why are HOA fees so high in Hawaii? (Kalaheo: apartment, renters)
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If you live and own in a mid or high rise condo that doesn't have fire sprinklers expect to be hit with a $20,000-$40,000 special assessment. The Marco Polo fire will inevitably force many older condos on Oahu to retrofit with much needed fire sprinklers. Sad tragedy. Hopefully it will get these archaic death trap condos to comply with current fire code.
It's been brought up many times in the past with condo fire related deaths. And the marco polo study itself estimated a cost around $4300 per unit. Of course, they have a lot of units, so smaller condos would be more expensive per unit (less units to spread the cost). My guess is that nothing will happen unless the city/state is wiling to provide large subsidies to offset the costs.
I'm wondering if a compromise solution would be to plumb the common areas with fire suppression instead of the individual units themselves.
Or to keep down the cost (and limit the ugliness of exterior lines along people's ceilings, don't plumb the entire units with a sprinkler system. Perhaps just run a single pipe/fixture line into the unit off the main lines.
And they do have portable systems such as the example shown below for $1-2k. Obviously not as good as a plumbed system, but an alternative.
It's been brought up many times in the past with condo fire related deaths. And the marco polo study itself estimated a cost around $4300 per unit. Of course, they have a lot of units, so smaller condos would be more expensive per unit (less units to spread the cost). My guess is that nothing will happen unless the city/state is wiling to provide large subsidies to offset the costs.
I'm wondering if a compromise solution would be to plumb the common areas with fire suppression instead of the individual units themselves.
Or to keep down the cost (and limit the ugliness of exterior lines along people's ceilings, don't plumb the entire units with a sprinkler system. Perhaps just run a single pipe/fixture line into the unit off the main lines.
And they do have portable systems such as the example shown below for $1-2k. Obviously not as good as a plumbed system, but an alternative.
If the assessment is only $4,500 per unit, I'd say it's a very good investment and should be done. I'd gladly pay it. I know building would have a different cost to do it, but in the $5,000 per unit range it should be a no brainer in my opinion.
If the assessment is only $4,500 per unit, I'd say it's a very good investment and should be done. I'd gladly pay it. I know building would have a different cost to do it, but in the $5,000 per unit range it should be a no brainer in my opinion.
Agreed, but part of the issue is that many of these condos have elderly residents on fixed incomes that find even small increases to the monthly maintenance tough to manage.
That was the estimated per-unit cost to install a fire sprinkler system in the Marco Polo Apartments tower in 2005. But the extra expense, for many condo owners in the building, wasn’t deemed worthy or affordable — and that’s a scenario confronting residents in a few hundred Honolulu residential high-rises that lack automatic fire suppression systems.
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perhaps what is needed is a "10 year from now mandate". condos must complete construction of a fire suppression system by 2028. The 10 year timeframe allows condos to start increasing monthly assessments now and more gradually to make it easier for residents to pay. If they spread the $4300 assessment over 10 years, that's only $35/month.
perhaps what is needed is a "10 year from now mandate". condos must complete construction of a fire suppression system by 2028. The 10 year timeframe allows condos to start increasing monthly assessments now and more gradually to make it easier for residents to pay. If they spread the $4300 assessment over 10 years, that's only $35/month.
It will be interesting to see if they change their mind in that building and now move forward with the system.
I think a condo association has the ability to take a loan with a 10-yr payoff and then apply a monthly special assessment on the units to pay off the loan. I think in those situations people can opt to either pay the lump assessment or take the monthly payment assessment.
In that situation, they could get the work done today, and people who cannot afford the $4,300 can still pay a little extra per month until their assessment is paid off.
At least, I think that is a possibility. any way, I suspect this fire will change people's thinking on the issue of sprinklers. And you are probably correct that some state requirement may come that requires retro fitting within 10 yrs for all buildings of a certain size.
I read that on SA too. $4,500 per unit is impossible today even in a large building with hundreds of units. It's also important to note that the figure is not taking into account any of the follow up trades (concrete, drywall, paint, framing, soffit construction, coring, electricians, cleaners, etc) - this is only the cost of the installation of the apparatus to put out the fire and its distribution infrastructure. The work involved is significant. I don't even know how that was possible back in 2005. The cost to retrofit a large building with only studios and one bedroom units would far exceed that. I've seen soup to nuts retrofits range in the $15-$30K range a couple years back on some projects we were involved with. And topping mid to high $30K range for larger condo units with soffited (i.e. fully concealed) piping and pendant heads. Just running pipe/heads and installing the pumps, controls, etc would cost far more than $10K for average sized units in average sized buildings today. This doesn't take into account aesthetic considerations which can drive cost much much higher. NAFPA requirements steadily increase over the years subsequently increasing cost of these retrofit systems.
I personally wouldn't feel safe living in an old high-rise building without fire suppression of any sort. It's very rare that the actual flames of a fire kills anyone... it's the noxious smoke that kills and injures the vast majority of victims. It is a damn good thing the fire broke out when it did and not at night when most people are home and sleeping. Because of the wind conditions yesterday and design of the structure, a tremendous amount of smoke ended up venting through the common fire exit corridors and stairs. This could have been much, much worse. There are over 1,000 people that live in that building many whom are elderly.
It will be interesting to see if they change their mind in that building and now move forward with the system.
I think legislation will be passed to require sprinklers in the older buildings. That made national news and Honolulu took a black eye on that especially with the Mayor on record sprinklers would have contained it to one unit.
I drove by it today. It looks way worse in person than the pictures. It's on both sides of the building and looks horrific.
I think legislation will be passed to require sprinklers in the older buildings. That made national news and Honolulu took a black eye on that especially with the Mayor on record sprinklers would have contained it to one unit.
I drove by it today. It looks way worse in person than the pictures. It's on both sides of the building and looks horrific.
I saw it yesterday too. It looks like a small plane flew into each of the two sides of the building. You can see right into a good number of units on both sides as portions of their lanais and many windows were literally gone. The units were 100% gutted. Ala Wai was backed up from end to end with rubberneckers. It's rare to see a condo fire jump across the hallway (which consists of two separate 2-hour rated fire walls and a 5-foot buffer in between). Must have been a very intense fire.
Agreed that this will likely be the trigger for legislation. Hopefully they don't make the general public subsidize a portion of these costs. Everyone else (that has fire sprinklers in their buildings) paid for their fire protection when they bought their condos. Many others have made the intelligent decision to retrofit them over the years and received no subsidies whatsoever. If our govt doesn't force them to comply, hopefully insurers will jack up the rates ultimately forcing them to make the retrofit.
I know guys involved with insuring the condo. They're looking at probably around 20 mil damage. By comparison, the fire a few years back did only 1.3mil or so. This is only for the policy relating to the building, and not the homeowners insurance for the contents.
Also, people's units below, even many floors below the fire were completely flooded out. I guess that's to be expected with the sheer amount of water pumped into the units on fire.
to me, it's amazing that parts of the lanai, but also the entire concrete wall of the unit was gone. I've been in that building before, and the design was a concrete wall half way up, and the rest of the way up was glass windows. On the worst burned out unit , somehow the wall melted/buned away
Last edited by rya96797; 07-17-2017 at 01:45 AM..
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