international building code, the international residential code, our plumbing code, our electrical code, our fire code.

We also had a level setting from Cameron of the Governor's office to help us understand what the Governor's emergency proclamation said and how it would help us through this process. Our PIG also made some strong assumptions and we recognize that construction is multi pronged, complex and involves many, many different agencies and disciplines.

So we made the assumption that all of the land use, zoning, regulatory entitlements, plan approvals and the like were secured or cured.

Next slide.

During the process of the investigation of our SWOT forms, we also did a pulse survey from our PIG Members. And I wanted to get this feedback as we were walking out these SWOT forms to really understand where we started and where we landed. I highlight this by some of the salty and sweet insights that we had.

So when we started the process, workforce really emerged as a frustrating topic. The hiring process, staffing, recruitment, vacancies, they were all challenges across all departments, all agencies, across all counties. Another salty feedback was the range and quality of the submission of our plans. Resources was another salty insight.

Departments across all departments, all agencies and counties have budgets that just really limit, have limits really to meet the desired outcomes. And that's just some hard corners when it comes to resources. And then of course there was this idea that people want to self resolve, they want to help their process along.

But there was very little tools and or platforms available that they could look up any information toolkits. They were housed on different websites in different departments and different agencies. Then we walked into some of the feedback as far as what was working well and that was our suite insights.

Everyone in the permitted interaction group felt confident that the discussions and their views, their opinions, their thoughts were captured through this process. Because we had so many SWAT forms, we had to bucket them in a very thoughtful manner.

And so through the seven meetings, we organized them around workforce plans, resources and other issues of self resolving individuals walking through their permit process. The entire approach was open and inclusionary. And again we had 15 different disciplines that participated in our pig. And so we did have a very wide array of Conversations and skill sets.

Then of course finally they wanted to encourage that this process continue for some of the assumptions that we made early, which we did not discuss, which was the regulatory process and other zoning requirements that impact the construction process. Next slide please.

So straight into our findings and recommendations and one question I continued to ask myself was are we planting kalo or are we planting koa? We know kalo to be a crop and a food that sustains us. Currently we turn it over. Currently there's many uses for kahlo.

And so meeting current aims and goals, common aims lifted out of the pig to speed up this construction permit process would be definitely resources dedicated to development of a workforce pipeline. We heard a lot of conversation about the vacancies but also growing that new workforce.

Again, resources dedicated to the professional development and training on new codes and technology to improve plans and the permit issuance time. Not only growing this workforce and the technical expertise that's required within the building code officials is this desire for continuing professional development and education.

We know our codes are ever evolving and so some type of resource dedicated so that they can stay in front of that would be helpful. And then of course resources dedicated to the development of a universal platform or program. We're just going to lump that all into AI to assist with review of applications and submittals.

And we understood this through our PIG to be not only within our building divisions but also outside for some of that self resolve that was asked for. And then of course are we planting koa? Koa meets long lasting system changes and needs.

One issue or one of the swap forms highlighted the need for the investigation of the establishment and process of off site construction. I'm going to lump that all in. Everybody might call it factory built modular tiny homes ADUs. We could go on and on and on.

And this, this seems to be the trend as far as meeting our housing needs for the future. However, there is no, there is no process or alignment right now within our building code officials and within the state on how to evaluate these off site construction plans.

And it is beginning to take up a lot of time within our county building permit processes to look at the plan's designs and their meeting of the current codes. And so that is one of our key recommendations.

I just want to say while it wasn't part of the overall scope, it was very clear from my speed task force pig that this is an opportunity for us to fall forward and really enhance the issuance of pre approved off site construction housing to help us meet housing stock needs for the state of Hawaii. Thank you Chair.

A lot of the recommendations are contained within the report starting on page 23. Our findings and recommendations, along with a lengthy elaboration on each, starts on page 25 and continues on to page 30. Thank you. Chair.

Members. Because questions and answers are not permitted at this presentation and everybody has a copy of the report, the guidance from the Chair of the Building Permit Pig has been presented to you and the recommendations are also presented to you.

Please take the time to absorb those recommendations and if you have any questions, definitely reach out to us stfapital.hawaii.gov and if you have any questions please definitely send out an email so so we can prepare those email for our January 6th meeting and then we will have those lengthy discussions moving on to the next agenda.

Item Item 5 A presentation from the Chapter 6e Historic Preservation Pig. Public testimony is now open. Anyone on Zoom wishing to testify on this item? Anyone here in person seeing none for all the sites testimony is now closed. Again, I want to state that there will be no Q and A immediately following the presentation.

Today, discussion, debate and voting on recommendations will be scheduled for our January 62026 meeting. We will now transition to the presentation from our Chapter 6e historic preservation pig. You will have 60 minutes to present Representative Tyson Miyake, chair of the Chapter 60 historic preservation bank. Please proceed with your presentation.

Chair, Would you like me to move your presentation along or should I? Do you have it? Yes. Yes, please. Let me take a quick recess to just get that set up. Thank you everyone.

Thank you everyone for your patience. We have the presentation up and running. Chair Miyake, please proceed with your presentation.

Thank you. Chair Aloha. Thank you for being here. As Chair of the 60 PIG within the speed task force, I wanted to walk through the work we have done over the past months to understand to better understand the challenges in our historic preservation review system and outline practical solutions that support both responsible development and cultural protection.

Before I begin, I want to Sincerely thank the PIG Members. The 60 PIG Members. Each of you brought your expertise, your time and your energy to this work. We spent many hours, like my colleague, Representative Lee- Loy, many hours in discussion, and we took deep dives into complicated issues.

So I appreciate their input and commitment to help find real solutions in supporting housing for our local residents while honoring and respecting cultural responsibilities. Next slide. Chair. So for my agenda we'll follow this four sections. So first, introduction and background. Second, the findings identified from the PIG.

Third, the recommendations that ready that are ready for adoption and then recommendations for further study. Next slide. Thank you. So what is historic preservation?

Historic preservation is super broad, broader than most people realize, but as defined in this slide, it includes research, protection, restoration, rehabilitation and interpretation of buildings, structures, objects, districts, areas and sites, including burial sites that are significant to Hawaii's history and culture. So in 1976, the Legislature adopted Chapter 6E and establishing preservation program that helps guide us today.

The intent of Chapter 6e is not to stop development, but ensure that development proceeds responsibly. Next slide. Chair. So historic properties are non renewable resources. This includes IWI Kupuna, archaeological sites, structures, cultural landscapes that embody our community and respect the Native Hawaiian history.

So protecting these resources ensure cultural practices and ancestral connections are honored and passed on to future generations. The preservation also promotes responsible land use by requiring early consideration of cultural impacts and avoiding irreversible harm.

Next slide.

So this slide introduces the State Historic Preservation Division, also known as SHIPTI. SHIPTI serves to protect and preserve historic properties significant to Hawaii's history and they are responsible for implementing that Division is responsible for implementing the Chapter 6E.

So nearly every issue we identified flows through SHIPTI's Review, which is why this division is central to the discussion. And as shown in the historic preservation review process Diagram, reviews under 6E can involve multiple steps consultation depending on the nature of the project.

So this complexity can be confusing for applicants and counties and can place a heavy burden on SHIPTI and its staff. So this is one of the reasons why the speed task force conveyed the 6E PIG.

So we took a closer look into the system and its functions and practice and how we as a group can help improve the division. Next slide, please. So this slide outlines the tools that Shifty uses. We got archaeological surveys which identify significant sites before construction begins. There's also archaeological monitoring that provides immediate protection during ground disturbance.

And then there's a preservation plan that helps guide long term stewardship and statewide preservation goals. These tools are essential and they can directly affect timelines of any project, the costs of the project, and of course the outcomes of each project. Next slide please. So for our first finding, we like to discuss the uncertainty and sensitivity determination.

So the determination increases risks and conflicts. There is substantial uncertainty in how sensitivity for ev, Kupuna and subsurface resources are determined in. Even in areas with prior archaeological work, that uncertainty could just be like depending on the levels of the ground disturbance, like feet wise.

Even in areas where archaeological work was previously occurred, it is not always clear and there's a lot of risk still involved. So the PIG. Our group emphasized the need for more nuanced risk based approach that combines the sensitivity mapping, appropriate archaeological methods and early consultation.

