An initial overhaul stage is underway to reduce a chronic building permit application backlog on Oahu at the city’s troubled Department of Planning and Permitting.
Recently, software began to partially screen applications and is being improved to perform better and expand items it can screen to free up DPP staff to handle more technical review work.
DPP, which has roughly 6,000 pending permits for residential construction in its system, including one from Gov. David Ige, also recently rolled out a revamped website that includes new guidance including images of sufficient and deficient application material.
Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, who became the agency’s acting director in September following the resignation of two top DPP officials, briefed the Honolulu City Council on Tuesday on work to address the backlog that has frustrated homeowners, business owners and contractors for many years as permit activity and regulations increased without much effective adjustment by DPP.
Takeuchi Apuna described near-term, midterm and long-term plans that include expanding automated review work, hiring additional staff and reengineering workflows that could include separating residential and commercial permit applications from the same system channel.
“We continue to just drill down in every phase of what we do to see why we do it and if it makes sense, and if we can be better or more efficient at it,” she told six members of the Council Committee on Executive Matters and Legal Affairs.
Currently, it takes on average 298 days to issue a building permit after receipt of an application. Some of that 10-month timetable is caused by applicant deficiencies or time an applicant takes to make corrections, though considerable blame is on DPP.
Of the 298 days, 175 on average are within a preliminary screening phase where software is now handling some of the workload and being programmed to do more.
If successful, the automation should reduce the 175-day average time for this stage to under seven days, Takeuchi Apuna told the committee members.
Takeuchi Apuna said greater success of the automated system should allow reassignment of six staffers from screening to do plan examination work checking for building code compliance on residential projects.
Currently, DPP has 24 residential code examiners and two vacancies. In addition to adding six workers from screening, the agency aims to hire 15 additional staff and also has been using interns from Honolulu Community College.
For commercial projects, DPP has 17 examiners and six vacant positions.
Throughout DPP, which does other things including land-use planning and regulation, there are 80 vacant positions.
There is a concern that alleviating the front end of the backlog will just add to the time permits stay in the code compliance review stage, though some Council members were encouraging about accommodating DPP’s need for funding to hire more staff.
Reengineering DPP’s building permit review process is one of the agency’s midterm goals to implement in six months to a year. This could include creating separate channels to process residential and commercial permits.
“Currently, there is a single line where all these building permits file into, and we do believe that some of the bigger projects are holding up the simpler ones,” Takeuchi Apuna said. “We want to reengineer the process to make it more efficient.”
Another midterm goal is for automation to handle a final step where approved building permits are issued. Doing this will require issuing a request for proposals. If successful, this change, according to Takeuchi Apuna, should reduce a 60-day average time for the last stage to under seven days.
In the long term, between one and three years, DPP aims to apply automation to more of the review process and reorganize the department.
The short-term goals are already being rolled out, and include the revamped website at honolulu.gov/dpp, which is coexisting with the old website at honoluludpp.org until the agency redirects visitors from the old website to the new one.
Council member Andria Tupola, who chairs the committee, expressed thanks to DPP workers and their new boss.
“We see your hard work,” she said. “We’re very grateful. … I don’t want to downplay the fact that since you got into this role, you’ve been doing a little sprint.”
DPP has been plagued by a slow building permit system for many years spanning multiple administrations. Mayor Rick Blangiardi inherited the trouble when he was elected two years ago, and hasn’t had the smoothest time trying to oversee corrections.
Federal charges were filed in 2021 against five then-current and former DPP employees for allegedly accepting bribes to advance building projects possibly as far back as 2009.
One of those employees, Wayne Inouye, who retired as a building plans examiner in 2017, pleaded guilty in October to accepting nearly $100,000 in bribes to pre-screen plans and expedite approval of permits for contractors and an architect.
Jason Dadez, a former DPP building inspector, pleaded guilty Feb. 14 to a charge that involved accepting a $1,000 check from owners of a Waipahu restaurant and corresponding with an architect about an Ala Wai Boulevard residence. He was sentenced July 6 to 18 months in federal prison.
Kanani Padeken, a former DPP building plans examiner who pleaded guilty in April 2021 to charges of wire fraud and admitted taking at least $28,000 in bribes, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 1.
At the top of DPP, Dean Uchida resigned at the beginning of September due to differences with Blangiardi over how to improve the challenged department. DPP Chief Innovation Strategist Danette Maruyama left with Uchida over the same issue.
Blangiardi previously has described the difference in approach as a preference by him to tackle the problems internally as opposed to relying on outside consultants.
