‘Monster house’ contractor back in business, but concerns still linger

The city’s Department of Planning and Permitting is again under scrutiny, this time for having given approvals to a contractor tied to 17 projects — some of them “monster homes” — despite licensing issues the company had with the state.

DPP had slapped the owners of the 17 properties with violation notices and stop-work orders last month after learning that HH Constructions Inc. and its principle, Xinhui He, had their contractor’s licenses revoked in December by the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs because they did not have valid workers’ compensation insurance. The DPP violation notices gave the property owners until June 21 to obtain contractors with valid state licenses.

DCCA restored the forfeited licenses for HH Constructions and He on June 4 after they were able to show they again had valid workers’ compensation insurance, agency spokesman William Nhieu said.

DPP then gave the owners the go-ahead for work to resume June 5. “The contractors’ licenses were retroactively reinstated, so that eliminated the revocation action (by DPP),” Kathy Sokugawa, acting DPP director, said.

But the pro-construction labor organization that first alerted DPP about the contractor’s problems said that while the contractor, state and city view the matter was resolved, the situation nonetheless raises alarming issues.

“This whole episode of (the contractors) having their licenses forfeited in December and continuing to work, the city not finding out about this until May, and then the contractor being allowed to correct their deficiencies and immediately resume work without penalty reveals a number of flaws in the process,” said Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, executive director of the Hawaii Construction Alliance.

“It definitely reinforces the need for better communication between the state agencies and city agencies, and also highlights that neighbors need to be very vigilant toward what’s going on next to them,” he said. “The state and the city would not have known (work was continuing without licenses) if not for neighbors raising questions.”

Dos Santos-Tam said what’s most troubling to him is that DPP issued building permits to four of the 17 projects in 2018 even though DCCA had already revoked the licenses of HH Constructions and He.

“Someone dropped the ball along the way on the DPP side,” said Dos Santos- Tam, a candidate for the Honolulu City Council 6th District seat.

Asked how construction permits were issued to projects that listed a general contractor without proper contractor’s licenses, Sokugawa said her staff is still looking into what happened.

“We’re supposed to have a list of unlicensed contractors so we cannot issue a building permit if it has somebody’s name listed that is not a licensed contractor,” she said.

Typically, the department’s Posse computer system “imports an updated list of unlicensed contractors from DCCA” once a week, city officials said. “Our clerks search Posse by contractor’s license number to verify that the license is valid before issuing a permit.”

Nhieu, from DCCA, also noted that his department’s website allows the public to search its professional and vocational licensing database, which is updated in real time.

A search of the company’s status on the DCCA website shows HH Constructions’ workers’ compensation policy with HEMIC now good through Dec. 19.

He, in an interview Thursday with the Honolulu Star- Advertiser, said that his secretary failed to make payments while he was away on a trip in China, where he was researching construction materials. That person “was not doing good work” and has been let go, He said.

The Notice of Violations issued to the owners of each of the properties required them to rectify their situations by obtaining new general contractors by June 21.

The owners of all but one of the 17 projects retained HH Constructions as their general contractor when they restarted work earlier this month, city officials said. The one exception listed himself as the contractor, the city said.

Several of the projects that HH Constructions is working on involve monster houses, dwellings that have a large footprint in proportion to their lot sizes. Among them is a controversial three-story house being constructed on Hala Drive in Kamehameha Heights.

Monster houses have become a hot-button issue on Oahu in the past year. Some are illegal, and neighbors in older Oahu neighborhoods consider them a visual blight out of character with their communities, an overburden on existing infrastructure and sometimes associated with illegal activity such as unpermitted boardinghouses, vacation rentals or other businesses.

“We don’t work on any plans that haven’t been approved,” HH Constructions’ He said. “We don’t work without permits. We know it’s going to be a serious problem if we don’t respect the law.”

The construction alliance pointed out that He and HH Constructions, between March 2015 and May 2017, were hit with a combined 19 violations from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

He admitted that his company has received violations and that he’s paid fines. Most, he said, involve citations of workers who fail to wear the proper equipment when he’s not on job sites. The workers have been admonished, and HH Constructions has not been hit with any new violations in 2018, he said.

His company hires only people who are allowed to work because they are either U.S. citizens or have valid work visas, He said, adding that he’s been working in the construction industry in Hawaii for nearly two decades. “We don’t do anything illegal.”