HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The City of Honolulu is reporting progress on addressing its building permit backlog. One key part of that effort is for the Planning and Permissions Authority to finally phase out the software system it has been using for 26 years as it rolls out a new platform.
The company selected mainland-based company Clariti Community Development Software for its new permit management system at a cost of $5.6 million.
Permit applicants will be able to apply and pay online.
The department's electronic planning system, ProjectDox, will also be upgraded.
“The user will see an automatically calculated time so the DPP or applicant can clearly identify who is holding it and who is not,” said DPP Director Dawn Apna. states.
“Users will be able to download comments and markups to an Excel sheet to share with design experts before the review cycle ends.”
Although it will take 18 months to fully install, it will significantly speed up the process for both residential and commercial projects, Apna said.
“It's a very fast process, but our staff is working very intensively to build it, but yeah, it takes patience,” Apna said. “I think after 18 months you'll really see a change.”
Apna said commercial applications currently take about a year to review and residential applications six to nine months.
And time is money.
“Every day of delay costs a lot of money,” said Eric Crispin, vice president of Ohana Real Estate Investors.
“It's only going to get worse. It's getting progressively worse,” added home designer Jennifer Jackson. “So I'm hopeful that they're coming out now and saying these things.”
The DPP said it will continue to use artificial intelligence in permit reviews, which it began last year. Apna said this helped clear his backlog of 3,600 cases at the pre-screening stage.
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said, “It's also not easy to hire people at the expertise level. That's why the ability to embrace AI is so important to us and why we're here. I think so even more now,” he said.
“That's very encouraging,” Crispin added.
“I think what Dawn and the DPP staff are proposing is leveraging technology to address a lot of the questions and doubts that often come with the permitting process.”
The city is using Federal Financial Reconstruction Funds (FRF) to pay for the technology upgrades.
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