The following is the complete transcript of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii-sponsored luncheon event in Hilo on Oct. 30 on “How to speed up permitting in Hawaii,” featuring Grassroot staffers Keli‘i Akina, president; Joe Kent, executive vice president; and Ted Kefalas, director of strategic campaigns.
The basis for the event was to discuss Grassroot’s new policy report written by Grassroot policy researcher Jonathan Helton, “Seven low-cost ways to speed up permitting in Hawaii.”
The last portion of the presentation was devoted to audience members sharing their stories and insights concerning Hawaii’s permitting problems.
To listen to the audio of the event, click on the image below. The transcript follows.
10-30-24 Permitting presentation, Hilo, featuring Grassroot staffers Keli‘i Akina, Joe Kent and Ted Kefalas, plus audience members sharing their stories and insights.
Keli’i Akina: Aloha, everyone. Aloha mai kākou. Aloha!
Audience: Aloha!
Akina: Well, this is Hilo. I love it in Hilo. There’s nowhere else in the world like Hilo, even on a rainy day.
So good to see you, everyone. And many of you have become friends of the Grassroot Institute since we’ve been coming. And it’s like coming home, and just being able to be with you and bring like-minds together is such a wonderful thing.
I’m Keli’i Akina, president of Grassroot Institute, and I’m with some of my team today. And we are just tremendously honored to have you with us.
And thank you, those of you who are members of the Grassroot Institute and supporters, and those of you who are here for the first time.
There was a buzz around the table when we were having lunch. And as you know, of course, in a couple of days, it’s Halloween. It’s a time for ghost stories and horror stories. But the horror stories I heard around the table here were about permitting.
Now, just think about that. When did that become an interesting topic? If I hear a horror story today from someone, it’s likely to be about permitting, or the permitting department.
Nobody across the country talks about the permitting department. It’s kind of just back there in the back office. Here, it’s the talk of the town.
In Honolulu, things got so bad for an acting company, a theater company, when they tried to move their theater, they couldn’t do it. And they went through this four-year-long period just to get a permit to do something very simple.
As a result, they wrote a play, and put it on, and it became the smash hit in Honolulu. People from Honolulu on their weekend, “Hey, honey, let’s go see a play.” “About what?” “The Department of Planning and Permits.”
You know, something’s got to be wrong here. And that’s the sad truth about why we’re gathered here today. Something is wrong.
You know, stories are coming out that are nightmarish about people who discover they have to tear down their house and move it. People who discover that they made an investment that’s just going to sink because they can’t get the permits.
And we’re coming together to commiserate, but do more than that. And that is to solve this problem. Shall we band together and solve this problem?
Audience: Yes.
[applause]
Akina: And I think there’s a vibrance here in Hilo. And you’ve been so open to the Grassroot Institute. This was a great year with your support on the state level and on the county levels for our work.
The team at the Grassroot Institute was responsible for the passing of 14 bills into law at the Legislature and at the county councils. That’s terrific. That’s a winning record in terms of an advocacy group. Give them a hand.
[applause]
These laws include the biggest tax cut in the history of the state of Hawaii. Do people deserve a tax cut?
Audience: Yes.
Akina: Absolutely. They include regulations being dismantled that prevent housing.
For example, now statewide, it is legal to convert business property into residential units, or to increase the number of ADUs.
Now, this is where Big Island comes in big time. We only went to the state Legislature to get two ADUs for property, but you guys — give yourselves a hand — you went for three!
[applause]
And I applaud that spirit, and we’re going to be with you as you try to work out the kinks of doing that.
But things are happening. Things are changing. It’s not a time to be in despair.
We have some of the biggest problems around when it comes to housing. Particularly, the fact that our young people — for that matter, people of all ages — but our young people can’t afford to build their futures in Hawaii.
Hawaii now has one of the fastest rates of exodus. People who lived here for generations and their families, but now are calling Las Vegas home, or Houston home. And the number one reason they’re doing that is because of the availability and affordability of housing in those markets out there.
Otherwise, they’d be here for the beautiful weather, the people, the culture. Hawaii can’t be beaten.
So, this problem is big because it’s driving our people away. They’re voting with their feet.
That’s why at the Grassroot Institute, we’re committed to doing something about this. We’re committed to making a difference for the people of Hawaii.
And I just can’t tell you how much we appreciate our friends here on the Big Island. You help us to have a family here where we can actually find partners and solve the problems that people are facing.
Grassroot Institute is simply a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We care a lot about the important principles of our Declaration of Independence. We believe that they are alive and well, and we have to protect them.
One principle is individual liberty. Do you value your individual liberty, your freedom to do what you want to do?
The second principle is economic freedom, which means the right of a business or an individual to have transactions with another one without the government taxing it, interfering with it, having to over-regulate, and so forth. We need more of that economic freedom, you know?
And third, limited accountable government. We have to have government, it’s necessary for so much that we do. But it’s got to be limited to the purposes of the Constitution. It’s got to be accountable to the people, that’s so very important.
If there’s one group that exists to protect these things — individual liberty, economic freedom and limited accountable government — it’s the Grassroot Institute.
[applause]
But it’s not us on the staff or on the board; it’s all of us together. All of us who are working together, who are going to give testimony at county councils, who are contributing financially to the movement, who are serving on our board of directors.
There’s one gentleman who’s here today, he came from Oahu, on our board of directors. Many of you know him, he does a lot of work out here on this island, Freddy Noa. Freddy.
[applause]
We have nine full-time staff and nine part-time staff. And today, we have a gift for you.
We want you to take something that is hot off the presses that’s going to every state legislator and our county council members. It summarizes our agenda for being able to solve the permitting problem in Hawaii.
And you’re going to get a peek into this from two of our experts on staff who work very closely with state governing leaders. We have, before I introduce him, our director of finance, you met him at the door, Sean Mitsui. Sean, thank you so much.
[applause]
Ted Kefalas is our director of strategic campaigns. He handles our work with state legislators and with county council people.
He has been in the doors inside the offices and in private with more state government leaders than anyone I know, and he gets results. I think he’s got dirt on them.
[laughter]
But if you need to know anything about anyone in government, Ted knows. But Ted uses that knowledge in order to advance our principles, and to make sure that we the people have a voice in government. Ted Kefalas.
[applause]
Your second presenter today is Joe Kent, who I met when he was a teacher on the island of Maui. He worked at a school that got burned down and is no longer in Lahaina.
I say this because Joe really knows the neighbor islands. He grew up here on the Big Island, part of the time, and his family is still here.
Joe is a master at understanding the public policy that government practices. And being able to analyze that and organize that into ways that we can communicate with people is at the heart of what we do at Grassroot Institute.
He’s the executive vice president, give Joe Kent a hand.
[applause]
I’m going to step away from the microphone for a little bit. But I’m going to come back and invite you to come up to the microphone, not to ask questions, although you can ask questions if you want. But we came here to hear from you. We want to hear your horror story, or maybe your success story. Or maybe your biggest concern, or maybe your biggest suggestion as to how we can solve this permitting problem.
So, if you have an idea, do two things for me. One, kind of make note of it, jot it down so you know what you’re going to talk about.
Number two, make it short. [laughter] I have a plane to catch.
And look around the room, actually, this is why. We’ve got a lot to share. Many people here. We’d just love to hear as many of you as we can today. Does that sound good?
Audience: Yes.
Akina: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our presenters for the Grassroot Institute as we today share with you seven low-cost ways to speed up permitting in Hawaii. Thank you.
Joe Kent: Thank you, Keli’i. And how about a round of applause for Keli’i Akina.
[applause]
So, a big credit goes to a researcher named Jonathan Helton on our staff. Let me rewind here to go to his — right, let’s see, oh, it doesn’t.
Anyway, Jonathan Helton right here. He’s not here today, but he did a lot of the work on this. And what we’re going to do right now is go through all of the different recommendations in the report quickly because we do want to get to your stories and everything.
But I’ll just start by saying that there are plenty of audits of the permitting departments across the counties, that they’ve looked at it. But lawmakers are not experts when it comes to building, and permitting and so on. And they rely on the bureaucrats to tell them, you know, how do we quicken the process?
And what the bureaucrats say is, “We need more staff,” right? “We need more money, we need more staff.” They never think to say, “We need to get rid of this regulation or that regulation,” because for a bureaucrat, regulations are fixed, immovable, cement structures within their world.
And so, they will never come up with creative outside-of-the-box things. So, we need some entity out there to suggest cutting, reforming, you know, creative outside-of-the-box, outside of the state.
So, we went to the mainland. We looked across the nation and all the different best practices from different permitting departments who were laughing at us, by the way, at how long it takes.
There was actually a study done by the University of Hawaii, and they showed that Hawaii has the worst, the slowest permitting departments in the entire nation. And so, we’re here today to come up to show you what we found.
And the first one here is allowing preapproved plans. So, Ted, maybe you can start with that.
Ted Kefalas: Yeah, and I would stand up, Joe, but I think my cord is …
Kent: Oh, is your cord stuck?
Kefalas: Yeah.
Audience member: Oh, it’s just wrapped around the table right there.
Kent: Here, take this one.
Kefalas: All right.
Kent: All right. Here, go ahead.
Kefalas: Yeah, so preapproved plans, I mean, they’re pretty basic. It’s pretty much what they sound like, right? I mean, we have a set of plans that are approved and can move through the process a lot quicker because you don’t have to get that discretionary approval previously.
I’ve talked to a lot of — you guys know Dennis here from HPM. HPM uses pre-approved plans. Probably they’re one of the biggest users of preapproved plans, just to expedite the process.
[Hawai‘i] County actually has taken the lead when it comes to all four counties in the state in actually trying to make it easier for preapproved plans. So, they passed — I believe it’s Bill 152 — this year, that’s going to allow multifamily dwellings to have preapproved plans here in Hawaii County.
Speaker: Is it an effective bill?
Kefalas: I have to go back and check. I don’t think it is yet, just as they figure out all of the rigmarole, but that’s going to be crucial.
We’ve seen that that’s really helped expedite the production of single-family homes and duplexes. So, let’s try to expand that to multifamily.
It makes no sense if there are already current plans out there to have to have people go through the process every single time and check off every single box if we already know that these are already OK.
I also want to just point out that, you know, I’ve talked to a lot of architects. And as some of you guys know, we were crucial in passing the state ADU bill. We’ve worked with Council as well here to pass Bill 123.
A lot of architects, quite frankly, have told me that building plans for ADUs are money-losers. And that they would prefer to have these sorts of preapproved plans so that they don’t have to consistently draw up a plan for every single person that wants an ADU.
That they can just do it once, put it on the shelf, and anybody that wants to build an ADU here in the County can just pull it off the shelf and get started.
So, I mean, we think that this is a great way that the County is really expanding those opportunities. And we’d love to see the other counties follow suit.
Kent: Yeah. As for the next suggestion here, exempting basic home repairs; this is something you could have thought of in your sleep.
Basically, there are — why do we require so many things to be permitted? I think something like a simple home repair should be exempt.
But if you look at all of the different counties, each county does, in fact, exempt a whole list of things — 30 different items that do not need to be permitted. Except, that list is different for every county.
So, what we thought, why not just take all the lists of all the counties and add them all up together to make one bigger list?
Some counties, for example, require fences to be permitted, other counties don’t, you know. Why? And, you could put a cap on it too. Say, something less than $10,000, $20,000, you know; raise the cap, and then you don’t have to permit so many things.
So, yeah, this is kind of a common sense one. In Honolulu, they tried this with Bill 56, and Ted, maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
Kefalas: Yeah, Bill 56, it was a good bill. But I want to actually — since we’re here in Hawaii Island — I want to focus on a bill that’s going through the process right now.
I think it’s Bill 212 from Ashley Kierkiewicz. Essentially, that’s looking to expand that exemption up from $7,500 — which as you can see, is really the lowest right now — expanding that up to $25,000.
We think that could be really crucial. I mean, you know, you think about it, you have X number of people waiting in line. If we can just pull some of those people out of line. I mean, that’s going to help make everybody’s experience a little bit better.
You know, that’s something too when we looked into it. You know, Home Depot and whatnot, they’ve actually estimated that things as basic as, like, a counter install, like kitchen counter install, could run you more than $7,500.
So, you know, this is something that kind of is, again, as Joe mentioned, a no-brainer, and it’s just something that we need to really push and take into fruition now.
Kent: Yeah. Another one is streamlining solar.
So we went and looked and counted all the different permits that are in the queue, and about one-third to nearly a half of all the permits are solar-related. So, why not just create some sort of fast-track method for these? And in fact, there does exist a fast-track method, it’s called APP+ or APP+.
Kefalas: SolarAPP.
Kent: SolarAPP+.
Kefalas: Yeah.
Kent: And on the mainland what this has done where states have instituted this, it’s reduced the permitting wait times from 30 days down to zero days.
Now, on Hawai‘i County, I’m told that some of the permitting wait times for solar were around two weeks, three weeks when EPIC first started — EPIC the permitting system here.
But now it’s going to two months, three months, four months. What’s going on in the Permitting Department? I thought this was getting quicker.
So, if we just — there was actually a bill at the state Legislature this year, excuse me, that would have allowed for the SolarAPP+ permitting process to be instituted in all the counties, basically zapping all those solar permits. But it died, unfortunately.
Kefalas: Yeah. I mean, essentially, what Joe is getting at, right, is we’re in the year 2024 going into 2025. And a lot of these permitting processes are done … You’d be surprised at how many things are still done on paper, quite honestly.
There are systems out there like SolarAPP — it doesn’t have to be SolarAPP, there’s other competitors out there that do similar things — the process is all online. Makes it super easy for anybody that’s looking to get a permit. Makes it super easy for the permitting departments.
You know, it’s just, we have advanced to the point where we can do this sort of thing. But yet, our government bureaucracies, a lot of times, are lagging behind. And it’s not even lagging behind five, ten years. It’s lagging behind, you know, decades.
So let’s try to get them up to speed and into the 21st century so that we can make these things a little quicker.
Kent: This next one, really, I think, strikes a nerve in Hawa‘ii County. Because I know so many thousands and thousands of people that have in their backyard — some are unpermitted structures — maybe it’s a shed, maybe it’s a second room. Maybe they bought the place with it being unpermitted. And maybe their neighbor is mad at them or something, and goes sneaking, snooping around, and then tattles to the department that they have an unpermitted structure.
So now the department is required to send out an inspector, right? And they have to send out a notice of violation that says you have to fix this unpermitted structure by a certain date, lest you start racking up some sort of civil fines. And now it’s neighbor against neighbor.
Well, there was actually one neighbor on Hawai‘i County last year, I think, who for some — I don’t know why he or she did this — nobody knows who it was. But they went through and looked and found 150 unpermitted structures across multiple properties, and reported it to the department. So, now the department has to, like, go and basically inspect and attack these people.
So, why don’t we have a fast track? Why aren’t we making this easier? Right now there is a process to permit unpermitted structures, but it’s twice as expensive, three times as expensive, depending on where you are, and it still takes a long time.
But there should be some kind of amnesty program. We should be making it easier to get these things permitted, not harder. So, there actually have been amnesty programs across the U.S., and so we studied that.
Kefalas: Yeah. I want to point out too that a lot of people, it’s not that they’re not getting permits because they, you know, have some nefarious plan and they want to like, you know, just have an unsafe building, and want to have unpermitted. It’s these wait times, quite frankly.
