The city’s Department of Planning and Permitting says it will employ new technology, more staff and greater job training opportunities for high school graduates and retirees to reduce the backlog of thousands of building permit applications that has weighed down the department for years.

During a special meeting Wednesday of the Honolulu City Council’s Committee on Planning and the Economy, DPP Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna told the panel that her current staff had managed to knock down the backlog of 3,600 applications awaiting pre-screening by nearly 70%.

“Today we’re at about 1,100,” she said. “So that’s a big drop, and I think the staff are working so hard on that.”

Takeuchi Apuna said DPP also was tackling the time it takes to complete various phases of the city’s building permit application process. On average, she said, the permit review process has gone from nearly 10 months — or nearly 300 days — down to just about six months, or less than 200 days.

As of November the backlog to pre-screen a building permit application — namely to verify that building plans meet the city’s submittal requirements — had dropped from six months to about 2-1/2 months, she said.

“We have been able to come down a little bit in the pre-screen phase, but it has gone up a little in the code review,” Takeuchi Apuna said, noting that since November the duration of code reviews for building permits had gone from three months to about 3-1/2 months.

“And that is, again, that shift in the backlog from the pre-screen to the code review.”

To address the remaining permit backlog, which she referred to as “that big mountain,” Takeuchi Apuna said DPP is focused on three key areas, the first one being to hire more people.

“Since January we’ve hired about seven plans examiners for the residential side,” she said. “So, we’ve been very successful there.”

However, 15 engineer positions remain vacant on DPP’s commercial review side.

“We have not been able to fill those,” Takeuchi Apuna said. “We are working at trying to, but it’s hard for us to compete with private and federal (employers). But we will continue to try to hire and come up with creative ways to get some engineers on board.”

To aid that effort, DPP created an “internal surge team” to hasten the pre-screen and residential code review process, she said.

“There’s about seven staff volunteers that are going to help add capacity to the pre-screen,” she explained. “It’s going to help to show a greater drop in the pre-screen area.”

In addition, Takeuchi Apuna said her department established a pilot job training program focused on drawing high school and college graduates, college students and retirees interested in city planning and permitting work to DPP’s ranks.

“We’ve created training for these positions,” she said. “And if you might not have the experience currently, if you stick with the program, you may be able to gain the experience in order to get a civil service position through this program.”

Although there’s been success on some fronts, Takeuchi Apuna said DPP needs to see technological upgrades as well. She said DPP’s permitting software system, POSSE, and the ePlans submittal software are both outdated. In the case of POSSE, DPP first used the program in 1999.

To tentatively upgrade technologies, DPP has added more capacity to the server running ePlans, a program implemented by the city in 2013.

Meanwhile, DPP staff has reviewed 14 vendors for new online systems to shorten the permit wait time, handle online payments and do a better job at data reporting, especially tracking permit applications through the DPP system, she said.

“This is very exciting because I think within a few months we will have a contract, and we will be able to move forward with setting up that new system,” Take­uchi Apuna said.

Committee Chair Esther Kia‘aina asked the director how soon DPP’s new system would be up and running.

“Hopefully, we can contract within the next few months,” Takeuchi Apuna said, adding it will take one to two years to get the whole system fully set up. “But we can phase parts of it.”

This phasing would apply only to new permits submitted to DPP, she added.

“So whatever’s in the process while the system is being set up, it would be hard for us to provide the status part. But if it’s a new application, we can try to have that as one of the first phases,” Takeuchi Apuna said, adding that if someone submits a permit application, it will automatically say where that requested permit is in DPP’s system.

“So I would like to say within a year that will hopefully be the case for any new permits that come in.”

Kia‘aina later asked how long it will take DPP to reduce the remaining pre-screen backlog of 1,100 building permit applications.

“I think in the next couple of months,” Takeuchi Apuna replied.

The Committee on Planning and the Economy is scheduled to next meet Thursday.