The Honolulu City Council on Wednesday moved to streamline the notoriously congested building permit process.
The Council approved a bill that would no longer require property owners applying for a building permit to submit a notarized statement Opens in a new tab to the Department of Planning and Permitting. Now, owners will be able
to fill out an online form to confirm that the city holds no penalties or fines against them.
Bill 51 will take effect later this month, according to a City Council news release.
Notarization can get expensive for companies that submit numerous building permit applications. One company estimated it would submit 1,000 applications in 2022, spending about $75,000 in notary fees, according to a City Council press release. That cost would then get passed on to customers, the release said.
“The bill was introduced at the request of stakeholders, for whom the notarization requirement would have imposed a burdensome cost,” the release said.
“We received feedback from stakeholders and worked with DPP to arrive at this collaborative solution to help streamline the building permit process,” Council member Brandon Elefante, who introduced the bill, said in a news
release.
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi has 10 days to sign Bill 51 after its approval; otherwise, it automatically becomes law.
The Council also voted to move a bill to ease permit requirements for replacement work Opens in a new tab past its first of three readings. Currently, property owners must seek a building permit to make repairs exceeding $5,000 in the span of a year. Bill 56 would eliminate what Council member Andria Tupola called an “arbitrary” and “outdated” value limit, instead allowing any replacement of parts in existing work with comparable materials “for the purpose of maintenance,” the bill says.
“The monetary amount
is outdated, especially in 2022, as the cost of materials and labor have increased due to record inflation,” Tupola, who introduced the bill, said in a news release.
“It is reasonable that homeowners be allowed
to perform basic repairs to their bathrooms, kitchens, and other areas within their homes, without the need for a permit — especially when the permitting process has been unfairly burdensome and excessively difficult,” she said.
The bill also would help law-abiding contractors.
Gindi French, an owner of Kama‘aina Handyman, said her company won’t take on projects that require a permit. The $5,000 limit only allows for maybe three days of labor plus materials, French said. But if Bill 56 were to pass, “then, yeah, we would reevaluate and start pushing for more jobs,” she said.
The Council also voted
to adopt a resolution establishing an advisory committee “to assist and advise” the Council Opens in a new tab on legislation aimed at further streamlining and improving the Department of Planning and Permitting’s process for
reviewing and issuing permits. On average, the department issues a building permit in 135 days, and “the standard public complaint about the DPP’s building permit process is that ‘the review time takes too long,’” the resolution says.
