Palolo resident Reyna Sueoka said her family has been living “an ongoing nightmare” since new people bought the property next to hers, tore down the old house and began building a “monster house.”

The pump from a cement mixer on the neighboring property exploded and sprayed wet cement “on our house, on our neighbor’s house, on our car and in our yard,” Sueoka told the Honolulu City Council’s Zoning and Housing Committee Thursday. When a police officer came by to file an incident report because she wanted to document the incident, the officer told her no building permit was posted on the construction site as required.

Sueoka said she did not report the infraction to the Department of Planning and Permitting because the owners went to her home to apologize, and told her they and their children were going to move onto the property — which city records show is the site of a 16-bedroom, 11-bathroom, two-house property.

“So I thought these are going to be our future neighbors, I didn’t want to cause any wars, so I didn’t do anything,” Sueoka said. Later, she said, she found out the owner had still not received a building permit.

Complaints from Sueoka and a growing number of residents over so-called monster houses that loom on residential lots across Oahu have prompted Council members to introduce several measures to deal with the trend.

A proposal to place more restrictions on large homes moved out of the committee Thursday, setting it up for a final vote of the full Council on Dec. 6.

After several hours of impassioned testimony from those raising alarms about the “monster houses” as well as those who think the Council shouldn’t pass any more regulations on them, the committee approved Resolution 17-276.

A separate measure that calls for a temporary moratorium on large homes until more permanent language can be put in place, Bill 94, was deferred.

Jimmy Wu, who lists himself as “residential third party reviewer” for residential projects on his LinkedIn page, told Council members that many of the large homes are the result of families simply trying to find a way to afford a place they can buy.

Family pools

Extended families that include siblings and cousins are pooling their money to buy somewhere they can all live, he said.

It’s unrealistic to think a single family can afford the $800,000 to buy a property in a middle-class neighborhood with a “tear-down house” and then an add $500,000 to construct a new dwelling, Wu said. “We’re talking about Makiki, Liliha, Kapalama,” he said.

With the lack of available housing, “people have to figure out their own way, how do they solve this issue,” Wu said. “Think about that, this is four or five families of related people, they live together (on) one property. That’s better than one family (in one house) and then four others go find some other place to live and increase the burden to the city for housing. To me … increasing the density of the land is the way to go.”

But for neighbors like Sueoka — who initially gave the property owners next door the benefit of the doubt — she said there has been ongoing questionable activity on the property.

The construction crew was “reckless and irresponsible, and endangered themselves and others,” Sueoka said. “One day, the retaining wall collapsed on one of the workers, and he was hospitalized.”

On another day, when she called 911 for assistance after a worker blocked her driveway, “the worker was furious — he jumped in his truck, he cursed and he spit at me as he drove off,” she told Council members.

When the house was completed, it was sold to someone who owns a commercial limousine company, Sueoka said. A Craigslist advertisement lists rooms for rent at $750 a month “with no on-site parking for the renters,” she said.

Company limousines and SUVs began parking both on the property and on the street, Sueoka said. “The workers were coming and going all day long, moving the limos in and out, using the house as a dispatch center and utilizing the driveway to maintain the vehicles.”

With the limos taking up the on-property stalls, “their tenants began parking illegally on the corners of cross streets and even on the nearby bridge over the stream,” she said.

A call attempting to reach the listed owner’s husband at the limousine company seeking comment about the situation was not returned. The man who answered the company phone said the Palolo house was not being used as a dispatch center, adding that he works from his own home.

DPP spokesman Curtis Lum said inspectors have responded to several complaints for the property next door to the Sueokas, two of which are still pending.