So this uncertainty has contributed to a lot of litigation and community conflict, to name a few. There's below on the slide deck few cases that we wanted to highlight.

Next slide Chair.

So our second finding. Sometimes the same projects are often reviewed multiple times. So projects may be reintroduced as separate cases within the division rather than a single undertaking. So there might be multiple permits or small changes can trigger repeated reviews which increase delays and creates inconsistent guidance for the applicant.

So this fragmentation also makes it difficult for Shifty staff to maintain like a full project context. Next slide please. So our third finding on the pig. Similar to the PIG, previous staffing and technical capacity is one of the primary constraints. We have a shortage statewide of archaeologists, architectural historians, cultural specialists.

So within SHIPTI and the consulting community, it's already a challenge with what we have in the state. Despite recent efforts, the workloads within SHIPTI remains high and a lot of they still have a lot of vacancies. So backlogs in preparing surveys and reports reporting are delayed. Next slide please.

So based on our finding, these two charts show fiscal year 2025 and the fiscal year 2026. It illustrates the volume of projects reviewed that are completed and that are pending. So as you can see on the chart to the left, that's fiscal year 2025. SHIPTI received a total of 1,331 projects.

Of those projects, they completed 57% or 764 projects. During that fiscal year with 372 projects still pending review. This data just helps illustrate the workload Shifty manages and the gaps between incoming projects and available capacity. So the data reinforces capacity constraints are also part of the delay.

Next slide please.

So early planning and planned historic review leads to better outcome. Based on our discussion, projects that identified preservation issues early usually experience more predictable timelines and lower overall costs. So residential exemptions have been created. But it also creates confusion when ship review is required.

So our group the PIG emphasized pre application screening and early archaeological surveys for major projects.

Next slide please.

Okay, I cannot see the table on there, but that the table provides critical data point. So out of 960 projects reviewed, only 69 had inadvertent discoveries of burials. So that tells me and the group that most projects are low risk, yet they move through the same review pathways. So that's why we supported a more risk based approach.

So shift we can focus on higher sensitivity cases. Yes. So there's a lot of inconsistencies that create uncertainty and then leads to legal challenges. The administrative rules, statutes ship these internal practices and county procedures do not always align.

So we last session the Legislature passed SB 1263, now signed into law Act 160, which clarify timelines for state projects. But also those standards are not consistent across all of Chapter 6E. So counties lack the GIS data. Access to the GIS data to get clear guidance. Next slide please. For our final finding, the burial council.

Island burial councils play a central role in protecting Iwikupuna. However, the island burial councils have quorum challenges, volunteering capacity and just the case complexity limits their predictability. So whenever an island burial council cannot act promptly, there's a lot of uncertainty for the applicants and Shipti and just the community overall.

And then that delay is uncertain and we don't know when projects will be reviewed, etc. So we'll move to our recommendation page. So our the pig. This slide reflects the key recommendation of the 6E PIG.

And there is a draft legislation that the group developed through this process throughout the past few months, which I intend to introduce next year, next session. So as the findings show, one of the biggest challenges in Chapter 6e review is the uncertainty around the timeline and expectations. Applicants, counties and shipped these.

They don't know when the review officially begins, what information was needed, if there's going to be a pause in the application period, when it starts back up, etc. So the draft bill is designed, was designed to address that.

Building off the framework of Act 160 from last session we are broadening that and extending it to Chapter 6E 10 and 6E 42. So first, the bill will clearly define what constitutes as a complete submittal under the draft bill.

The submittal includes the specific plan description documentation needed for for a shifty review and this will help reduce the back and forth later on in the process for the applicant and the division. Second, the bill will establish a five business day intake period.

During the intake period SHIPTI will review incoming applications and have time to upload onto hi Chris and then if there's information missing or need more clarity, that's the time that Shifty can send back to the applicant and during that intake period the review clock does not start yet.

Third, once a complete submittal is confirmed, the bill establishes a clear review timeline. So for projects with no historic impact, 50 would have 30 calendar days to issue a written concurrence or non concurrence. So for the projects that may have affected historic properties, 50 would have 90 calendar days to complete its review the bill.

Lastly, the bill will provide certainty once review is complete so if ship the issues concurrence or if the 30 day or 90 day timeline passes without a response, the project may proceed.

At that point the project is exempt from further review unless there is a real change in physical scope of work or any discovery within the project area. It is important to state that the bill does not weaken cultural protections.

All existing requirements for inadvertent discovery still remains fully in place so the burial council processes are unchanged and if something is discovered then the appropriate protections will still apply. The bill will also allow phase review for larger and staged projects recognizing like how infrastructure and housing projects are actually built.

So overall the draft legislation reflects the collective work of the 6E PIG and I. Mahalo all the Members on the PIG for their help with drafting this legislation. The bill is intended to bring predictability, accountability and transparency throughout the 6E review process. So again thank you to the PIG Members. Next slide please.

So our second recommendation is just increased staffing of course, which calls for more archaeologists, cultural specialists, GIA analysts, admin staff for the division that can help digitize their records, reduce delays and help upload files to their website and system. Next slide please.

Third recommendation is to invest more into hi Chris and GIS layering that can help improve the sensitivity mapping or the heat maps that the counties can see or the users can see and will help with the whole risk conflict. Next slide please.

We also recommend regular structured stakeholder meetings because as you can see from the findings of this the process works that the the PIG discussions produce strong practical recommendations that help improve efficiency while maintaining cultural protection. So we recommend that the meetings function as a working session with shared data, clear agendas and transparent reporting.

The results show that when stakeholders are brought together with clear goals that real progress can be made. Next slide. So for further discussion and more dialogue, we touched upon expanding programmatic agreements and expanding their review. But we only had a limited time Chair, so more dialogue would be needed for these three areas.

Second would be structural procedural for burial councils. And then also we looked into a self certification pathway for low sensitivity projects. My last slide. Yeah. So thank you, Chair. In closing again, I want to thank the members of the 6E PIG for your time, expertise and commitment.

You know, this report reflects the collaboration and the shared desire to improve the ship the review process while protecting cultural and historic resources. So again, thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for that presentation and task force Members, Please [email protected] or connect with Reggie, our task force coordinator, with your questions so he can prepare them for our January 6th meeting. Let's move on to our next agenda item, which is agenda item 6. A presentation from the Individual Wastewater System IWSPIC.

Public testimony is now open. Anyone on Zoom wishing to testify on this item. Any member in person wishing to testify. With no testimony, in zoom or in person, the testimony session is now closed. I saw Angela. I. I think she may want to testify. I hope she can. Hold on for a second. Hi, Angela. Are you here?

Okay, thank you, Angela for being here. I'm glad that you don't have a testimony right now. We're going to move on to our next presentation. Testimony session is now closed. There will be no Q and A immediately following the presentation today. Discussion, debate and voting on recommendations will be scheduled for our January 6, 2026 meeting.

We will now transition to the presentation from the individual wastewater system IWS PIG. You will have 20 minutes to present Representative Mike Lee, Chair of the Individual Wastewater System PIG. Please proceed with your presentation.

Thank you, Chair. I don't get a. I don't get a recess?

No, I'm just joking.

Okay, I'll wait for you to pull that up and we'll go ahead and get started. While Chair Ilagan is getting everything up. I just want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues.

I really want to thank the PIG Members for their open mindedness and their willing heart to really look at some critical issues that our state is facing, especially as it relates to permitting.

But individual wastewater systems, especially I want to thank the Department of Health for their open mindedness and their willingness to look back historically and also what they're doing now to try to help move this forward.

I also want to say a special thanks to Diana Settnes and Reginald King and Trey Gardner for their help with the coordination of this and also the reporting and the presentations that we now have in front of us so we can go to the next slide.

Here we'll be following a similar agenda to Representative Miyake's pig Finding Our presentation Start with some introduction and background information, some of our key findings, some of our recommendations for adoption, and then a few further recommendations for study. So what is iws?

IWS are individual wastewater systems that are on site systems for treating and disposing of our wastewater. They are a core part of Hawaii's wastewater management framework, especially in rural areas and communities not served by county wastewater systems. And we'll see a little bit more about where that is in future slides. A little bit of historical background.

In the early 90s, you know, we knew cesspools were bad. They were bad for the environment, bad for human health. We prohibited any future building of future cesspools. And then in 2017, Act 125 came into effect that set a mandate of all conversions by 2050.

And over that last decade or so, we have convened working groups and created pilot grant programs up to $20,000 to help residents and local people get to that 2015 mandate. Next slide. So really briefly, why are IWS systems important?

Basically, you have wastewater coming from your homes, and if they're just going right into the coral reefs or leaching right into the dirt of aquifers, it's going to be unhealthy for us. You know, we need to remove harmful pathogens and contaminants from wastewater before it's released into the environment.

It's also for environmental protection for our aquatic ecosystems, and it's also related to resource recovery and sustainability. Some systems can actually recover some of the nutrients from the wastewater which can be used in agriculture, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers. And decentralized systems can be efficient and cost effective, especially in small rural communities.

The Department of Health plays a crucial role in the regulation and oversight of iws. They're responsible for the following measures enforcing the cesspool conversion mandate and facilitating the IWS permitting process. I do want to begin on correcting one error and I'll take accountability for that.

Share Issuing stop work orders for IWS projects that raise concerns about cultural environmental resources is actually through DLNR and not DOH. But DOH is involved in regulating the use of septic systems and cesspools, providing technical assistance for homeowners, and facilitating the online application services and approvals for IWS filings.

The Department of Health's commitment to public health and environmental protection is evident in their active involvement in the IWS sector, ensuring that the installation and use of these systems comply with state regulations and do not compromise the integrity of cultural environmental resources.

I'm not sure if you want to Zoom in so that the public can see or I can just, I can just go through it here. I'm gonna open it up on mine for a second. Just got glass. So.

Introduction Background to the IWS permitting Project so the first thing that usually happens is a civil engineer needs to be hired. Step two. The civil engineer in every site specific location will perform percolation tests and surveys and then they will plan a submittal. They'll plan a submittal and a report to DOH for review.

DOH reviews that process, reviews the submittal and and gives them an approval to construct. Once they've gotten their approval to construct, they're supposed to construct the IWS and there's supposed to be an IWS inspection done by the engineer, during which a final report will be sent to DOH and then there will be an approval to use.

Briefly, a little bit information about this two step approval process and some of the things that we've learned throughout our conversations is that this two step process is of the major sources of confusion, delay and incomplete projects. Many homeowners believe that the approval to construct an IWS means that it's done or it's finished.

Approval to use requires finals inspection. Approval to use requires final inspections and documentation. But often after approval to construct, many projects stall or go to the wayside. Oftentimes communication falls off between homeowners and engineers of the IWS component of a renovation or they become deprioritized. This gap undermines public confidence and skews completion data.

And any speed strategy must close this approval gap between the amount that are approved to construct and those that are actually approved to use. So we're going to be moving on to some of our major findings. The first is that we approve projects efficiently, but we lose track of them afterward.

On average, once the submittal has gone to the Department of Health, Department of Health usually turns that around for 90% of their applications in 10 days with the approval to construct. Yet only about half of those projects ever reach the approval to use. State and county systems don't integrate or talk to one another across.

Without this integrated data, we can't track stalled projects, target incentives or measure any real progress towards 2050. And we do believe this is a fixable administrative problem. Slide 2 as alluded to by some of the other chairs and the PIGs, there is a pervasive shortage of professionals that slow progress.

Shortages affect the engineers, installers, inspectors and shifty reviewers. And even approved projects will sometimes wait months for construction or inspection. The task force also discussed emergency hiring authority, IDIQ contracts and carefully structured third party reviews. As we have found, quality control is critical, but poor work slows and not speeds the process up for the IWS task force.

Okay, next slide. Sharon. Finding number three. I'm not sure. Okay, I can tell you what the that black box is supposed to be a table. I can tell you what that says.

What it shows is that the majority of individual wastewater systems that need to convert are on the island of Kauai and the island of Hawaii, especially in rural areas. The key takeaway is that at the current rates of approvals to construct and to use, the mandate is mathematically impossible to meet by 2050.

Statewide we need to average roughly 3,600 conversions a year. But what we know is that we are approving about 2,000 a year to construct, but only get about a thousand or half of those for the approval to use. So the current capacity falls well short. And this is not about compliance, it is more about feasibility.

Without structural changes, pressure will grow for extensions or selective enforcement from Iwc based on our reporting. Next slide. We also found that there is an intersection between SHIPTI and iws. Oftentimes a late discovery of cultural resources is the worst case scenario. As SHIPTI let us know.

A lot of times when there is a SHIPTI review triggered, it is often in the latter stages of renovation before these begin. And it's the last thing that people want to do.

And while we don't want to add any pressure on Shipti, one of the suggestions was that we just have the SHIP review for every single IWS system that's going to touch the ground. But our reports also found that that would backfired by increasing overwhelming capacity for the task force.

So one of our recommendations that we'll talk a little more about is the interagency reporting and the interagency coordination between Duage and Shiptake.

Next slide.

Lastly, that our technical standards may be outdated or inadequate. You know we're in year 2025 and we're regulating 2025 systems with assumptions and evidence based in the 1990s. And much has changed in the last 35 years.

Some of the big ones are those key thresholds of the thousand gallons per day, day or five bedroom cap and density rules, but they lack clear modern justification.

DOH looked back and looked at some of their original engineering justifications, but some of them are missing or some of them are based on a lack of evidence that today would change some of those regulations.

And with innovation in technology, whether they're ATUS modular systems or black or gray water separations, not all of these modern systems will fit into these old and outdated rules. So this has created unnecessary barriers without clear health benefits.

And we are working with DOH and they are currently reviewing and we'll talk a little bit about what we recommend on the next slide. Thank you, Chair. We're rolling into Section 3 or Recommendations for adoption. And the first is to Fund a data driven study.

We need to update rules based on science and not guesswork or anecdotal evidence. And this study should include and re examine our flow limits and our bedroom capacities, our bedroom caps. It needs to clarify where innovation is safe and appropriate.

And we really should be supporting density and shared system and creating flexibility for the engineers and for DOH. This creates regulatory certainty which helps to speed up approvals and investments. Next slide. Our second recommendation is regular stakeholder convenings. This problem spans agencies, state and county coordination and it must be institutionalized.

We have decided that a regular meeting of every five years at a minimum occur where we are using shared data. And DOH has been more than generous to host that. And it keeps the 2050 mandate a little more realistic and adaptive over time.

As we talked to a few slides ago, where we're working from a 1990s perspective in terms of what we're able to do. But we're now living in 2025, so you know, a regular meeting of these stakeholders is one of our is one of our recommendations.

Third recommendation is an adoption of an IWS fast lane so that most residential projects don't need customer view from scratch. One of the things we found right away is that every IWS system that's created or proposed needs to be done by a civil engineer. And it's very site specific.

And DOH is open and acknowledges that while each one is site specific, we are going to be looking and working with them to look at pre approved designs for common site conditions, standard CAD files and calculation templates.

And that way engineers can now adapt or adjust plans from a starting base rather than reinventing for every single submission that comes in. We believe that this reduces review time errors and the back and forth between engineers and homeowners. Recommendation I'm sorry, next slide.

The next slide is the next recommendation is to fund incentives for cesspool conversions and regional infrastructure. But we need it to be coordinated not just between state funded incentives for residents, but also strategic wastewater infrastructure investment on the state's end.

On the homeowner side, like we said, we need to continue the grant pilot established and we need to continue to fund it. On the infrastructure side, the task force recommends funding targeted regional wastewater investments and county level incentives where sewers or shared systems can cost effectively reduce reliance on IWS and support housing in growth areas.

That leads us to our final slide or our final recommendation. And a big part of this is protecting homeowners through education and required disclosure and public outreach.

Some of the things that we're finding we've all heard about the shopping cart anecdote during Covid right where there's a 2015 mandate to make this happen because it's for public health and it's for public safety, it's for environmental protections.

But with that 2015 mandate there's a combination of people who don't really feel like it's a big deal or they can't afford it at the current moment or it's something that they are planning on passing on to their future generations, you know.

