Simplifying Permitting for Enhanced Economic Development (SPEED) Task Force

Aloha and welcome to our speed task force meeting. Today is September 30, and we are in Room 309. Calling this meeting to order. Sorry. Short pause.

Senator Moriwaki, please join us. Thank you. Alright. Aloha. My name is Sue Keohokapu-LeeLoy.

I am the Chair and presiding officer for this meeting today. Our Chair, representative Ilagan, is online. Just a little bit of level-setting and housekeeping. Today, we are just hearing the presentations from all of our committed interaction groups. There will be no questions or dialogue, but we will be accepting any testimony prior to the start of our presentations or prior to each permitted interaction presenting.

In fact, let's start with my esteemed colleagues here in the room to briefly introduce themselves by stating their name, title, organization or agency, and then we'll toss it over to other members of the state task force. Senator Wakai, would you mind going first?

Oh, sure.... Conventions? When you said esteemed colleagues in it, I thought that wasn't me. Just joking. Glenn Wakai, in the Senate, and I chair the committee on energy, economic...

Excuse me, energy and intergovernment token. And I took care of the district boundaries topic.

Senator Troy Hashimoto, and I was the Chair of the building code permitted interaction.

And I'm Senator Moriwaki, and I was the Chair of the Water and Wells Community Life Interaction Group.

Thank you, Senator. Before we get too far, I also want to introduce three very important people in the room or four, actually. Reggie, who's been taking care of all of our meeting notes along with Diana. And then, of course, let's never forget Hilda and Sarah, who is our technical experts on Zoom today. Let's see.

Starting on Zoom, Representative Ilagan.

Representative Ilagan, statehouse.

Oh, Brian, please introduce yourself. Okay. We'll come back around to Brian. I see Jennifer. Hello, Jennifer.

Mahalo, Chair. Doctor Jennifer Salisbury, general contractor on Maui, and representing the Small Business Regulatory Review Board. Mahalo.

Thanks, Jennifer. I see Morgan.

Morning. Morgan Gerdel with AI... Hi. This is Brian Lee with the Land Use Commission, but you have that oral tanker there as well. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks everybody for their patience. Go ahead, Morgan.

Okay. Yeah. Morgan Gerdel with AIA Hawaii, representing commercial developers.

I see Christina Camp.

Yes. Hi. Christine Camp from Avalon Group representing, you know, the public, dividend.

Jessica Puff?

Sorry about that. Aloha, everyone. This is Jessica Puff, the administrator of the State Historic Preservation Division.

Great. From Maui, Jordan, Molina. Aloha.

Hi. Good morning, Jordan, Lina, director of... Calling you for the Maui Public Works.

Perfect. And then I think Kristen is from Maui.

Yes. Kristen Shimada, chief building plant examiner from the County of Maui Department of Public Works.

And our friends and also Lance Nakamura from Public Works.

Hello, Lance.

Hi.

Leslie Ohtani? Yes. Leslie Ohtani with the County Maui Public Works Development Services Administration. Great. I see Monica to Gucci Ryan.

Okay. We'll move on. I saw Denise Takanishi.

I'm here. I just couldn't get myself on mute today. Yeah. Getting back in New Smyrna Public Realtor.

Oh, yes. Scott? Oh, yes.

Aloha. Yes. Scott Derickson, State Land Use Commission Chief of Honor.

Thanks, Scott. Oh, and Dan.

Good morning, Daniel. Laura Danker, Executive Officer for the Land Use Commission.

Thanks, everyone. Anybody else on Zoom I missed? Okay. I did the hard part first. Here in the room, I'll start with Mary Alice.

Introduction. So

Mary Alice.

Thanks. Right behind you, I see.

Good morning, Lord. We are all. Go ahead.

Good morning. Brian Imata, HHFDC.

Good morning.

Brian Hiju, HHFDC.

Good morning.

Brian Hiju, HHFDC.

Mark. Office of Planning and Sustainability Covenant.

No. Okay.

Go ahead. Yes. Good morning, Perry. Perry Erasmith, director of policy at Housing about East

Future. Lee Wei of the Boy's Future.

Diana Setness, OPSD.

Sam Kim, Boy, Regional Council of Carpenters.

K. I'm getting the thumbs up from Reggie. I think we got everybody. Thank you, everyone, for the introduction. Helps us with our meeting minutes and notes.

