The Honolulu City Council is slated to consider a measure to launch a performance audit of the Department of Planning and Permitting to address operational deficiencies.

In a written statement, Council Chair Tommy Waters, who introduced proposed resolution 22-219, said the audit would be tasked with examining “systemic challenges facing DPP,” with its findings allowing the Council to “better assist” Honolulu Hale by “identifying specific policy and budgetary actions” needed to improve DPP operations.

The resolution comes just over a week after DPP Director Dean Uchida resigned from his position, citing strategic differences with Mayor Rick Blangiardi regarding how to reform the department. Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, who had served as DPP’s deputy director, is now the department’s acting director.

“The challenges facing DPP have been present for many years. Given the discussion over the direction of the department, I believe that this audit is an integral way to look at the long-­standing problems that have plagued the department, and provide actionable recommendations that the Council can support,” Waters said in the statement.

Addressing the matter Monday on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program, Blangiardi said, “We’ve been investing money now only recently at the start of this fiscal year in July, and we’re about to make some significant investments in technology, in people, in restructuring and reorganizing.”

Some 20,000 applications are submitted to DPP a year, and a manpower shortage has contributed to “long delays” in processing the requests, he said. Blangiardi also noted challenges his administration faced early on in its tenure when in March 2021 federal charges were filed against four DPP employees for allegedly accepting bribes to accelerate building projects.

Blangiardi said he’s optimistic that through new technology, along with filling some 80 vacant department positions and adding another 80 new positions, DPP could improve. He added that his administration is looking into a self-certification process for architects.

“We know that from the simplest home remodel all the way to building a major building, it (DPP’s operation) impacts everybody,” Blangiardi said. “So the sense of responsibility on this to get some really great short-term wins is significant, while we go about doing the longer-term stuff.”

The department was last audited in 2019, when the Council wanted to have DPP’s process for reviewing building applications evaluated. The audit pointed out apparent snags with meeting deadlines, failure to enforce administrative rules and practices that essentially resulted in private companies monopolizing the permitting process over the general public.

The proposed audit would take a more comprehensive look at the department’s policies, procedures and controls to “address systemic operational deficiencies,” according to the resolution.

One of the main goals of the audit would be to identify ways that the Council could better support the department legislatively and through the annual city budget. Waters said while he acknowledges that an audit could affect the department’s workload, it does not outweigh the high costs tied to DPP operating in its current state.

“There is a need to address the fundamentals and diagnose the problems,” he said. “If we fail to comprehensively examine the problems now, our economy, affordable housing need, and our ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change will continue to get worse and may prove insurmountable if change doesn’t occur within DPP.”