03-14-2015, 02:19 PM
Kalakoa,
Yes - That blind eye may indeed be the Counties way of providing flexibility. It also extends into land use regulations also, which is extremely unusual. Unpermitted builds exist across the nation to some degree or another in given areas but unpermitted land use situations are typically frowned upon and not usually ignored. That is fairly unique to this area.
The county might be able to utilize land use regulations to create an exemption for owner builder permits on SF structures in this area while mandating contractor build sf structures not to be exempt from the permit process unless the owner waves the protection.
Unfortunately the State left it up to the individual counties to either adopt or not adopt building codes but if they adopted them, they were instructed to make all builds subject to the permit process. In order to untie the Counties hands, the State would need to enter an optional exemption for this region. That being said, I know they use the land use regulations to exempt given agricultural structures from the permit process.
We'd probably need to petition the State to restructure that portion of the State law to untie the Counties hands for this region. That's the culprit behind the inflexible codes applied to this region. I'd have to dig back through the State of Hawaii revised statutes to cite the exact HRS that's the "elephant in the room".
Yes - That blind eye may indeed be the Counties way of providing flexibility. It also extends into land use regulations also, which is extremely unusual. Unpermitted builds exist across the nation to some degree or another in given areas but unpermitted land use situations are typically frowned upon and not usually ignored. That is fairly unique to this area.
The county might be able to utilize land use regulations to create an exemption for owner builder permits on SF structures in this area while mandating contractor build sf structures not to be exempt from the permit process unless the owner waves the protection.
Unfortunately the State left it up to the individual counties to either adopt or not adopt building codes but if they adopted them, they were instructed to make all builds subject to the permit process. In order to untie the Counties hands, the State would need to enter an optional exemption for this region. That being said, I know they use the land use regulations to exempt given agricultural structures from the permit process.
We'd probably need to petition the State to restructure that portion of the State law to untie the Counties hands for this region. That's the culprit behind the inflexible codes applied to this region. I'd have to dig back through the State of Hawaii revised statutes to cite the exact HRS that's the "elephant in the room".