Moving into the agenda, if that's okay, Senators. Okay. First... Oh. Before we begin, again, I want to note that there will be no formal discussion or questions regarding today's presentation.

Formal discussions, questions, debate, and voting on the recommendations will take place at our next speed task force task force meeting, which will be scheduled on sometime in October, and Reggie will be letting us know. Okay. With that, anyone looking to testify on building codes permitted interaction presentation here in the room? Please state your name.

Hello, Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Brian Imai. I'm here representing the International Code Council, which facilitates the drafting of the model codes that are used in all 50 states, including the majority of the codes here in Hawaii. First, I really wanted to commend the members of the task force for lending their time and expertise to this process and helping to address permitting times full in, in a really meaningful way.

I'm loading my comments to the proposal recommendation regarding the move to a six-year code cycle.

And I think the, the pig recognized the trade-off this could represent for resilience in the face of disasters like wildfires or flooding, the potential compromise on safety, the chilling effect could have for FEMA grants and reconstruction contributions after a disaster, and, of course, it's kind of the ever-present question of insurability. They also noted the burden that keeping... Keeping staff educated and up to date and of participating in the code development process. We agree.

I think we would say that regardless of what code cycle you are on, continuing education is an important and key element to building departments.

The state has also made some early moves towards funding education for building departments and funding staff for the State Building Code Council, and we urge you to let that play out. This would help ease the burden of our building departments. You know, I urge the task force to really focus on the underlying causes for the delay in, in permitting.

ICC has provided free and reduced-cost training here in Hawaii over the past year, and we'll continue to support the state in any way that the building departments deem necessary. We believe increasing the training opportunities, funding for adequate staffing for building departments, and an executive director for the Safe Building Code Council are all positive first steps, and we urge your support to that approach to ensure that Hawaiians have a safe and resilient built atmosphere moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Anyone else here in the room wishing to testify on the building code presentation? Anyone on Zoom? Alright. Seeing none, Senator, I'll hand it over to you.

Alright. Thank you, Chair. So we... I wanted to just give a quick presentation. So we do have a PowerPoint to go over some of the recommendations that were voted upon by the permitted interaction group.

Next slide. So the pig got... Convened four times on June 17, July 14, August 20, and September 1, and you can kinda see what we discussed at each of the, the pig meetings. Next slide. Some of the problems we, like, we identified was, you know, the state building co council historically operates with limited staff funding, with practically no funding and no staff, and limited public understanding of the ownership, that, that contributes to the underinvestments.

And it was left to the counties to really be the driving force to amend and adopt the state code for local use. And, you know, I think that that poses some issues. And then, of course, I think when there's confusion with, with the type of codes that are adopted and the nuances between each island, you know, I think we're all trying to figure out how do we reduce review times.

And that is the, the basic problem that we identified is people just wanna get their permits faster. So next slide.

So the members were pull... Pulled for their priorities and what are the areas that they wanted to focus on. And, essentially, where we came up was the... What... We rose to the top based on the, the consensus amongst the group was they were looking at a six-year building code adoption cycle.

And so, essentially, you're just adopting every other code, and with a point in time, rule for permits. And so I, I think there was a lot of discussion about once you change the, the building code, you wanted to make sure you can grandfather projects that are in process, and that was reiterated a couple times. And I think it's... Every county differs a little bit on how they deal with it, and I think we needed some statewide policy to take a look at that. We...

The counties also really were pushing on whether energy code compliance is mandatory for privately owned buildings, and so that rose to the top of being an issue. I think Honolulu was the biggest proponent of this recommendation. They felt that, you know, the energy code would, at some point in time, when they were working with permittees, they, they couldn't say, okay, this is too onerous, because it was a, it was a statewide mandate, and they didn't necessarily see the upside to it.

The next one was Maui County proposal to completely just disband the state building co-counsel, and that actually got garnered a lot of votes. That, that only takes a look at the governance side of it, and it didn't look at the adoption cycle.

So that's just purely the group that convenes. They felt the county should just take that back, as is an issue that they, they can deal with on their own. And then the last one was just they wanted to accept, secure digital signatures. So just to go into each proposal a little bit... Oh, I guess we'll look at the poll results real quick.

So, next slide. Next slide. So you can take a look at the circulated results of where people stood. And then we could... We tried to break it down where the state people were look thinking, the county folks, the private folks, at least to kind of get a cross-section of who was interested in what reform.

