As stop-gap measures go, this is a needed one: a moratorium on larger-scale dwellings, or “monster houses,” in residential districts on Oahu.

The City Council on Wednesday approved the measure that bars, for two years, the city Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) from issuing building permits in a residential neighborhood for any monster house with a floor area greater than 70 percent of the land area. The moratorium does have various exemptions, but most agree they would be tough to surmount. The mayor is expected to sign the measure.

So the moratorium would provide a needed halt to the troubling trend that has alarmed residents, with longtime single-family houses being renovated or replaced with ostentatious dwellings resembling walk-up apartment buildings. Among the egregious examples: an 18-bedroom house in Kalihi described as a proposed two-story, single-family dwelling.

Some defenders say these structure are intended for local multifamily living. Some, perhaps. But in this prolific age of online transient vacation rentals, it’s prudent for the city to take a pause to take stock of actual uses, before neighborhoods become overrun.

For its part, DPP is signaling that it’ll move sooner, rather than later, on getting permanent rules and parameters in place to restrain such houses. Bill 110 provides for a 2-year moratorium, but DPP expects to send draft rules on large houses to the city Planning Commission by September, with a bill to the City Council by year’s end. All that would be welcome indeed.

Meanwhile, if needed affordable housing is such a big concern that politicians claim it is, the Council is urged to pass Bill 58 (2017), a measure that requires developers to provide more lower-income housing units.

Give PUC the IT tools it needs

There’s a frustrating feel of deja vu in a recent audit of the state Public Utilities Commission, which prioritizes consumer interests in its regulation of electricity, water, sewage, telephone and other public utilities in the state.

In a 2004 report, the Hawaii State Auditor “found that core deficiencies, including staffing difficulties and an inefficient and ineffective information system, were the result of poor strategic planning.” Fourteen years later, a new audit released last week concluded: “We found that these challenges persist.”

Staff turnover is high, with 80 percent of the personnel having a tenure at the PUC of five or fewer years. But strides are being made. Commission Chairman Randy Iwase told auditors that when he was appointed in 2015, there were 65 authorized positions yet a team of just 34 staffers tackling a complex workload — centered around tracking more than 1,700 utility entities.

There are now 58 positions filled, many with personnel who have valuable energy and utility experience. Here’s hoping that they’re not lured to more attractive jobs in the private sector. An obvious key to retaining top staffers: prioritize replacement of obsolete information technology.

The PUC’s current document management system is so slow and unreliable that when the commission issued its 2016 order denying the proposed purchase of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. by NextEra Energy Inc., the agency created an outside webpage for the much-anticipated decision for fear that online interest would overwhelm its decade-old (dinosaur) IT system.

The PUC’s work has consequences. Upgrade the system — now.

More changing of HPD old guard

Two more pages were turned Thursday in this riveting new chapter for the Honolulu Police Department.

First came news that Louis Kealoha, the disgraced former police chief, and his wife Katherine, a deputy city prosecutor now on unpaid leave, had defaulted on their $1 million Hawaii Kai house mortgage. The pair is under indictment for charges including, among others, his abuse of power and her bilking of grandmother and two young wards of thousands of dollars.

At the pinnacle of power, the couple was living large: buying a Maserati, a $26,000 brunch celebrating his 2009 ascent to police chief, and the now-defaulted house on Mariners Cove. Nowadays, the two are preparing for criminal trials this summer — with lawyers being paid by taxpayers after a court ruled they were unable to pay for their own defenses.

Then later Thursday, news broke that longtime police union president, Sgt. Tenari Maafala, would be retiring next month. Maafala has served nearly 30 years at HPD, and for the last 18, has led the powerful State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers union. Maafala and others were reassigned Dec. 1 to new shifts by Police Chief Susan Ballard; he has been on vacation since and never reported for that duty, and though a labor complaint has been filed, Maafala told the Associated Press the reassignment wasn’t a factor in his retirement decision.

Who will take the helm at SHOPO, and how he or she works with Ballard, will certainly be worth watching.