(TNS) — To address a months-long delay in issuing building permits, the City of Honolulu’s Planning and Permitting Department has announced new technology initiatives it hopes will improve the speed with which the city issues them to the public.
The city says these initiatives will use the latest, most innovative systems — including artificial intelligence — to provide automation, transparency and guidance to streamline the permitting process.
To illustrate these next-level improvements, DPP Director Dawn Takeuchi Apuna said that when Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration took office in 2021, her department was still using an outdated system of pneumatic tubes to transfer cash payments from one location to another within DPP office.
“We are far from pneumatic tubes, we will not suck anymore!” she said at a news conference Wednesday morning at Honolulu Hale.
To that effect, Takeuchi Apuna said DPP will move away from its POSSE licensing software system of the late 1990s and launch new software that meets “current industry standards” and “will put us in a leading position.”
The new system, CLARITI, is part of that change, after “months of research and consideration by our technical staff team,” she said.
She noted that CLARITI — led by Speridian Technologies — is an “all-in-one licensing platform.”
“The solution is a robust, flexible and simple permitting system, designed to simplify and expedite permit processing, inspections and enforcement,” she said. “With modern online customer portals, integrated land management tools, robust mobile applications, intuitive reporting and workflow features, the new solution will enable DPP to improve operational efficiency and service delivery.”
She noted that the system, which has been operational since February, is a $5.6 million project that is expected to be fully completed in 18 months or by the fall of 2025.
The money for the system comes from Honolulu’s receipt of $386 million in 2021 from the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (FRF), as part of the federal government’s $1.3 trillion US bailout package.
Another system — ProjectDox from Avolve Software, which launched in July — allows users to view, zoom, pan, rotate, measure, markup and redact documents and images, the city says.
“Over the next six months, major upgrades to the ProjectDox system will provide significant benefits to applicants, and will seamlessly integrate with the CLARITI permitting software system,” said Takeuchi Apuna. “In two phases, ProjectDox will move from on-premises to the cloud for faster processing and higher performance, and upgrade to deliver” significant features.
That system upgrade, also paid for with FRF money, cost $206,000, she said.
The third upgrade involves the DPP implementing CivCheck, which uses artificial intelligence-based software to audit construction plans, she said.
“The result is a faster, more accurate and more predictable experience,” said Takeuchi Apuna. “DPP’s pilot partnership with CivCheck focuses on residential permits for new construction, alterations and additions. CivCheck is an ongoing four-month pilot project with DPP, at no cost to the city.”
She asserted that the system will help applicants.
“CivCheck will help bridge the information gap between the DPP and applicants so that applicants fully understand what is expected in their plans, thereby increasing the quality of submissions and reducing the number of review cycles for fast, successful review and processing,” she said. . “This is a game changer for permit review.”
But other problems, including the DPP’s licensing backlog, remain.
During a special meeting of the city council’s Planning and Economy Committee in July, Takeuchi Apuna told the commission that her staff was able to reduce the backlog of 3,600 applications awaiting pre-screening by nearly 70 percent.
“We’re at about 1,100 today,” she said in July. “So it’s a big drop and I think the staff is working hard on it.”
On average, she said, the permit review process has gone from nearly 10 months — or nearly 300 days — to just about six months, or less than 200 days.
As of November 2022, the backlog for pre-screening building permit applications — to see if building plans meet the city’s filing requirements — has dropped from six months to about 2-1/2 months, she said last year.
But during Blangiardi’s fourth State of the City speech on March 14, the mayor asserted that the DPP’s previous backlog of pre-review applications no longer exists.
“A year ago I was standing here explaining how the DPP is using artificial intelligence to pre-screen applications and that the average waiting time before being screened has gone from an average of five months to an average of five weeks,” he said during his address. “Today it takes three days – and the backlog is completely eliminated.”
At a press conference on Wednesday, Takeuchi Apuna said the overall permit backlog in the DPP continues.
“Once we did the pre-review backlog and got rid of that, it changed,” she said. “In terms of numbers, I think we’re kind of stable, I think we’re kind of stable at 12 months for commercial and maybe six months for residential; I think that’s kind of stable.”
Still, she said “we’re working on it.”
“We believe that in a year, residential costs will decrease significantly, to two to four weeks for residential,” she added, “and for commercial, we hope to decrease that as well over the next few years.”
During questions from reporters, Takeuchi Apuna noted that technological upgrades — such as ProjectDox and artificial intelligence-based systems — will lead to “shorter turnaround times” for permit applicants.
“But overall, it’s an 18-month implementation for the CLARITI system,” she said. “I think within that time you will definitely see big improvements.”
Meanwhile, DPP’s staffing shortages for engineers, plan reviewers and other unfilled positions also persist.
“I think we’re hovering around (a) 25 percent (vacancy),” she said, but noted that her department has hired nearly 70 people in the past year. “But it’s very competitive to get engineers.”
She added that the city is looking to raise wages for some of those jobs, in part by “working with the unions” as well as drawing many of its new hires from the University of Hawaii’s engineering programs.
Jennifer Jackson, owner of Jen Lee Design, appeared at a press conference Wednesday to learn about the changes coming to DPP.
Jackson, who usually works on smaller residential and commercial building projects, said she had been frustrated by the years of delays she had personally experienced in dealing with the DPP’s building permit system, although she acknowledged they had “come a long way”.
“But I think they need to hire more people, which it sounds like they’re doing,” she said.
While DPP appears to be showing signs of improvement, Jackson said she has faced equally frustrating delays at other city agencies — particularly the Department of Facilities Maintenance’s Stormwater Quality Division, which signs its own permits for construction projects.
“All of a sudden there’s a huge backlog,” she said. “It used to take more than two weeks for them to turn around, but now it’s more than two months.”
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