Right. Next slide. And then, as we said, this is the vote count on what were the, the issues that they were really interested in, and the breakdown of who was interested in what. Next slide. So currently, when you take a look at a six-year adoption cycle, the current frameworks requires the building code council to adopt the nationally published code within two years of its official publication, publication, followed by the counties having two years to do the county adoption.

And I think, you know, the the... It's essentially... It's just... In practical terms, it's just really hard for, essentially those who are reviewing plans to really take a look and learn the updated iterations, and then the counties have to then go back and decide what codes do they wanna adopt, what do they not want, and so it's just an onerous process to do in this short period of time. And then we do note that the governor's proclamation has halted all of this.

I think the governor saw that there was issues, and so he said, Let's put a pause and let's figure out a way forward. Next slide. So really I think what rose to the top, and I think if you watched some of our discussions, there was a lot of iterations that we were trying to figure out, you know, in terms of how do we stay FEMA compliant, how do we be able to be competitive in going after federal grants.

But I think when we did poll the group once again, they essentially said no. We just want it clean, where we, we want everybody to adopt every other code.

And so that's essentially what the, the group is recommending. And then, of course, we wanna emphasize the point-in-time applicability. Next slide.

And so that's essentially what the, the group is recommending. And then, of course, we wanna emphasize the point-in-time applicability. Next slide.

Yep. Next slide.

The next one, I I think we went into that pretty deeply in the overview. That's just energy co compliance. It's just overall, I think it was something... It, it was a cost issue. I think that you're gonna have to balance would...

What do you want? I think there was a lot in the group who said no. You know, energy code compliance is really important over the long run. I think you have to balance that with, you know, the realities of when you take a look at building materials and what it takes to actually just get a building up.

I think at the end, the, the group essentially said, well, you, you just want to building up there, and then, you know, your energy compliance, if, if you really want that, you can add that on.

But that's... That should be a personal option rather than a forced option that we are forced on people right now. Next slide. And then the next recommendation is the disbanding of the state-building co-counsel. You know, it's unclear with the...

With roles and responsibilities, and who needs to take the lead. I think it might get a little bit clearer now that this past session we did, you know, give some money for the first time ever, to the state building code to hire staff, but this still was a lingering issue for, for the counties. And then the next slide will give you what section of the HRS that Maui County was, really focusing on. Next slide. Yeah.

So it is HRS one zero seven, which is the governing, and the formation and duties of the council. And so I think that that was something that they actually really were looking at. And then, of course, I think some counties were in favor, some more, but I think the majority of the group felt like this was something that we wanted to pursue. Next group. Alright.

Next slide. And then the last recommendation was to allow digital signatures. We do recognize that some places do accept digital signatures, but there is no statewide policy. I think there was a note from the counties that this may not be a county-driven type of revision. I think some of it where, there was questions on, do we have the, the correct type of legislation for entities that oversee our architects and engineers?

And so I think when we put this bill together, we'll make sure that we cover that portion of the code to make... Or the, the HRS to make sure that that is allowable, but a, a lot of folks, both private and public sector, believe that this would help if we had a statewide policy regarding digital signatures. Alright. Next slide.

So we did have a robust discussion on funding mechanisms just to discuss, you know, what is the long-term solution for the funding of the State Building Co-Council if we do decide to keep it in place.

I think we can ask them if they wanted to put forward any type of funding mechanisms, you know, surcharges fees, which a lot of other states do for their state building co councils. I think they declined at this point, because I think... Next slide. If you take a look, we do have, we do have two full-time positions. I'm sorry.

I'm being a head. And then other proposals that were discussed, I think there was some streamlining of the code interpretation. We talked about the permitting surcharges, and then I think there was some discussion on third-party reviewers to assist with the reviews. So that's essentially what the building code, PIG discussed, and those are the four recommendations that, we present to the the larger body. So thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you for tackling that very complex our construction. Alright. Members, if it's okay, we'll hand it over to Senator Wakai. But prior to that, I do wanna check if there is any testimony related to this district boundary amendment presentation here in the room?

Anyone on Zoom? Seeing none, Senator. Can I testify? Sure. Please state your name.

Lealoha Makuanani, and I'm testifying on behalf of the Office of Hawaiian. We did submit some repetitive testimony. I just wanted to add to that that we... After reviewing... So one of the recommendations, in particular, increasing the acreage from 15 to 25 acreage.