I mean, the average person can’t wait that long for a permit. In a lot of cases, I mean, it’s weeks, months, and can be years. So, you know, folks are just taking matters into their own hands. They’re creating these unpermitted structures, and I hear from council members all the time, you know, that the counties, we need to know what is on our properties. We need to know exactly what is happening.
Well, we are not giving these homeowners proper incentive to get these homes up to snuff and get them permitted. If you’re charging two, three times what an actual building permit is, as a homeowner, you’re going to stay under the radar. Exactly.
So, I mean, we need to really look in, you know, intrinsically and see, you know, what we’re thinking, and if we really want to get these units permitted, how can we do it with as little to no skin off of people’s backs as possible?
Kent: Right. So like in California, they have an amnesty program they created that basically says if you get an inspector that passes an inspector, then it basically passes the permitting process. Pretty simple.
They also prioritized those structures that people were already living in and so on. And different states do it differently, so.
Kefalas: So, this is another big one that we’ve seen in other places like Honolulu and Maui as well, but allowing third-party review and third-party permits.
So, you know, Hawaii’s permitting process, as Joe mentioned, a lot of times we don’t have the staff, quite frankly, to keep up with the demand.
Well, there’s plenty of private companies out there that can look and review these permits. Like I said, Maui is currently doing this with a company called 4LEAF to try to expedite permitting on Maui after the Lahaina fires.
I think if you compare the numbers, 4LEAF actually has a 51-day average. Once you put in your permit with 4LEAF, it takes 51 days to get approved. You do that same process with the county, it’s 206 days.
So, you know, to us this is something that — not necessarily to completely eliminate government employees in the process — but this is a proven method that has been shown to make the process quicker.
4LEAF and these other private companies, again, have an incentive to turn these permits around, whereas sometimes the folks at the counties don’t, quite frankly. So, you know, trying to find more ways to use similar systems.
Kent: Yeah. So, I visited this town called Johns Creek in Georgia, and visited the permitting department. And I asked the permitting director, “How long on average does it take to get things permitted in this town?”
He said, “Oh, maybe a day, maybe two days tops.” He’s like, “I once saw it in five days,” you know? I said, “What about a big, complicated thing like a hospital?” He said, “Oh, maybe a month.” I said, “Wow,” you know, and then when I started telling him about our permitting wait times, he just could not stop laughing.
So I asked him, “How is it that you’re able to permit things so quickly?” And he said, “Well, we just hire a private company whenever we start to get a backlog. And so, you know, we start to go to three days or four days, OK, bring the company in. You know, bring the troops in, they clear out the backlog. And then when the backlog is cleared, then the company goes away, and it leaves it back to the civil service workers.”
Now, in Hawaii, we have a law, and basically the law says that you can’t hire private workers to do a job that is typically done by government workers. And there was a big lawsuit about this called the “Konno decision” here in Hawai‘i County having to do with waste workers.
And so, in any case, that law is the law of the land. That’s why it’s very difficult to hire private companies from the government side.
But the law has a loophole. And the loophole says that if you don’t have enough government workers to do the job, then you can hire the private company.
And that’s exactly the situation that the permitting departments are in. They don’t have what they themselves say, the audits say, that they don’t have enough government workers, so why not just hire a private company?
That’s a little bit how they hired the private company in Lahaina. So if they could do it there, why not in other places? So,but this is doable as long as people are able to think creatively about this.
Kefalas: Yep. Yeah. So, if you couldn’t tell, I’m a pretty tall guy. I love basketball, right? And I’ve gone to the Maui Invitational a bunch. And I just wanted to pose a hypothetical for you guys.
If you ever go to a basketball game, team tips off, and then the one team just sits there and holds the ball for the entire game. How horrible of a game would that be? No score, the game just ends 0 to 0.
There’s a reason why in basketball you have what’s called a shot clock, to make sure that the game is moving along at a proper pace, teams are actually trying to put the ball in the hoop. We just want to create something similar here in Hawaii — expedite the process when it comes to DPP or the permitting departments, and just say, “Look, you have to get a permit out in X amount of days.”
You have a lot of other states, Florida does this, Arizona does this, I think California might even have a shot clock as well. So this is not reinventing the wheel. This is really just telling the bureaucrats in the permitting departments, “Hey, you have 60 days, 90 days, and if you don’t get the permits out in that allotted time … there are penalties. You cannott just sit on a permit for a year and not do anything with that.”
So, you know, we think that this is a really viable option. I mean, it works in basketball, why can’t it work in the permitting department?
[applause]
Kent: And for the final one, fees. Just a quick note about this, fees over time have gotten worse, much worse. And they’ve increased much faster than inflation, for example.
And so, why? You know, it’s already expensive. We’re trying to make housing less expensive, not more.
Now, the thing about fees and shot clocks and third party and all the different recommendations is that they go together. They can actually go together.
So, you can say, “Here’s a shot clock that if you don’t do it in time, then you reduce the fees,” right? Or, “If you don’t do it in time, then there’s no fee,” for example.
Kefalas: Automatically approved.
Kent: Automatically approved, right. Or you could have a shot clock that says, “If you don’t do it in time, then you can hire a third-party reviewer to approve it,” or something.
So, all of this stuff actually are components that can work together in a coordinated policy that can work for different jurisdictions around Hawaii. But yes, we need to reduce the fees. So basically, unless you had anything to add there.
