Helton highlights good suggestions in Hawai‘i County permitting audit
by Jonathan Helton, Grassroot Institute, May 22, 2025
Obtaining a building permit from Hawaii County often can take months for simple renovations and almost a year for more complicated projects.
Encouragingly, a new report from the county’s Office of the County Auditor suggests more than two dozen ways to help speed up the process, including a few significant policy changes that county lawmakers could enact relatively quickly.
Most of the audit’s recommendations concern management changes that would be up to the Department of Public Works’ Building Division to implement, such as using artificial intelligence more, reducing resubmittal rates and sticking to consistent timelines for review.
Policy proposals that would require county code changes are:
— Exempt low-risk projects from needing a permit, such as for solar panels, solar water heaters, water tanks, fences and walls.
— Implement a self-certification program for licensed design professionals to certify standard residential designs.
— Pilot a program using third-party plan review services as needed.
According to the audit, these three recommendations together would reduce application volume, increase departmental capacity, reallocate staff resources to focus on more complex applications and minimize backlogs without needing long-term staffing increases.
The new audit underscores just how important it is that such changes be made. For example, it found that between July 2021 and March 2024, the Building Division took almost 115 days on average to issue a permit.
It also notes that during this same time period, the county received 15,600 applications and approved just 11,100 of them, resulting in a backlog of more than 4,000 permits.
Rooftop solar permits, which made up more than 25% of the permits issued, took 47 days on average to be approved; new residential construction permits took 234 days; and nonresidential new construction permits took almost a year — 328 days.
The Department of Public Works has indicated it intends to adopt many of the audit’s recommendations, but its timeline for implementation for some of the items runs as far out as 2027, and it would be no surprise if it took even longer than that.
But, again, county lawmakers could make a dent in the permitting backlog almost immediately by enacting certain policy recommendations outlined in the audit.
Regarding low-risk projects, for example, Maui County does not require permits for rooftop solar installations, and Honolulu has passed a number of bills intended to streamline solar panel approvals, such as creating an online application just for solar.
Hawaii County could copy either of these approaches, or even go the way of many mainland cities that now use SolarAPP+, which is a free online tool developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to facilitate same-day approvals for most solar projects.
Regarding self-certification, whereby architects and engineers self-approve permits and take full responsibility for any deficiencies in the plans, Honolulu already allows this for rooftop solar, commercial tenant improvements and some affordable housing projects.
At the state level, self-certification might be authorized in all counties for single- and multifamily home permits if Gov. Green signs SB66, which the Legislature passed in early May. The measure would apply to all cases in which the respective counties have not completed their approval processes within 60 days.
Even if SB66 is not signed, Hawaii County would do well to create its own county-level self-certification program for basic projects such as renovations and additions.
Clearly, there are many ways Hawaii County could improve its building permit processes, and the sooner the better.
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PDF: Audit of Building Permits Process | Hawaii County, HI
This commentary was first published on May 22, 2025, by the Hawaii Tribune Herald and West Hawaii Today under the headline “Hawaii County audit offers good ideas to help speed up permitting.”