We wouldn't support that due to the... What's currently in, in the presentation. Sorry. As far as what support there is for why that should be necessary, it's been a bill that's come up at the legislature often to increase that acreage. And from our point of view, there's a lot of benefit to the state-level review beyond that acreage level.

So unless there's more information on why that participant increase would not also jeopardize the resources that the land use commission is in place to protect, at the same time balancing some of these needs and how that would actually increase the speed or simplify the permitting process. We would propose that solution from the task force. But if you have any additional questions, you can let me know if that one's available. Mahalo.

Thank you. Anyone else on Zoom?

Yeah.

Alright seem to kinda trouble the, the development environment here, and we tried to attack them with some level of judiciousness as well as taking into account so many different varieties of perspectives. This first slide, or this next slide, is going to just Kinda quickly outline for, for us about the... Generally, the the LUC and then the the bi... Biology timelines take about a year to get through. Sometimes you have extensions, ninety days or, or so.

But we also have a, a kind of a shot clock on them if there's no decisions resulting in automatic approvals or that things... That that... That's a tool to Kinda hasten the process. And then the staff, of course, reviews and then submits its findings and reports. The next slide is just a, a flowchart that shows the, the process.

I'm not gonna, bore you with the details because more...

Many of you in this room are far more familiar with the process than, than I have, but it, it clearly outlines that there's a step-by-step process in which to address these district boundaries. Our next slide goes into the, the meat of the permitted interaction group and what we have found and some of the recommendations that we're going to put forward. And we...

You know, John really came away with the LUC, although a part of the process is just one component of the overall development timeline and perhaps isn't the entity that is the one that, provides frustration, slows down things for for developers. And we found as a group that the stated counter reviews are often fragmented or, or should be conducted concurrently instead of sequentially.

The sequential order of moving something to this department to the next, to the next, rather than having all of those issues addressed at once, is a problem that needs to be addressed. There was a suggestion that there be an outside of form... Kind of a multi-agents... Agency roundtable to coordinate and kinda just lay off the, the road ahead, because sometimes the road ahead is wrought with potholes and, and hiccups along the way.

And if we got that all kinda ironed out at the get-go, they wouldn't become problems later on.

So that was one of the suggestions. We looked at Kauai and thought that Kauai had probably the best model for us to... As a state to, to look at on evaluating best practices because of the fact that they have a concurrent review process and very much streamlined. And, the last bullet point is a little bit repetitive, but it's, we could be... Reduce duplicative analysis by having things moving forward concurrently.

So the recommendations on the next slide highlights the work of suggestions of the committee, and we considered an expedited district boundary amendment process for projects using a project labor agreement or community workforce agreement. This could shave off not a huge amount. But if you're ready with, you know, financing, you have a project labor agreement, we thought that you should perhaps get rewarded and considered as a high-readiness project. So the group contemplated that distinction, and that would move you into the queue a little bit faster.

But again, this isn't gonna shave off a huge amount of time, but it was something that the group thought was advantageous.

The recommendation for adoption number 1 for this hybrid project idea was... And this is the criteria. If you're ready for financing, you have insurance covered, bonds in place, you have paid all of your fees, are are are prepared to pay for all of your fees. These are some of the criteria and bullet points that we found would be the criteria for having a special high readiness project designation. The next idea for adoption was, as was mentioned by the young lady from OHA, about the LUC's jurisdiction.

Currently, as we all know, it's 15 acres, and it's been contemplated to go to 25 acres, and that might expedite things for the smaller projects to, to move forward and not be weighed down, perhaps by the LUC there. So that is something that probably will put forth in legislation to increase that threshold from 15 to 25 acres. The third recommendation was to clarify the conditions imposed through the DBA process.

Members recognize the condition may need to change when circumstances such as, you know, climate change impacts, things that we can't always foresee traffic, water, sewer, infrastructure, population movement. And this discussion focused on reducing the duplication without preventing level of...

Ensuring that the government still is protecting the public interest. And so what alternative was to clarify that the LUC's statewide responsibilities and the county's local responsibilities, rather than, you know, there's some talk of it distributed to the LUC. We don't think that that was a, a prudent process, or a prudent, prudent step to take. We think we can clearly define what everyone's responsibilities are, which seems somewhat murky at the moment. And the last slide is our fourth recommendation to be reduced, repetitive county and state review.