Kefalas: No.
Kent: Yeah. So basically, that’s the summary of our report — seven simple ideas to reform the permitting departments.
And now we want to hear from you. I think every single person here has some kind of a horror story or something to share.
Kefalas: It’s almost Halloween.
Kent: Yeah, it’s almost Halloween. Or maybe some suggestion. Or maybe a question, too. We’d love to hear from you.
Kefalas: And if you’re not already signed up for our newsletter, you can scan this QR code here. I know a lot of you probably are already. But if you are not, you can get all of our up-to-date information, like our newsletters or these policy briefs or whatnot. So, thank you.
Akina: Let’s hear it for Joe and Ted.
[applause]
And now let’s hear from you. Come on up here, John, and you take the microphone. Joe, hold it for John over here.
And the only thing I’d like to ask you to do is just keep your comments brief, if you would. Introduce yourself, and briefly tell us your story. John.
John Ratcliff: I was sitting over here. I had a conversation with this gentleman — I don’t know his name — but he brought something up that I’m surprised wasn’t on there.
Other than the solar thing which you touched on, which is, he said, in other places, they have different tracks for permits. In other words, right here, when you submit a permit, if you’re building a house or you’re doing some tiny little project, they go in the same line.
He says, in other permitting places, they have a different line, depending on what your permit is. And the lines that are just, you know, there’s nothing to it, go much faster. So I didn’t see that in the slide deck, other than the solar, which we should propose we’ll have the solar app, which is basically that concept.
Akina: Great idea from all of you too. Thank you, John.
Kent: Yeah, actually, there is a line in Hawaii. It’s call the mayor, call the council member, and then, you know, that your permit sometimes goes to the top of the line, so …
[laughter]
Dennis Lin: Hi, everybody. My name is Dennis Lin. I’m with HPM Building Supply. We were mentioned before because we do utilize preapproved plans through our HPM Homes Program.
But to give you a little bit more clarity on the preapproved plans, currently in Chapter 5A, which is our administrative construction code, if you do submit a plan as preapproved, the county, by their own code, is supposed to provide it in six business days.
And what happens with that is well, we haven’t talked a lot about today is building code. When the building codes change, there’s a time period where all your preapproved plans are now void because they have to adopt a new code.
So, it’s a great program, but there’s going to be times where it’s going to be stalled over those kinds of issues.
Kent: And if somebody needs to move a window to a different side, then it cancels the preapproved plan.
Lin: Structural, yes. Any structural changes in your plan do not qualify you for a preapproved plan.
Kent: Sure.
Lin: Yeah. So I just wanted to provide some clarification on that.
Akina: Great. Thank you, gentlemen. We appreciate that.
Female speaker: Can I ask a question to Dennis? There’s preapproved and there’s kits. Can you distinguish?
Akina: Dennis knows this.
Lin: Yeah. So, to clarify, our HPM homes — people get confused because they think it’s like, we’re going to package everything together. It’s really just a material list. It’s a material list that they provide you along with the design plans. And that’s packaged up for your contractor to then build. So, that’s the clarification there.
Female speaker: That’s the kit?
Lin: Yeah, that’s the packaged homes.
Speaker 5: So it’s not a kit?
Lin: Yeah, it’s not a kit.
Female Speaker: OK.
Lin: Yeah, it’s not kit. It’s a package.
Female Speaker: Is preapproved different from that?
Lin: Yes.
Female Speaker: Different plans?
Lin: It’s the same plans, but with certain of our home plans we submit though they’re pre-approved. So, that’s going to help the homeowner build faster.
Female Speaker: Thank you.
Male Speaker: Can I also encourage Dennis to share the manufactured stuff? And then I think that you guys are moving a little forward on that on Maui right now. But just kind of that overall understanding what that could be.
Lin: Yeah, sure. So, HPM also has a program called the Hale Plus manufactured homes, which is a factory-built home program. We’ve been trying to get that program up and running since 2018.
But we do run into the same issue that all of you here have here, which is the permitting issue. And we’ve run into an issue where we can’t get the permits to produce our products. So, it gets hard to provide it to the public.
And we are doing it on Maui, but it’s more of an emergency kind of a situation to get people into homes where you have an agreement between the two departments of public works on Maui and here on Hawaii Island.
Akina: Very good. Thank you, Dennis. We appreciate that.
Yes, go ahead. Quick, come on down. Come on down.
David Gilliland: OK …
Akina: I’ll give you a microphone here.
Gilliland: I’ve got two things.
Akina: Go ahead.
Gilliland: First of all, I’m with the Pali Hale Association. We design, basically, climate resilient housing that resists wildfires and makes their own water, and also handles a high amount of wind.
We used and work with HPM, and we have built planned sets that use this particular technology that we’ve developed. We went through the permitting process for preapproval, got our duplex units all the way through the process. And then when it came time, at the very end of the road, it was like, “Oh, well, the building codes says, ‘singular dwelling,’ not ‘dwellings’ plural.” So, the whole thing was just a waste of effort in terms of trying to get it through there.
But I think the thing that I was going to address these guys was, is this applicable? Also, fast tracking particularly or shot clocking for the planning department?
