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Council committee reports DPP director-designate out for adoption after extended Q&A on permitting, staffing and enforcement
Summary
Don E. Takeuchi Opuna (director-designate) answered extended questions from Council members about permitting backlogs, hiring, technology upgrades, enforcement of fines and potential short-term rental phaseouts; the committee reported the confirmation resolution out for adoption with no objections.
The Honolulu City Council Committee on Zoning on Feb. 13 reported out for adoption the nomination of Don E. Takeuchi Opuna to serve as director of the Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) after the director-designate answered an extended round of questions from council members about department performance, staffing and enforcement.
Takeuchi Opuna opened by thanking the committee and noting his tenure since September 2022. He summarized departmental accomplishments in reducing the permitting prescreen backlog and shortening code-review turnaround times: “we tackled that with improvements in setting standard operating procedures, goals, quotas, and we brought that prescreen down from over six months … to currently, I believe it's less than two weeks,” he said. He said the department moved to fully electronic plan…
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