City officials have started a One Time Review program designed to speed up the building permit process for single-family home construction and improvements on Oahu.

For years, contractors and homeowners have complained about the length of time it takes to obtain a permit, largely as a result of plans being submitted and reviewed multiple times. Applicants accused plan checkers of going after minute points. The plan reviewers countered that applicants were submitting incomplete and sloppy documentation.

The concept is simple: Submit a thorough permit application, get one review and obtain the permit from the city Department of Planning and Permitting. This eliminates the back-and-forth reviews but puts the onus on the applicant to do the revisions as made by the city or else face penalties — or redo construction after a building inspection.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the new, optional “OTR” program requires both applicants and reviewers to “up their ‘A’ game … to make sure they’re doing things correctly.”

Applicants need to be more diligent in their submittals, while reviewers have to be more careful during their one review. And applicants need to be thorough in making the changes sought, while inspectors need to ensure permit holders are in compliance, Caldwell said.

In exchange for obtaining their permit more expediently, builders are forced to comply with the changes or risk being required to make necessary revisions, or “they could have an expensive step to redo,” Caldwell said.

“The architect must make sure that all the red marks (made by the plan reviewers) have been addressed,” DPP Director George Atta said.

The current average processing time for a single-family home building permit of 125 days is expected to be cut in half in most cases. “We’ll see how it works,” Caldwell said. “And we’ll adjust as we go forward. If there are more things we need to do to make it better, we’ll do that.”

DPP’s goal since 2014 is to reduce the time it takes to receive a building permit by 10 percent each year, Atta said.

“One hundred twenty-five (days) is still too long, but it’s better than 180 and hopefully we’ll keep cutting it down,” he said.

Caldwell said the processing time is shrinking even as the number of building permit applications is increasing as a result of the recent construction boom.

City officials said the move in 2013 to make the building permit process predominantly electronic through “E Plan” is speeding things along. So too has a policy to allow independent, third-party reviewers.

Not everyone agrees, however. John W. Meyers, of design-build company Innovative Building Solutions, said he has about 30 building permit applications that awaiting approval, one since mid-2013. “It’s taken weeks just to go through pre-screening,” Meyers told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

The E Plan program is a clunky one that slows down the process, Meyers said, and a lack of plan reviewers is contributing to delays.

Meyers said an application for a residence in Aiea Heights has been returned six times. “It’s been held hostage for three years over the most ridiculous comments, back and forth,” he said.

Atta acknowledged that the E Plan program has had some growing pains but that the department has taken steps to address issues such as the pre-screening problem described by Meyers.

Atta also agreed with Meyers that “there have been a few times when reviewers have bounced a plan back for minor, manini kinds of things,” but added that steps are being taken to address those concerns as well.

Additionally, “the one-time review eliminates that,” Atta said.

He stressed there are, however, legitimate reasons for multiple reviews. Some revisions called for plan reviewers, such as those dealing with height or setback, to require whole sections of buildings to be redrawn. “And whenever you redesign whole sections, design issues come up that were not evident in the first set of drawings.”

Caldwell also noted that among applicants “there are people who want to save money, so they don’t put a lot of time and effort into the plans.” Instead, he said, plan reviewers become “their architect, engineer or contractor.”

The One Time Review program got a “soft opening” when it appeared in an announcement on DPP’s website Dec. 15. Only a handful of OTR applications have been submitted, Atta said.

Some building permits will automatically be reviewed as OTRs, including those seeking improvements for accessory dwelling units, Atta said.

City Councilman Ikaika Anderson, who heads the Council Zoning and Planning Committee, called the one-time review option “a great step that will lead to greater efficiency and in permits being issued in a much more timely fashion.”

The procedure puts more pressure on applicants and plan reviewers to get things right the first time, “but my understanding … is both the department and the citizens are comfortable with that,” said Anderson.

Anderson said he believes his queries about speeding up permit review time spurred the move to create the OTR option, and he praised DPP for being willing to listen to concerns and suggestions.

For information, go to bit.ly/DPPOTRinfo.