Compared to the national average, it takes three times longer to obtain building permits in Hawaiʻi — which could add nearly $325,000 to the cost of a home. The result, state officials say, is a mass exodus of locals.
Gov. Josh Green latest year-long emergency proclamation, signed Monday, creates a working group to expedite housing and infrastructure developments by bypassing some specific permit and environmental reviews.
"We're taking a lot of the rules internal, so that we can be accountable as administration to deal with some of the red tape, to deal with some of the permitting challenges that we have in the universe here," Green said Monday. "We're streamlining development approvals."
The Build Beyond Barriers Working Group offers an alternative review process to projects that meet 12 criteria, like sure-fire financing, completed conceptual designs and preapprovals from various agencies.
"We feel it's very thorough, we started with looking at what did our housing agencies require for project approvals for developers who apply to them for any kind of housing project, and we built upon that," Chief Housing Officer Nani Medeiros said.
The group is made up of state and county representatives, as well as economic experts and environmental advocates.
They will begin meeting next month on an ad-hoc basis, Medeiros said, and they'll also consider which projects may go through a revised historic and cultural preservation review.
The group isn’t subject to Sunshine Laws, so their meetings will be private, and it's unclear what exactly will be publicly reported out of the meetings and when, though Green said they'll share who is applying and the group's ultimate action.
"We're going to err on the side of having less in the way of projects that would raise any concern," Green said. "It's also why we set some basic, very basic standards, like not building on conservation land."
Wayne Tanaka, executive director of the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, has a seat at the table but expressed hesitation that transparency laws and environmental reviews would be suspended.
"It's extremely far-reaching and broad, this sweeping proclamation," Tanaka said following Monday's announcement. "One thing that really concerns me is how it gives so much power to just a select few people to determine whether and what projects would be eligible for these sweeping exemptions."
As an environmental advocate, Tanaka said he feels "tokenized" within a group that "represents either folks with the governor's administration or development interests."
"The working group operates by majority vote, so having that one seat doesn't give me much confidence that we will have very much of an impact on decision-making," Tanaka said.
The working group has been six months in the making, with more than 200 stakeholders looped into the conversations throughout the state.
Medeiros's team has been tracking housing developments throughout the state, adding to it as new projects come to light. According to their Hawaiʻi Housing Pipeline overview, about 257,000 projects have been identified by the state. About 50,000 units are expected within the next 10 years.
Officials have often said Hawaiʻi needs 50,000 units by 2025 to meet current demands, and they hope the proclamation will accelerate the developments already in the works.
Not all of the housing in the pipeline will be in the lowest area median income brackets, but Green argues the waiving of regulations will increase housing in the long term, as housing is needed in a wide range.
"We have to build this housing because every year that we don't, or every year that we have so many additional requirements, you're talking about $200,000 or $300,000 extra for each unit," Green said. "As soon as we build up enough inventory, you will see housing prices drop significantly."
Green said "the real trick" will be doing this in a way that "changes the economics of housing completely, so that we actually shift our inventory to a space where now, because of the number of units, we actually can have affordable markets."
The working group will operate as applications come in. There isn't necessarily a portal, but Medeiros expects more experienced developers to apply, allowing them to submit applications "how they want to submit."
In the future, Medeiros said there may come a point to design a form to fit every project, but they are not at that point.
"What we will have available online on our website when it launches are examples of what a good submission to the working group (would be) when outlining your public input plan, your environmental impact plan..."
Read the proclamation below:
