Honolulu City Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam joins producer/host Coralie Chun Matayoshi to discuss why monster homes create problems for neighborhoods, how monster home developers get around the rules, and what is being done to stop them.
Q. “Monster homes” are an interesting issue – in part because they don’t have an actual legal definition. It seems like they’re one of those things that’s hard to describe, but “you’ll know it when you see it.” Can you speak a bit on what monster homes are and why they pose a problem in our communities?
Monster homes are exactly as they sound – hulking structures that hurt the character of our residential neighborhoods. The building is usually large, rectangular, and stretches to the very border of the lot it sits on. Frequently, you’ll see numerous entry points – disguised as “back doors” or “side doors” – but really serving as the entrances to separate units. Monster homes will have dozens of bedrooms. At 3615 Sierra Dr., for example, the building had nineteen bathrooms and twenty-one bedrooms. To be clear: this wasn’t in Kakaako, where there are high rises and apartment buildings. This was in Kaimuki, where no house has more than, say, five bedrooms. So why does this pose a problem? When a community is not planned to accommodate density, it gets strained. Let’s use the Sierra Dr. monster home as an example. Assuming each bedroom goes to a separate person – which it often does – that’s potentially 21 new cars using street parking. That’s 21 new people using the area infrastructure – electrical, plumbing, water. That’s 21 new people who often aren’t attuned to the surrounding community. And this is assuming those people don’t have spouses, children, pets, etc.
Q. 21 bedrooms in Kaimukī. You would think there would be rules to prevent that sort of thing from happening. How are monster home developers able to pull this off?
Interestingly, based on our zoning laws, a lot of what these developers are doing is legal. Here is how the process works:
- Developer buys lot;
- Developer “CPRs” the lot, splitting a single property into multiple subsections. A note: CPR stands for condominium property regime. Essentially, a developer is turning their lot into a condo;
- Developer submits to DPP building permits with each subsection as a “single-family home,” often putting multiple kitchens and numerous bedrooms in each;
- Developer constructs the home quickly, often with illegal immigrant labor – to be built as cheaply and efficiently as possible;
- Developer creates makeshift partitions to separate each “single-family home” into multiple units, creating nearly a dozen units in total. Oftentimes in monster homes you will see a barrier where there shouldn’t be one or a door that never opens. In one monster home, for example, there was a staircase that led to nowhere. Developers will do this because they have to show inspectors that it’s all one contiguous unit. And as soon as the building is approved, they’ll put in some extra drywall.
Q. Aren’t these developers simply lying to inspectors? You’re not allowed to just construct partitions – or any major improvements for that matter – willy-nilly on your home without going through the Department of Planning and Permitting, correct?
Correct. And this is where Bill 44 comes into play. Monster Home developers are notorious for lying on their building permits. It was one of the reasons why, when I was an advocate with HIGood Neighbor, we worked to pass HB807 at the state. HB807 made it illegal, under HRS Chapter 710, for someone to make a false statement to a state investigator or county inspector.
Bill 44, which was just passed, would add on to this at the county level. Basically, it would say that if you have been convicted as having made a false statement under state law, we’re going to impose a number of penalties on you at the county level:
- Impose an immediate two-year moratorium on building permit applications for the violator;
- Increase building permit and plan review fee after that moratorium ends; and
- Subject violators to increased inspections on every home they create in the future.
- Civil fines of up to $3,000 for a discovered violation and a civil fine of $3,000 per day for each day the violation persists
Crucially, the bill would also provide that violators couldn’t use a third party to subvert these penalties. Bill 44 creates a scenario in which, if you are a developer who has a “history of making false statements,” you either won’t be able to build or it will be very difficult for you to build.
Q. Will this be enough to stop monster homes altogether? Or, at the very least, stem the tide?
Monster home developers will always find a way. But that doesn’t mean we can’t add as many tools as we possibly can. Bill 44 is one of those tools. Bill 52 from 2023 is another one of those tools. Bill 52 was proposed by DPP in August of last year. It would exponentially increase the fines for monster homes. Currently, the cost is $250 per day up to $2,000. I think we can all agree that monster home developers make more than $2,000 dollars on these projects. A fine like that is pennies in the grand scheme of things – it doesn’t work as any sort of disincentive. Bill 52 would set an initial fine of up to $25,000, plus up to $10,000 per day, per violation. The bill is currently in the committee on Zoning, where it’s awaiting a hearing.
Q. You mentioned earlier that based on our zoning laws, a lot of what developers are doing is legal. Can you expand on that?
In zoning, there is term we throw around frequently: FAR. It stands for Floor Area Ratio. FAR is calculated by dividing the total area of the building by the total area of the parcel. Essentially, it measures density. If, for example, a building had 3,000 square feet of total floor area and it was on a 1,000 square foot lot, it would have an FAR of 3.0. So how does this relate to monster homes? Interestingly, the allowable FAR in residential areas – that is, those areas that are zoned for single-families – is often higher than it is in apartment zones. In Pauoa, for example:
1912 Lusitana St; A-1, 30’ height limit; Lot Size: 7,387 sqft; Allowable FAR: 0.52161; Allowable Floor Area: 3,853 sqft
1910 Lusitana St; R-3.5, 25’ height limit; Lot Size: 5,653 sqft; Allowable FAR: 0.70; Allowable Floor Area: 3,957 sqft
In this example, you can build more “living area” on this R-3.5 lot than on the A-1 lot next door, even though the A-1 lot is 30% larger by square footage. Essentially, this creates a world where you have a lot that is supposed to be more dense – that we as a community have decided: “I want more housing here” – and you’re not allowing that to happen. At the same time, we have another lot – one that we want to be lower density – that can do whatever it wants. And monster home developers will use that to their advantage.
Q. What more can we do? How can we make our zoning code reflect what people actually want?
We need to take another look at some of these laws. Based on the current zoning, if a meteor hit Makiki today, we wouldn’t be able to rebuild it. How does that make sense? Monster home developers will keep building as long as they’re allowed. And they will certainly keep building as long as we don’t build housing in the places we as a community have decided that we want housing. I want to reevaluate things like FAR, things like height requirements, so that we can create neighborhoods that everyone is happy with.
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Disclaimer: this material is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The law varies by jurisdiction and is constantly changing. For legal advice, you should consult a lawyer that can apply the appropriate law to the facts in your case.
