New Report Suggests Ways To End Hawaii Building-Permit Nightmares

by Joe Kent

Hawaii is notorious for its building permit delays and hassles.

Hawaii Island resident Shahzad Ausman knows this firsthand.

He bought a cottage in Milolii in 2021 that came with an alterations permit. When he was done remodeling, he made an appointment for the final inspection. After a series of delays, a county inspector finally came by, but it didn’t turn out quite like he had expected.

The inspector told him his permit had expired the previous day — not the remodeling permit, but rather the original building permit for the entire house.

Apparently, there was no record that the cottage, built in 1987, had ever received its final inspection, so the inspector was there to tell Ausman that his entire house was illegally built.

Not only that, the shoreline management rules had changed since the home was built, and he would need to move it back several yards from the shoreline and bring it into compliance with those.

So basically, Ausman said, “[they were] asking me to tear the house down.”

Ausman is now suing the county with hopes of getting it all straightened out. But in any case, his situation is an example of how frustrating Hawaii’s permitting process can be.

Too many Hawaii businesses and homeowners experience building permit headaches when trying to open a new shop, add a room or even just build a fence. Delays of two to six months — even a year — are common.

These long waits contribute to Hawaii’s higher costs for housing since prices for building materials, loans, land, labor, and other factors continue to increase while the homebuilding is in limbo.

These long waits also discourage entrepreneurship. Some businesses take on large debts to finance the equipment and staff while waiting on a final permit. Others give up. No one knows how many businesses have never left the start-up phase just because they couldn’t afford the wait for a simple permit or inspection.

But there are ways Hawaii lawmakers could reduce these permitting headaches, and a new policy brief from the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, details seven of them. They are:

1) Allow preapproved building plans;

2) exempt basic projects that do not pose major safety risks;

3) streamline the approval process for solar-related projects, which comprise a third to half of all permit applications;

4) grandfather dwellings built without permits;

5) allow third parties to approve and issue certain building permits;

6) adopt “shot clocks” whereby applicants with delayed permits could receive fee reductions or even automatic approvals; and

7) reduce building permit fees.

The basic idea is to reduce the number of things that need permits, which would help resolve permitting delays right there.

In Mr. Ausman’s case, Hawaii’s counties could make it easier for unpermitted dwellings to be brought into compliance with current codes without threat of demolition or any other nightmarish scenario, as some cities in California have already done.

As a whole, the seven changes recommended in the report would go a long way toward making Hawaii’s permit process faster and fairer for everyone.

So let’s hope lawmakers act soon to resolve one of Hawaii’s biggest obstacles to homebuilding and economic progress.

JOE KENT is the executive vice president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii