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I am building in Orchid Land and have been working on my own plans. It has been a bit frustrating determining the actual requirements for submitting your own plans. (We used to be contractors in Virginia and built only houses we designed ourselves so we aren't exactly newbies in this respect. We worked in the engineeting field before we were contractors so we aren't unfamiliar with computing loads and other engineering design calculations.)
I still have a few questions - apparently there are ways to get your plans approved without an engineer/architect stamp based on size, usage, etc. Has anyone got plans permitted without an engineer's stamp?
As for getting the plans through the permitting process...I was told by the building department that it was taking about 3 months right now to get plans approved. That is unacceptable as I am ready to build now. I looked at 'expeditors' which cost between $600 and $5000 depending on how much they have to do and they trim it down to 1 to 1-1/2 months (still too long but I think that is the fastest it can happen from what I've have discovered so far). My question is: Has anyone walked plans through the system themselves? It doesn't seem that hard - taking them to the different agencies for approval before giving it to the building dept.
Any experiences would be appreciated.
Thanks
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First off, welcome, we are neighbors. I own a lot in Orchidland which I'm slowly improving. The only advice I have to give is to just try and give yourself more time than you think it will take. It is not worth the frustrations. All that I have personally heard is that "everything takes longer here than we were expecting".
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Hate to say it, but if you think pushing can make anything involving the county go faster your going to be miserable here.
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quote:
Originally posted by CO2
I was told by the building department that it was taking about 3 months right now to get plans approved. That is unacceptable as I am ready to build now.
Wow, only three months? Impressive.
May you live here long enough to get the joke...
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I agree with kalakoa. If they told you it would take three months it'll definitely take longer than that... Whats the rush?
If you are so certain about what you want to do why not get in and clear the lot, put in driveway, plant/landscape...the things you can do anyways while you are waiting for county approval.
Also, hate to repeat this but you'll hear it again. Slow down, calm down, you're on an island in the middle of the pacific now things happen slower here and it will affect virtually every aspect of life not just building plan approval.
Its cool you can plant some local foods like maia, kalo, olena, and ulu. They will all grow well in orchidland. Go to the beach you live in hawaii!
Soon your plans will be approved and you will have a thousand other issues : )
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Please let us know if you somehow are successful at improving the speed and how you did it. I still may end up building. I can't find hardly anything I want to buy on the market right now. Isn't Orchidland so beautiful?
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Not to burst your bubble, but "expediters" aren't going to be able to help you get your plans through the building department any faster. The new process for submitting plans is that you apply and drop off your plans with the building department. Then you go home and wait for three months or so. Then you either look online to see that your plans are ready or you go in to the building department and find out that they have been ready for a couple weeks but nobody bothered to let you know.
You no longer have to take plans from department to department to get approved. The State Health department comes to building to approve that part of the plans and the plans are carried by clerks to planning for approval by the building department. The bottleneck in the process is the building department's plan reviewers who must get some guilty pleasure out of seeing their stacks of unreviewed plans grow and grow and grow each week. I know the mayor must enjoy this as he is the one responsible for it.
Sit back, relax and welcome to Hawaii!
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Recently I became aware of a neighbor whose plans were actually approved and ready, except they needed to be entered into a computer. That took another month. If we actually had any reporters on this island, this would be an ongoing story getting coverage. It's been ongoing throughout the recession. During the boom, under the previous mayor, my entire house permit took all of 3 weeks, back when one had to walk the papers from one department to the next. Is the goal is to prolong the recession for as long as possible? If so, they're succeeding. Single biggest reason I didn't vote for Kenoi. We're stuck with him, so there is no reason to think any of this will ever improve.
Having built a house myself, If I had suddenly had a 3-4 month delay, I would have run out of money and had a house I couldn't live in. I think you have quite a lot of reasons to be frustrated. I don't buy the BS that this is just how it is on an island in the Pacific. No, it is incompetence and is taking 5-6 times longer than in 2007. It keeps people out of work, and keeps tax revenues down until everyone faces tax increases, vehicle fee increases, bus fare increases, etc as we are facing now.
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I ended up running a building dept back east and we turned around basic single family house plans with a stamp in 5 business days, something like 1200 a year during the boom
but I had massive stress and lived on coffee and diner food
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quote:
Originally posted by robguz
Having built a house myself, If I had suddenly had a 3-4 month delay, I would have run out of money and had a house I couldn't live in.
This.
...and for some reason it seems almost intentional.
