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Committee advances permit-deadline bill after extended debate on quality, capacity and a one-time review
Summary
Lawmakers advanced SB66 with an amended 'shot clock' approach that would allow a one-time review of complete building-permit submissions and stop/start the agency review clock for incomplete submittals. County planning officials warned that a fixed deadline alone will not fix systemic issues such as applicant quality and interagency reviews.
The House Committee on Water & Land voted to advance SB66 with amendments that add a time-limit mechanism for permitting reviews while preserving agency safeguards for incomplete submittals.
Donna Puna, Director of the Department of Planning and Permitting for the City and County of Honolulu, told the committee she “stand[s] in strong opposition of this bill” as written, saying a fixed deadline would not address the parts of the permit cycle that are outside county control. She said permit review time “goes through other agencies for review” and that “more than half the time, it's with the applicant addressing comments.” Puna told the committee that DPP has reduced its internal review times — “we have... shrunk down our review... to 2 weeks for residential, 2 months for commercial” — but that the overall process remains extended because applicants often must revise plans and respond to outside-agency comments.
Multiple construction-trade witnesses, including Cliff Laboy of the Ironworkers Stabilization Fund and individual speakers, urged changes to speed permitting but suggested piloting reforms first. Laboy recommended implementing new rules as a “pilot program” for one to two years to measure effects and refinements.
Representative questions focused on which parts of the process would be timed. Committee members pressed DPP on whether the applicant’s time to address comments should count against the agency deadline. Puna said the county could accept a model that does not count applicant correction time against its clock: “You could do that, and we're already below the 60 days,” and suggested tools such as improved plan quality, self-certification for some design professionals, conditional rejections for incomplete sets, and use of AI to assist applicants.
The chair’s amendment in decision making added a stop/start definition for the review clock: when an agency requests more information, the clock stops and restarts when a complete resubmittal arrives; the committee also added a one-time-review pathway for fully stamped complete plans where applicants accept agency comments and proceed, subject to inspection. The committee added a five-year sunset to the change to allow review and continued adjustment.
SB66 moved out of committee with the chair’s amendments; members debated home-rule and capacity concerns and several members recorded reservations during the vote.
