Hawaii
Green signs new laws aimed at providing financial relief to condo owners, residents
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Gov. Josh Green signed a series of bills into law Thursday that’s aimed at addressing housing challenges for Hawaii condominiums.
Raelene Tenno, Education Chair for the Hawaii Council of Community Associations, said she and many other owners are scrambling to pay huge insurance increases.
“We’ve already planned our budgets for the for the next year and then we get this notice that it went up that high, so it just kind of blew the budget out of whack,” said Tenno.
”Even for my condo that I own, the maintenance fees are almost equal to the rent that you collect.”
But help is on the way, thanks to several bills signed by the governor on Thursday.
One offers government loans to help condo buildings make improvements such as fire sprinklers and pipe replacement.
House Speaker Scott Saiki said condos were a priority this legislative session.
“One is because the loan is amortized, you avoid a large front-end assessment on unit owners,” said Saiki. “The second benefit is that the loan is repaid by individual unit owners in the building.”
“So if a unit owner sells the unit and moves, the new owner will assume that obligation, so it goes from owner to owner over a period of time.”
Another bill lets individual condo owners invest in a fund to 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… The people who receive these rooftop improvements, will repay that loan over time through the real property through their electric utility bill,” explained Saiki.
Richard Emery works for the nation’s largest condominium management company, Associa.
He said about 70% of the condos in Hawaii are more than 40 years old.
“So, all of these components are starting to come due for need of replacement or upgrade and certainly the cost of energy is a major concern,” said Emery. “So, anything we can do to provide another tool for condos to use to refinance its capital components and lower its operating costs through energy reform is a good thing.”
“It’s going to be good in the long run especially when you use energy efficient projects like elevators where they have to do their elevator upgrades,” said Tenno. “It’s always gonna involve electrical upgrade.”
The other bills signed into law will streamline the paperwork for buying a condo and modernize procedures for condo meetings and voting process.
Copyright 2024 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Hawaii
Hawaii County Surf Forecast for March 04, 2026 | Big Island Now
Forecast for Big Island Windward and Southeast
| Shores | Tonight | Wednesday | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surf | Surf | |||
| PM | AM | AM | PM | |
| North Facing | 2-4 | 2-4 | 2-4 | 2-4 |
| East Facing | 3-5 | 4-6 | 4-6 | 5-7 |
| South Facing | 1-3 | 1-3 | 1-3 | 1-3 |
| Weather | Mostly cloudy. Numerous showers. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low Temperature | In the upper 60s. | ||||||
| Winds | East winds 5 to 10 mph. | ||||||
|
|||||||
| Weather | Partly sunny. Numerous showers. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Temperature | In the upper 70s. | |||||
| Winds | East winds 10 to 15 mph. | |||||
|
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| Sunrise | 6:37 AM HST. | |||||
| Sunset | 6:27 PM HST. | |||||
Forecast for Big Island Leeward
| Shores | Tonight | Wednesday | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surf | Surf | |||
| PM | AM | AM | PM | |
| West Facing | 2-4 | 2-4 | 2-4 | 1-3 |
| South Facing | 1-3 | 1-3 | 1-3 | 1-3 |
| Weather | Mostly sunny until 6 PM, then mostly cloudy. Hazy. |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low Temperature | In the upper 60s. | ||||||||||
| Winds | West winds around 5 mph early in the afternoon, becoming light and variable. |
||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Weather | Partly sunny. Hazy. | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High Temperature | In the mid 80s. | ||||||||
| Winds | Light and variable winds, becoming west around 5 mph in the afternoon. |
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|
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| Sunrise | 6:41 AM HST. | ||||||||
| Sunset | 6:31 PM HST. | ||||||||
The current moderate northwest swell will continue a gradual decline through Thursday. A small west-northwest swell will arrive on Friday and hold through the weekend, followed by a small north-northwest swell early next week. Choppy east shore surf will build to near seasonal average by Wednesday as trade winds strengthen over and east of the islands. Little change is expected along east facing shores through the weekend, followed by a possible decline early next week if winds veer southerly. Surf along south facing shores will remain small to tiny through the weekend, and some islands may an increase in choppy surf if southerly winds develop early next week.
NORTH EAST
am
pm
Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.
Conditions: Semi choppy with ESE winds 5-10mph in the morning increasing to 10-15mph in the afternoon.
NORTH WEST
am
pm
Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.
Conditions: Clean in the early morning with ESE winds less than 5mph. Bumpy/semi bumpy conditions move in during the morning hours with the winds shifting W 5-10mph.
WEST
am
pm
Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.
Conditions: Semi glassy in the morning with N winds less than 5mph. Bumpy/semi bumpy conditions for the afternoon with the winds shifting WNW 5-10mph.
SOUTH EAST
am
pm
Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.
Conditions: Light sideshore texture in the morning with NE winds 10-15mph. This becomes Sideshore texture/chop for the afternoon.
Data Courtesy of NOAA.gov and SwellInfo.com
Hawaii
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