More than 40,000 open building permits, some dating back 40 years, will be declared null and void if permit holders don’t act soon, as the county continues its transition to an online permit system.
The county Department of Public Works granted an automatic 180-day extension to all permits that had expired by Sept. 7, meaning permit holders have until March 7 to complete the work and get it inspected or try for another extension.
Under the county building code adopted last year, permits issued to contractors expire three years after date of issuance and permits issued to owner-builders expire five years after date of issuance.
“We are enforcing the code requirements related to expiration of permits issued,” Public Works Director Ikaika Rodenhurst said last week. “This is to encourage builders within the county to complete their construction within the times outlined in the Hawaii County Code.”
Kailua-Kona architect John Hetherington has a hands-on perspective with the new requirements because he has a lot of clients who buy a home and find it needs upgrades to meet code requirements.
“People who have valid open permits who are literally weeks away from getting completed should ask for the 180-day extension that’s in the county code,” Hetherington said. “It’s not automatic but under reasonable circumstances, that’s doable.”
The county is expiring so-called “legacy permits” issued before the online system went live. Because inspectors must inspect to the code that was in effect when the permit was issued, updating the permits will also help inspection staff by focusing their inspections of new construction to the current and recent codes.
Rodenhurst said current building permits are easier to track now that the online system is active. The public and the department staff can readily access the permit status and information on the system, he said.
The $2.5 million software dubbed “EPIC,” short for Electronic Processing and Information Center, was five years in the making. The county took it live in July.
Mayor Mitch Roth, who had made streamlining the permit process one of his top seven campaign pledges in 2020, said Monday things are moving along, after several hiccups early on. Roth noted that the county had more permits go out in the months since EPIC went live in July than it had prior to the system going live.
The most recent problems came about not because of the permit tracking system but the notification system telling permit-holders their permits were ready, he said. The emails were “stuck in a loop,” he said, but meetings with the software vendor are fixing the problems.
“We’re actually making a lot of progress,” Roth said during an online interview on Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s ‘Spotlight Hawaii’ Facebook series. “I’m really hoping the next couple of months we’ll be caught up on our permits.”
Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.