Governor signs bills benefiting condominium residents, owners

Gov. Josh Green on Thursday signed into law a package of bills benefiting condominium owners, associations and residents — another component of Green’s commitment to addressing statewide housing challenges.

The five bills Green signed at a ceremony Thursday afternoon at his office in the Capitol address a range of condominium-related issues, including creating a fund that provides loans to low- and moderate-income households to install solar energy systems, and giving condominium associations eligibility for commercial property assessed financing.

“The challenge that we’re facing right now is multifactorial. We’ve got insurance costs that are rising as climate risks increase. The (homeowners associations) are seeing rising costs and struggling to deal with resident needs,” Green said at the ceremony. “You can see that condo issues are a reflection of our broader affordable housing problems and are becoming a crisis.”

The bills were the most recent to be signed in a slew of legislation passed this session to address housing issues statewide.

“As the state of Hawaii develops housing programs throughout the state, more and more we’re relying on the development of high-rises to house people,” House Speaker Scott Saiki (D, Ala Moana-Kakaako-­Downtown) said. “It’s really important for us as a state to have a really good grasp of what is happening with condos and the issues before them.”

House Bill 2685 establishes a Solar Hui program, which will allow “multi-family residential property owners” to invest in a fund to provide loans to low- and moderate-income households to install solar energy.

“The concept is that people who live in condos who don’t have rooftops will be able to invest in a fund. This fund will finance solar rooftop panels and batteries for people who live in homes that can’t afford to pay for those systems or who can’t even get conventional financing for those systems,” Saiki said.

The people who receive the solar rooftop panels and batteries will repay that loan over time through their utility bill, and the fund investors will receive a financial benefit for their investment, Saiki said.

“With a Solar Hui program, there’s a benefit at all levels. You have the investor who receives a financial benefit, individual homeowners who receive rooftop solar panels or batteries — and we wouldn’t have been able to do that if not for this program — and then third, the environment, because we’ll have more green energy generated in our state,” Saiki said.

“The more panels we can get up, and the more equitable distribution of those panels, especially for people that live in buildings who don’t normally have access to them, I think is a great thing,” state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole (D, Kaneohe-Kailua) said.

Green also signed House Bill 2801 into law, which transitions the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy financing, or C-PACE, program from county authority to the Hawaii Green Infrastructure Authority, and will give condominium associations access to C-PACE benefits — allowing them to finance improvements to their buildings.

The improvements will be financed through private loans that are amortized over the life of the improvement, which could include fire sprinklers, water pipes, air conditioning, lighting or plumbing issues, and will be paid by unit owners in the building.

“All of these issues impact not just unit owners, but condo buildings as a whole,” Saiki said.

The private loans will be repaid by unit owners in condominium buildings that are financed through the C-PACE program over time.

Keohokalole said that there are several hundred condominiums statewide that were built a long time ago and need regular maintenance and improvements. Without access to the C-PACE program, it would be more difficult and expensive for condominium associations and unit owners to make those changes.

“This is a complicated, sort of technical measure that ultimately just means the financing to get this work that has to be done (will be) done in the cheapest way possible,” Keohokalole said.

Both the Solar Hui and C-PACE programs will not require state or county funds.

“Both of these bills will leverage private capital and will not take any public funding. It will also increase state tax revenues, it’s going to create jobs and the economic multiplier impact is going to be felt statewide,” Hawaii Green Infrastructure Authority Executive Director Gwen Yamamoto Lau said.

But the work toward affordable housing statewide, including for condominium owners, associations and residents, continues.

Green said the House and Senate are also working together to create a Property Insurance Task Force to prevent increases in insurance rates.