But there are a variety of reasons and because there is no current penalty at 2050 or no nothing to force the public to do it other than a mandate.

What we've noticed is that there is a variety of attitudes that leads to not to a not a decrease in applications, but not enough applications for IWS conversions to hit the 2050 mandate.

A core element would be a new statutory requirement that sellers disclose the presence and type of of any on site individual wastewater systems and the status of DOH approvals as well as the statewide 1-1-2050 conversion requirement at point of sale.

This should be complemented by clear plain language through DOH guidance and outreach materials explaining what approval to construct means and what approval to use means, what records homeowners should retain and what steps are required to convert cesspools or to connect public wastewater collection systems. Into. Our last slide shares our recommendations for further study.

We do believe that we need to strengthen DOH capacity and explore third party review, improve interagency coordination and data integration which will help us realign incentives to close that approval to use versus the approval to construction gap and to support shared water and regional wastewater systems. Next slide share.

You know, in closing, speed comes from clarity, capacity, coordination and updating our rules so that they are modern. None of these recommendations weaken environmental protection or cultural protection. They make the systems more predictable, transparent and scalable. The choice really that we're looking at is between planned acceleration now or crisis driven fixes later as 2015 approaches.

And lastly, I do want to thank again all of our PIGs, all of our members, the Department of Health, and everyone who helped us coordinate and get all of this together. We do believe that this is good work and it's important work and we're doing our best to hit the 2015 guideline.

Thank you Chair Lee, for your presentation and task force Members. Please [email protected] or connect with Reggie or Speedtown Force Coordinator with your questions so you can Prepare them for January 6th meeting.

Before we go on to our last item for this agenda, I want to just open up testimony for all three presentations just in case those who have come to testify has an opportunity to speak. It looks like we do have somebody on Zoom already. Angela, would you like to sign us off?

Thank you. Representative Angela Melody Young from CARES and I've been active in the debates at the City Council for the last four years and many of these topics have been covered in the county's presentations.

So everything you guys went through the county has presented in the last four years, including planning for pics to get the community together to gather people and companies and stakeholders such as the Board of Realtors and affordable housing projects and council Members to come around the table to expedite building permits.

They've also presented about cesspool conversions and shifty plans. And so I think there's obviously a barrier to integrating the counties and the state plans. And so I think some of the possible solutions to move forward, for example for shifty, is to perhaps focus on eligible properties.

For example, the Hawaii Theater has been trying to be a historic preservation site and so recognizing what each entity does and focusing on specific responsibilities can help to expedite these processes and for the individual wastewater plants.

So the county presented a lot of these plans and one thing that they are working on is the gray water feature in new affordable housing projects. So so that will reduce the volume of recycled water while transforming wastewater solutions while focusing on environmentally friendly initiatives for building in Hawaii. So yeah, I think to close thank you Angela.

Us up it would just be a really incredible thing to get more integrated with the county's plans. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there any others who wish to testify on Zoom. With no one else wishing to testify on Zoom, we're going to move on to the physical location. Any others here, but no one here. Testimony is now closed for all all the items for our presentations.

Moving on to the agenda item 7, designation of our lead Member to organize the SPEED Summit. Public testimony is now open on Zoom. Anyone wishing to testify on this item. No testifiers on Zoom. We're going to move on to the physical location. Anyone here wishing to take specify on agenda item 7 with no one here.

Testimony is now closed. So the lead member for the SPEED Summit will coordinate the agenda development, venue and date selection, partner and agency outreach across all counties. Speaker invitations, communications and budget tracking. At this time, I will appoint Jordan Odo as the SPEED Summit Coordinator.

He has experience as he has put in put together the Cost of Living Summit with the Hawaii Chamber Young Professionals. So he is more than capable of doing the job. He will do an amazing job putting this summit together and I have every confidence in him to make it happen.

Members, are there any questions that you want to ask about the Speed Summit? Any on Zoom? Any in person with no others? I want to encourage Members, if you want to get involved, please reach out to Jordan. He is now our SPEED Summit coordinator. Well, that concludes our agenda for today.

Mahalo to the PIG teams for your presentations and mahalo to all members of the task force and the public from the participating today. This meeting is now adjourned.