Permitting nightmare on Big Island

by Keli'i Akina, Ph.D., President / CEO Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

Imagine buying a house with the intention of remodeling it, doing everything you’re supposed to do — obtain permits, begin remodeling, schedule inspections — only to have the county tell you to tear it down.

That's not just a hypothetical nightmare situation used to illustrate the power of the state over the individual. It's a real-life example of how a broken permitting system and burdensome regulations continue to make life difficult for Hawaii residents and exacerbate our housing crisis.

As the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported on Monday, Shahzaad Ausman bought a 336-square-foot beachfront cottage in Milolii for $275,000 in May 2021. The previous owner had obtained a remodeling permit in 2020, so Ausman thought everything was good to go, and in 2022, he began remodeling.

Finally, he called the county to schedule an inspection.

After a few months of cancellations and delays, an inspector appeared in June 2022 and gave Ausman unexpected bad news: His permit had expired the previous day. Yes, the previous day! But it was not the remodeling permit that had expired. That was still good until 2025. It was the original building permit from 1987, which apparently had no record of ever undergoing a final inspection.

“That’s not possible,” Ausman reportedly told the inspector. “If the building permit doesn’t have a final, you would not have issued me a remodeling permit.”

But the inspector was unswayed, and in October 2022, Ausman received a letter from the Hawai‘i Department of Public Works saying that he would have to “pull all new permits, bring the house to current code, lift it and move it out of the (shoreline management area) and all that — basically, asking me to tear the house down.”

Ausman appealed to the county’s Board of Appeals but lost.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Ausman told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reporter. “I can’t move the house. I can’t bring it to current code. And they don’t want me to live in the house. They have not offered any reasonable accommodations, nothing. They’ve just been like, ‘No’ the entire way, except, ‘Move your house, pull your permits’ — which I’m not going to get because I don’t have an SMA permit.”

The county apparently even revoked the 2020 remodeling permit.

Barred from living in his home and unable to rebuild because of strict shoreline permitting rules, Ausman is trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare. His only remaining option — which he is now pursuing — is to sue the county.

And frankly, I wish him good luck.

I talk a lot about Hawaii’s regulations and approvals that hold up homebuilding, but people such as Ausman are the face of that problem. Bureaucracy and zoning rules are hard enough to navigate if you’re in the homebuilding business, but ordinary people can be left without a home.

Some might say that these permitting errors are due to insufficient staffing or outdated software. But those issues are just the tip of the iceberg. There is far more lurking beneath the surface.

The bottom line is that Hawaii badly needs to overhaul its permitting and zoning rules so homeowners such as Ausman are not left with allegedly illegal homes they can’t live in.

In particular, we must simplify and streamline county permitting rules so we are no longer plagued by costly uncertainty, confusion and delays when it comes to homebuilding or remodeling.

The people of Hawaii deserve better.

E hana kākou! (Let's work together!)

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BACKGROUND: EPIC fail? Homeowner sues county over building permits