Kefalas: For shot clocking, yeah. So, that’s something that the shot clocks are something that you can really put it for anything, but it’s been specifically for permitting.
But I think you could certainly do it for planning as well. I mean, it’s a policy decision that the councils have to really take into account. And it’s really something that they’re going to have to make that decision on if they want to kind of tie their hands.
Gilliland: I was hoping you guys are going to tell us what we could do to help you to get that done.
Kefalas: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, and first thing is really signing up for our newsletter. I mean, that’s where we give you up-to-the-minute alerts. We also have an Instagram page that you know, is probably more up-to-date on everything, because, you know, we try not to spam you when it comes to our newsletter.
We try to make sure we’re only sending stuff maybe once, twice a week, tops. Whereas on Instagram we’re posting two, three times a day. So, you know, that’s really where you get some of the most up-to-date info.
Gilliland: Are you going into the government offices? Are you the guy who does that?
Kefalas: Yes, yeah.
Gilliland: OK. Good job.
Kefalas: Thank you.
Akina: Freddie, careful.
Fred Noa: Aloha, I’m Freddie Noa. I am in real estate investments and development. My company is Blue Rock Partners and Terra Massa Capital.
I want to thank all of you for coming, and thank you guys. You know, these are great initiatives and all these things we’re talking about here, they’re critically important, they’re challenges.
But this stuff that we’re talking about, that reduces the time to permitting and significantly drops the cost of development, which allows us to do relevant projects that make a difference in our communities. This isn’t “Jack, shut the door,” if we can’t get legislation.
So, my encouragement is come along. I’m also on the board here, come along with us. Join the movement. Not only are you in the offices and building arguments that impact legislation, but it takes a fortune.
So, we need capital, you guys. Come, give whatever you can. Just come alongside us. Let’s invest together to make a difference, to impact legislation. It’s critically important. There are no free lunches. Thank you.
Akina: Thank you, Freddie. We really appreciate that. And Freddie speaks from the heart. He’s put his money where his mouth is, actually. He’s one of many people who are making it possible for us to have a team, for us to be able to do the work, and we would love to have you as partners.
Come on up here. Ma’am, we’d love to let you use the microphone. Sir, come on up here.
Earl (no last name available): My name is Earl. I worked in the County Planning Department for 33 years; Kona side, Hilo side. My career ended just as EPIC, the online process, started. I only know the permitting system when it was on paper, as a paper application.
But some of the problems I saw was — maybe it transfers over now — but, you know, designers putting up cover sheets. You got to pay for that. You don’t need a frickin’ cover sheet that looks pretty; rip that off.
Second sheet, put the damn site plan on the top sheet, if you want to save time.
Third, get the correct TMK number. I’ve seen that, wrong TMK number. Yes, wrong TMK.
Guy comes in, local guy. “Hey, you know the problem with this plot plan? It’s not your land. Your designer put the wrong plot plan for another project, and you pay for it.” That’s private sector, ain’t it, guys?
Their building clerks, senior building clerks, they’re all retired. How come there’s so many complaints about the building permit process? “Earl, you see that stack over there? Those are issued and approved plans with issued and approved building permit numbers.”
The licensed contractor didn’t pick ’em up because they’re so busy, they’re overbooked. It’s a good time to make money, and they’re overbooked. They got too much work to do, so they leave them in the corner until they’re ready to pick them up, and then they blame the county.
Hey, that sounds familiar? So, that’s the other side of the story.
Akina: Thank you, thank you very much.
Who else has something to share? Come on up here. I’m sure learning a lot.
Ikaika Rodenhurst: How’s it? For those of you that don’t know me, my name’s Ikaika Rodenhurst. I’m a licensed civil engineer, former director of public works for the county from 2020 to 2022, and current candidate for County Council District 5.
So, I’ve seen how this permitting process works. I’ve been in that office. I appreciate the information you guys share. In fact, some of this information I saw years ago and some of the things that we were trying to implement at public works.
Mahalo to Earl for that, because there is both two sides, actually three sides, right? There’s that side, this side, and the truth, right?
So, some of that happens. I’ve seen that before. I’ve seen people that are stoked by how strict the process is because it saved them from having something bad happen to their dream. Because that’s what a permit is, right?
It’s someone’s hopes and dreams. It’s their future. It’s their life. It’s their retirement that they’re putting forward in the community for their next generation, or for their reward for all the hard work they put in their life. They’re living here, and this is what they want to do with it. So, it’s not just a piece of paper.
But I understand what we have here today, and I really appreciate all the information. And there’s a lot of things we can do to make this better. I’m all for this. There’s a couple other things I would like to see.
Some things like, you were talking about reducing the workload. Let’s get federal and state plans out of the system. Why are we looking at that? Some of the folks don’t need to have that reviewed by the county.
They have engineers, they have designers that are in the work that’s already managed by those state agencies or federal agencies. Let them handle it. Don’t put the county that’s already overburdened with more stuff.
Same with all these other ones. I really appreciate the information. It’s stuff that I already was working on when I was director, stuff I want to work on if elected. If I’m not elected, I’m still going to be fighting for it because I live in Puna. You want to talk unpermitted structures? I live in Puna.
[laughter]
I’m all for it. I appreciate it. Appreciate everyone. If anyone has any questions, I’m around.
Akina: Mahalo, Ikaika. Anyone else? This is great.
