The following testimony was submitted by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii for consideration by the Maui County Council on Oct. 25, 2024.
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Oct. 25, 2024, 9 a.m.
Council Chamber, Kalana O Maui Building
To: Maui County Council
Alice Lee, Chair
Yuki Lei Sugimura, Vice-Chair
From: Joe Kent, Executive Vice President
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
RE: BILL 146 — A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE WATER CODE ON THE METHODOLOGY FOR CALCULATING DOMESTIC WATER DEMAND
Aloha Chair Lee, Vice-Chair Sugimura and other members of the Council,
The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii supports Bill 146 (2024), which would replace the existing water fixture-unit methodology for calculating residential water use with a methodology based on daily estimated water use.
This technical change would free Maui homeowners from outdated and arbitrary water use policies, and could help facilitate the construction of more housing across the county.
As Grassroot pointed out in its recent brief, “How fixes to Maui’s water-fixture policy could ease its housing crisis,” the county’s water-uses rules are based on confusing standards that have not been updated since 1995.
The fixture-unit methodology assigns each water-using appliance — such as sinks, toilets and hose bibs — a score, which is supposed to be based on its estimated water use. For example, a kitchen sink is given a score of 1.6 fixture units and a washing machine is given a score of 2 fixture units.
A 5/8-inch water meter — the most common size of residential water meter in Maui — is limited to 31 fixture units, with the owner having the option to buy an extra 11 units at a cost of $389 per extra unit.
The idea behind assigning each appliance a score and limiting the number of fixture units per meter is that — in some instances — concurrent water use from many appliances could result in low water pressure or even damage the meter.
But what the rules really do is limit the opportunity for homeowners to expand their homes or build backyard cottages for new housing.
In the brief, Grassroot outlined several options for the county to fix its outdated and arbitrary water use rules.
One was to simply repeal the rules entirely, and allow homeowners and licensed plumbers to make decisions about how many appliances a water meter can sustain.
Another was to update the fixture-unit scores to better reflect current national plumbing standards, and another was to lower the per-unit fees.
The reform outlined in this bill generally accords with Grassroot’s suggestions.
Charging fees based on estimated daily water use could be more accurate than arbitrary fixture-unit limits. For example, someone with a sink will probably use the same amount of water as someone with a pot filler and a sink.
The person with the sink will still fill their pot to boil eggs — just in the sink instead of with the pot filler.
But the current fixture-unit methodology ignores this difference, assigning a score to the sink and the pot filler and possibly charging fees to the homeowner based on how many water-using appliances they already had in the home.
We thank Councilmember Gabe Johnson for bringing this legislation forward and the Council for hearing it.
We would welcome further dialogue about this important issue.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Joe Kent
Executive Vice President
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