And we found that applicants may go to the county, then the state, then return to the county, and you do this ping-pong back and forth. And we wanna address that and, and, and really clarify whose responsibilities and the timeline for those responsibilities. And so just, having... Just far more coordination rather than having people pulled in a multitude of directions and being frustrated. So those are the, four recommendations by the Figma.

Oh, yes. Four specific recommendations. We ended the group by taking on even more responsibility. We found that although this take is focused on, you know, terrestrial permitting, we found that, you know, the ocean has a lot of opportunities for us for development, as well as food, as well as, you know, other, other climate change issues. So we...

The group recommended. It's not gonna be embodied in this report, but coming up in the future with offshore and marine permitting. So those who delve into the waters don't have the same frustration that terrestrial developers are facing. And followed up to having the DBAs data collection and performance, having that drive our decisions and alternative or transitional land use mechanisms was also something that we would like to further study.

Won't be embodied in this bill or in, in, in this report and won't be legislation for 2027, but something that we should contemplate in the future.

So that's your summary of what the district boundary amendment interaction group had, done over the past few months.

Thank you so much, Senator. Oh, yeah.... Looking for... You guys are looking around the corner a little bit with your further studies.

Oh, you're you're you're you're you're you're, you wanna keep you busy.

Keep Reggie busy.

I keep Reggie is that.

Alright. And then, again, just as a reminder, these, these presentations will be found online, and then we will return to the recommendations for discussion, debate, and voting at our meeting that's coming up in October. Alright. On to the next item of our agenda, water and well permitted interaction group presentation. Before handing it over to Senator Morwaki, Anyone that wish...

Wishing to testify on this issue here in the room? Great. Seeing none. Anyone on Zoom?

Oh,. Hi. Aloha. On behalf of the Office of Hawaii Affairs again. I...

Sorry. Let me lower my hand. Okay. We're in strong support of the staffing recommendations. We've seen it as a persistent type of issue amongst many agencies, as we've seen actually in the speed task for so far. Even when you consider the first half of what we did last year with the three K's bed, staffing has been identified as a, as a persistent problem throughout the agency.

So, as far as the staffing is concerned, we believe that if the legislature could put efforts into really addressing those staffing issues that have been identified, would actually be the most beneficial for agencies like Seamwork, even LUC at, at the time of end SHPD, who have also identified it as a, as a big issue. So one of the recommendations for Seabourn that we're also flagging is that recommendation to assess high- and low-risk areas for impacts to traditional cultural resources.

I, I wanted to emphasize that in assessing impacts to traditional cultural resources is a constitutional opportunity that's typically done through a Kapalakai analysis, which usually occurs at the burden, in a sense, on the opponent who's providing that information.

So my question would be who is going to be doing that type of high-level risk assessment? And especially when staffing has already been identified as a big issue for the sea worms, it's almost like you're just attempting to move some of those evaluations to the front end of a project and where staffing is still the biggest issue. You still need the experts to evaluate.

And we do receive water wells and permits and stuff that come into OHA regularly. We assess those. We've had one sort of recently that I think it illustrates this where it came in kind of like a front end attempt to do. I think it's... There's a possibility for, for things like that to incur words more about programmatic cycles in our traditional cultural impacts to at least identify.

But there needs to be a little bit more specifics as to the actual well, how much water is pumping for those impacts to really be evaluated. So I think while I understand the intent of that recommendation, I think it would be difficult to implement, especially without ease of staffing for Seamort as the main issue that is identified.

So, again, strongly support that, as well as staffing for other agencies that have identified it because I think many of the regulations that we're trying to reduce come at the cost of those constitutional obligations to protect natural and social resources if there's not enough staff present to actually evaluate those. Mahalo, if you have any questions available.

Alrighty. Thank you so much. Anyone else on Zoom wishing to testify on water and wells presentation? Already seeing that, sir, and Kumar walking.

Thank you. Okay. The Water and Wells Permitted Interaction Group met four times, and I must thank the group because we went through a lot of deliberation. And, and I, I have there, water is life. And so this is a different kind of context where there's a constitutional mandate that, that water is a public trust.

So, so the group really was very much aware of the balancing of needing to protect our water resources and the need for people to have housing and other kinds of uses for the water. So the, the conversation was really around what can we do to streamline the process yet keep those protections in place. So, I wanna go quickly.

We have an agenda with background and findings, but I just wanna point to a real focus on why the commission is the guardian of our waters and, and the first slide on the mandates. The Constitution, Article 11, Section Seven, the State Water Code was passed, and in 2000, the Waiholi decision was published, which made it clear that water is a public resource.

And so the presumption is in favor of protecting our use of water, and commercial use is never guaranteed. So with that as the context, a lot of discussion on how do we protect the water resource as well as streamline the process. So we, we... So Seawarm is, is the guardian of the water, and so we looked at what the Seawarm process was. And there are two types of permits, the groundwater permits and the surface water permits.

And we focused on the groundwater permits because those are the ones that are on, on the agenda and, and really the focus of the seaworm work. Surface waters is very minimal, I think. There were, like, one or two cases, and so we really didn't focus on surface water. And if there is a need for that, we can circle back. But right now, the real focus was on groundwater.

So they've got groundwater permits, use of water, the well construction, and the pump construction. And, next slide. So you will see where the blue, blue in the, in the map is where there are what, what they call management areas. These are protected areas, and the blue is the groundwater management areas and the surface areas, you agree. So, moving on to the commission, the commission makes decisions on every permit.

As of July, certain permits must be taken to the commission for a vote, and this is a seven-member commission. The well construction permits, as well as pump installation permits, are listed there. Moving on then to the findings. The biggest problem, as, as was mentioned earlier, is that Sea Worm has a staffing problem. They need additional staff.

So there are four areas that, that we discussed. Their duties require very specialized technical and scientific knowledge and, and they're... They have filled positions, but they need to have additional positions to, to get the permits going out. There's dedicated staff, and, and we'd like to be more proactive, and this is a new area of adaptive management planning for aquifers, and I'll get to that later in the presentation.

And finally, because the, the administrators of the CEWORB are in their appointed positions, there's no continuity in managing the CEWORB, managing the cases, looking at policies, and having that continuity of knowledge and procedures.

So these are major, major problems that could be resolved if we were to address some of the solutions that will come up. The second finding is the commission reviews, as I said, all decisions on construction, well construction, pump installation, and this is a seven member commission, looks at everything. And well construction, pump installation permits, even if it's uncontroversial or ministerial or without significant impact, they still hold a commission.

So, so it's more delays because the commission meets once a month, and so you have to wait for the commission meetings for them to discuss the case. Finding three, the streamlining permanent, permanent need not conflict with the protecting traditional and customary practices.

And these two have been at loggerheads and contested cases, and looking at a way of being more proactive so that we can get cases going out quicker. Areas for protecting groundwater are dependent on ecosystems, customary practices, and they can be identified. Projects considerably unlikely to have negative impact in communities can be identified, and already existing wells within sensitive areas may be reevaluated using the latest technology, and also have ways in which we can mitigate impact of those in these protected areas.

And the last finding is this sharing of data that's been brought up in the other page. Seaworm, the State Historic Preservation Initiative, Department of Health, and the Department of Hawaiian Homelands all have separate processes and data that they input into a permit decision that goes to SEEWRM, the commission.

But there's no online portal for applications to be submitted by applicants so that, that they can track the status of their permit. So so it's done by paper, everything's done by paper. The reviewing agencies separately review and comment on the process submitted by paper. So DHHL, Department of Health, Historic Preservation, while they may have input of, yeah, this is okay, it all has to go sequentially to these departments.

So one of the, the there's nothing that they can coordinate all of that data that C1 needs for decision-making.

And there's need for some mapping tools because we, we look at geographic areas that are protected, and how can we look at that as being and being more proactive in terms of looking at these ecosystems and finding ways in which we can protect those areas and areas around or ways in which we can restore areas within, when we're looking at well or pump installation. So, onto the recommendation. The first recommendation, these all relate to each of the findings.

So for the additional CBOM positions, we're looking at, as I said earlier, there's no, no continuous administrator in this department and, and see what I mean in the agency. So we wanna redescribe a position to establish an assistant administrator position.

This would be an ongoing position, would be a full FTE permanent. There's eight specialized positions they need, a research statistician, program specialist engineer, and so on that's listed there. They need to have another engineer, so they wanted to redescribe one of their current positions for this position. And they're looking at a budget of all of those positions of about $745,000 in general funds. And they are, adding this, requesting the governor to include it in in the administrative package.

So hopefully, it gets out the door and gets their support. The second rep... Recommendation is the delegation of authority to the chairperson. Now, the Chair, as, as most of you know who work with CEWM, the... And, and DLNR.