Sher Wilson: Over here.
Akina: Come on up, we want to hear you. Go ahead and take the mic up. Aloha to you. Tell us who you are.
Wilson: I used to do a radio show on the mainland where I didn’t have to see people. I’m trying to look at people and talk, it’s a much more difficult thing. I should just turn away.
[laughter]
Akina: You’re doing great.
Wilson: My name is Sher. Mike, I did talk to you quite a bit, Joe, when we were sitting at the table there. One of the things that is most important to me is the unpermitted structure of living in Lower Puna because there are so many of them.
That grandfathering, I understood back in 2006, there was a program already in place that fell by the wayside. If that’s going to happen again, and tying that in with my love of tiny homes and alternative waste systems.
That could somehow tie in with fast tracks, rewinding, no permit necessary, composting toilets, and alternative rainwater systems as opposed to drilling your solid blue lava to produce septic tanks and things like that.
That would make it so, so many more people could live freely and not be afraid of getting caught doing something they shouldn’t. I think that would be a good one. Living on lava.
Akina: Terrific.
Kefalas: That’s a great idea.
Wilson: Thank you.
Kent: I don’t know if everyone kind of knows how we do things at Grassroot, but basically we have 45,000 people on our newsletter list that read our material and are welcome.
And we occasionally drive those thousands of people to activism. If you’re wondering, “What’s going to be done after this?” There’s going to be a lot done, but you’ve got to subscribe to the newsletter first.
Ok, here’s Daniel. Go ahead.
Daniel Bona: I’ve been doing building permits for Hawaii County for 32 years. I just want to bring up a real bad issue is when they instituted EPIC, which was a great idea and is progress.
At the same day, the same day as instituting EPIC, the County canceled 40,000 building permits. Building permits that the County approved. Then they wonder why is this such a glut? Because they made all the people reapply.
Certainly, they’ve got 40,000 of permits they already did, but they want them to resubmit at the same time as everything else. This comes down to the fact that one portal, like somebody was saying right now, there’s only one portal to update anything in EPIC.
Even the preapproved houses are taking what, two months, three months for the clerk to even notice they’re in EPIC. It’s supposed to be a fast process because there’s one front door.
Whether it’s a toilet or an office building, or a solar permit, it goes in the same front door, and they’re backed up for, at one point, six months. You submit something in EPIC, and six months later, they say, “Well, we’ve accepted your plans.”
Part of that’s because they rejected 40,000 building permits back when they first started. The problem we’re having now is all these people are finding out their permits were canceled. They’re calling for building inspections, or they’re trying to sell the house, or they call for a final. The County then says, “Oh. Your permits expired. You got to reapply.”
People are calling me every day, “How do I apply for my permit that I already have?” Well, you’re screwed, because you’ve got post-and-pier foundation, you’ve got four-foot on center trusses with purlins, and no plywood, and the County said, “Well, we just have to reapply.”
Yes. You have to tear off your roof, you have to redo your foundation. These houses were approved by the County. Now, they’re telling them, “Well, we expired you, so now you have to re-permit with today’s present code.” That’s the problem.
They’re not even letting people build their houses that they actually permitted. They’re making them tear them down because they can’t be permitted now, and the County approved them for a permit. So, how are they going to approve people who built without a clue, without the permit?
The main thing is there needs to be separate portals. There needs to be a portal and EPIC for solar. There needs to be a portal and EPIC for household remodels. There has to be something for replacing a water heater that doesn’t go into a new hospital and an apartment building.
They’re all in a stack, all in the same order, and that’s not the way to get things done quickly.
Akina: Very good.
Bona: Thank you.
Akina: Daniel, thank you. Very good comment. I appreciate that.
Gilliland: It’s also a problem with it getting out the other end. I’ve been waiting a month for a platform.
Akina: How about that?
Kent: There was a gentleman in Hawaii County, Shahzaad Ausman, who was in that exact situation, Dave, that you mentioned. It was in the papers.
Gilliland: It took a year to get the permit.
Kent: I’m sure you all have heard of it. And, you know, the day before his permit was canceled by the EPIC system, along with 40,000 other people, as you mentioned. To me, that sounds like someone might put a class-action lawsuit together to correct that problem.
We just need to find out who all those people are.
Kefalas: A lot of those people don’t even know.
Akina: We’ll be interviewing Mr. Ausman tomorrow, and you’ll hear his story as we circulate it.
But the shocking thing is that there are so many people who don’t yet know, as Daniel pointed out, that they lack this permit. And they’re not gonna know until they’ve got a real estate transaction or they’ve got something that they need to do, and time is of the essence. This is, hopefully, we’re not going to ultimately have an “EPIC” failure.
Speaker 9: We already have.
Akina: Well, this has been wonderful hearing from you. Any last one or two individuals before we close the mic? Come on up.
Bob Pelletier: Excuse me. My name is Bob. I’m an electrical contractor, and they have building permits that include electrical, plumbing, and all that. And they have sometimes, just electrical permits and just plumbing permits.
And most electrical permits where you’re rewiring the house or changing the meter, doesn’t require drawings. So you’ll apply for it, you’ll get your initial uptake approved, but then you have to wait for the plan reviews on permits with no plans. I mean, it was through the process that they just, once you do the initial uptake, everything is correct, they can issue the permit.
And one other thing is — this is more of a state thing — but they accepted a code that has nothing to do with building in Hawaii. You have to build for snow loads and all that. That’s ridiculous, that needs to be changed, anyway.
Akina Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. Wonderful. Well, we really appreciate what you’re sharing.
And come on up, sir, we’ll let you close it up.
Speaker 10: You hit the nail on the head. I get the impression that the building code is more about stopping building materials than it is about safety in Hawaii.
I had a friend that was in a building show on the mainland, and he said the Simpson Hospitality Suite, he used the word Xanadu. So, these things are lavish hospitality suites, and they’re selling their products to the people that are drawing the code.
Never use one mold when five will do it. And that’s what we have. I looked at the guy next door, the stuff they have. There’s like, on a porch, they had these tie-downs that cost like $50 a piece on each post, and he had like two or three of them. I mean, this is nuts.
And now, the sheeting on the roof, because they had 10 feet of snow in California, or a hurricane someplace, but it’s just nuts.
Akina: Thank you.
Kent: Thank you.
Akina: Thank you so much. Well, everybody, I really appreciate your spending time with us. Oh, one last one. We’re going to fit you in, come on up.
But as the gentleman is coming up, I just wanted to remind you that we would love to get your feedback. If you fill out a card, you can take a snapshot of that, and it’s online, or we have some paper cards for you.
Love to hear what you thought about today, as well as would love to invite you to become a partner of the Grassroot Institute. So, just fill something out and turn it in. And last comment.
Speaker 11: Aloha.
Akina: Aloha.
Aloha, born and raised on the island, experienced in business. I do business in China, Japan, and Sweden, and five other states. And home here, being born and raised here, and if you trace the genealogy back pretty far, it’s the most difficult place to do business. The worst.
The thing is, is that not class action, should be a mass action. What we got to do is really put a pilot program together through an executive order, and literally privatize the Planning and Permitting Department. Take it out of the hands of the county.
Speaker 10: I agree.
Speaker 11: The push that has been done there like the state ACA and the Hawaii Community Development Authority — which I know they’re going to open up one now in Maui because of Lahaina.
My family lost eight houses and two businesses. My fellow there is also losing friends. I think here, most of the things, even when I build, I ask for forgiveness, not permission. But my ideal picture, building inspections, everything and to pass it on to them.
The part that comes up they said, “Yeah, I know where you came from,” but back then never have too much contractors and everybody, plenty of work, but we’re stuck. Where they kind of stuck there.
The things that we need to do is we need to privatize it, small government. You know, and the part that it can be done. The housing executive order went through. I wrote that thing three and a half years ago. I sent it to [Hawai‘i Mayor] Mitch [Roth]. The problem he did was give it to [Gov.] Josh Green, who put it in the state level.
The state and county levels, because the county is the one who manages things. But the misappropriation, management and yeah, pretty much those things, the politics. …
You know, I build in other places, but it’s not as bad as here.
But I do remember back in the ’90s, one of the things that I’ll share this in public, they talked about, you know, the fancy paper, the first page. What I did in the past back in the ’90s — I wasn’t a contractor back then … And there were homeowner builders who came in as a manager with the project and I walked in and walked out with the plan stamped.
And the reason, how I did it is because really on the first page of the flat plan, I had the architect, literally take position with the engineers and drew two squares where signatures could be done by the engineers, one block.
The second block was all the utility companies. Every utility company has an engineer and I had all of them sign off, and we went over the page before I went in to get the plan stamped. I had all the permits I had already done before going in. And it never carried on because there was a niche that I saw that I created and I built a line.
But the part that comes down, and I think that the real big push is, we’ve got to do it through executive orders. And Mitch not going do ‘em. I already talked to Mitch about this. He already screwed up when I gave him the emergency housing proclamation plan and he gave it to Josh. That was the wrong thing he did.
But I told him, you know. I said, “You know, you need a lot of money. More money than most people but yet, you not going get my vote. Kimo [Alameda] get my vote.” The big difference is that because the county license is doing the housing, developing and Section 8 housing. We don’t need more Section 8, like Susan Kunz, and I told her. She’s getting $9 million more every year from our taxpayers money, our property tax money.
But yet, we don’t need Section 8. We need Section 9 and Section 13. You know, things that is not even created in policy yet. All I told them Section 9 is just copy and paste Section 8. Take the 8, change it to a 9, go for the AMIs and modify it from 140 to 280.
Akina: There you go.
Speaker 11: Those are the people that we have to protect because these are the ones who pay their taxes and that alone, we shouldn’t even be paying taxes. You know, Hawaii loans get bailed out by U.S., you know, every year before, Dan Inouye, $9 billion a year. Always getting bailed out. The thing is that, you know, what have you done, it’s cutting taxes. Property taxes is getting worse. It’s going to hit about $1 billion in the next five years.
Akina: Well, you know, we love to cut taxes. That was our big thing this year.
Speaker 11: You want to run for governor then, cut taxes.
Akina: We could go a lot deeper on this, but thank you so much. Give it up. Thank you.
Speaker 11: You’re welcome.
Akina: Everybody, there’s more to say but we’ve got to honor the time today. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it and we’ll come over and chat with you over there. Aloha.