DLNR has a, has a... Is the chairperson of the commission and is also a directorship hat, the the director of the staffing by the administrative part. And it's not clear in Seawarm, where where the chairperson is... Chairperson in the commission acting, or chairperson as the department head acting, and that would be, like, the staff decisions.

So, we're looking at amending HRS one seventy four c three to clarify decision-making authority for staff for certain permits, be by the chairperson acting as the department director and see where the director...

And so then, we can separate out and be clear on the role of the director, being more of the ministerial actions that can be done quicker and expedite the process. Also, delegating authority to the chairperson, not chairperson, it's director for certain actions identified for well construction, pump installation, filling of... Filing of the completion report, and sealing of abandoned belts. Again, ministerial activities that could be up the door quicker because it's on the staff side of the house.

And thirdly, there was a, a commission amendment that included some areas where there was a delegation of authority all...

Already. But as commissions change, the policy may change. So we'd like to codify this in law that well construction and well modification permit applications statewide be delegated to staff. Pump installation and modification permits and aquifer systems in non-designated water management areas with an estimated water usage. Less than 70% of sustainable yield will be delegated.

And no new or additional permit applications in designated and non-designated water management areas is required for replacing pumps less than or equal to the existing pump of the past. Very technical, as you see why they need staffing. Recommendation three goes to finding three, which is this whole idea of, of being more proactive with a reasonable management plan. So it's directing SeaWorld to convene a working group to develop a reasonable management plan.

This would be to protect traditional and customary practices, by first inventorying all the groundwater-dependent ecosystem...

Systems and hydrogeologic features of, of the lab, and then develop a plan for these adaptive management strategies. And, and those within the, the avoidance areas to develop a restoration strategy with those that are groundwater deep... For the groundwater-dependent ecosystems. And, and this is a recommendation that comes from the building area where the building want... I mean, so that you don't wanna say only in those areas.

As you saw the map, there's a lot of areas already in the avoidance zone. But if there are ways in which we could look at how do we minimize what can we do to restore if we do use water. Again, it's the balancing of protecting the water and, and having the water available for our residents.

And the last recommendation is, again, looking at the online ways in which we can use data and share data and, and expedite permitting because everybody can see the data at the same time. So there's, the Sea Worm and I think some of the other...

I don't see... Anyway, Sea Worm is is being asked to meet with and they will meet with the state chief data officer to look at how we can do an online permitting system. So, online portal system for applicants, so when they submit their applications, they can do it online, and they could also track where their permits are in the process. Secondly, an online portal for all the reviewing agencies so they can input their data.

They can all see the application, they can input the data, and they see it at one time.

It's asynchronous. Decisions can be made faster because it's all there. And finally, we talked about heat maps, GIS, especially, it's been used by SHPTI looking at heat-based or map-based analytics and visualization of where the wells are. You can make much more sounder decisions and faster because the data are all there for, for decision-making.

And there are areas for further study, continuing the evaluation of approval processes to, to simplify permitting, working with the agencies and community groups to build this data governance and online resources, supporting this adaptive management planning working group so they can they can establish reasonable avoidance approaches to permitting of groundwater wells and pump insulation, and developing a framework for smooth groundwater-sensitive areas.

That's it.

Aloha. Thanks, Senator. Ciao. Thank you so much. Everybody does the work, and then we find out we have more work to do.

Thank you to all of my senators here and all of the great work in your permanent interaction groups. Having done one last go-around, I understand how hard it is to get everybody on the same page and have them back on recommendations. So thank you so much. And then a, a real special especially for Senator Marwaki, but also our county of... County water supply departments.

They were very instrumental in helping provide a lot of information for that permanent interaction group. Again, thank you to all of our task force members, invited partners, stakeholders, staff. Of course, I cannot forget you guys. You guys are amazing. As a reminder, this was a presentation.

A lot of the, the PowerPoint presentations and information from this meeting will be online. And then, we will schedule another meeting in which we will be voting on the recommendations along with any questions, debate, or discussion on the presentations that you've heard today. Alright. On behalf of Representative Ilagan, who started this amazing work for all of us, Greggor, you wanna share some mahalos? Alright.

He's saying no. I'm gonna say mahalo for him. Alright. With that, this meeting is adjourned, and the time now is 10:55. Yes.

This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.