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"For all those with a passion for cooking at home. How would you feel if DOH inspectors were allowed to come into your home and inspect your kitchen to see if it meets the same standards applied to restaurants and if you fail the inspection you get a big fat fine? Well that's identical to what happens when a person who wants to build their own home with their own two hands is subjected to with permits and building codes. Chew on that a while."
Okay, but what if this home kitchen is the vector for a hepatitis outbreak? Or, more to the point, what if this theoretical hand-built home is a fire hazard or a rodent sanctuary? I do appreciate your insight into the legalities of this issue, but I think the community must attempt to impose some standards, even though they're often applied unfairly and arbitrarily. It's an unfortunate reality that a significant number of people have neither the skills, nor the decency to construct anything more than a squalid hovel. It's also a shame that much of Puna was conceived as some sort of a land fraud scheme and then left to it's own devices. My advice to birckl is to get your house finished -- by hook or by crook -- and have done with it. Life is too short to wrangle with the Building Department.
Un Mojado Sin Licencia
Un Mojado Sin Licencia
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Wao, just to say i enjoyed your thoughts and share many of them. building codes have evolved into a mammoth like much of our government. Under the claim of public safety they have bent to the electrical, plumbing, contractors unions. i am not saying some codes shouldn't be in place, but the resulting novel of codes is really a sad joke on the public. an example would be that a home owner builder cannot sell his property for a certain period of time after completion. or the new solar water if you live under a canopy of trees in the rain forest. I did go through the process and did find all the inspectors very polite and in some cases even helpful. but i had some issues i had to bend to that had no bearing on safety what so ever. but i found quite intriguing your thoughts on land use, especially since HA was conceived while still a territory, not even a state.
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what if this theoretical hand-built home is a fire hazard or a rodent sanctuary?
Less of a problem in low-density subdivisions where the next house is several hundred feet away. More stringent requirements should apply in the high-density "faux residential" subdivisions. One size does not fit all.
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Less of a problem ? I'm the one who called the fire department after I saw flames higher than the ohias shooting up from a shack 5 lots away after poor electrical work by the owner caused his shack to catch on fire. His driveway was too narrow to let the fire truck in. Luckily, this happened during a rainy month, and the firefighters were able contain the fire to only the shack. I shudder to think what could have happened during a drought.
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well lets pretend i do live in a shack. with a compost loo. and three kids. (we actually hired porta-potty before we had plumbing - but you get the picture). what then?? this makes it ok for someone to use the building departments as a threat against me? if that is not ok, and i don't think it is, than what do we do? how does one protect oneself from this kind of harassment? especially if we are saying that 3/4 of puna is potentially subject to the same blackmail. what is next? trolls have already mentioned the humane society, and the tax assessor. fortunately i have nothing to fear from C.P.S. ! there must be some sort of protection from this. some sort of consequence to deliberately causing people harm.
#10048;
#10048;
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flames higher than the ohias shooting up from a shack 5 lots away
Correct: "less" as in "relatively".
If that "unsafe electrical work" had been next door in Ainaloa, multiple houses would have been lost.
Nor are permits/inspections going to help: unsafe situations and unpermitted work can happen anywhere at any time.
This is why I think the permit system needs to be supplemented with a "safety check", using simple economic enforcement in the form of property tax discounts. Permits not "required", but best rate is for resident homeowner in a permitted home with current safety check, with additional reduction if all your immediate neighbors are also current. Maybe have the safety check expire sooner if unpermitted.
Consider downtown Pahoa, with its numerous unsafe code violations apparent to the casual observer -- but it's totally okay because they all have their permits, right? If property taxes went up 10x "pending safety review", I'll bet some of that gets fixed pretty quick.
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It's not just the contractors who are dictating the bizarre regulations, it's also the insurance companies. In any case, many jurisdictions make it possible for owners to do their own plumbing and electrical and it's inspected to make sure it's safe.
In this particular case, someone obviously made a complaint. Whether it was based on a real concern or just vindictiveness is certainly a good question, and honestly as a bystander and someone without a pony in the HA race, it appears as though the latter is likely the case. In fact, it could easily be sourced from one or two posters in this very thread.
The fact is that in many of the subdivisions without cc&r's, the majority of dwellings are not permitted. After going through the process of bringing one of the better built ones up to code and fully permitted myself, I'm very sympathetic with those who do not wish to go down that road. Lobbying by special interest groups has made this process prohibitively expensive for many (most?) in this economically underprivileged district.
birchl, you have my sympathies, and I hope this all works out well in the end. When you say you have permits, are those permits finaled? If so and there was no major unpermitted improvements made to your property, I would expect you should be fine. If not finaled, the County does have time limits in regulations for both starting, continuing and completing work. Now if only they had rules for themselves on approving plans submitted to them. On the plus side, they are reasonably good about scheduling inspections and the inspectors seem to be quite professional and meticulous.
I wonder if whoever made the complaint has a fully permitted dwelling? On my road in Eden Roc, probably only about 1 in 3 is permitted.
Just call me Mike
Me ka ha`aha`a,
Mike
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owners to do their own plumbing and electrical and it's inspected
Yes: if it's being inspected anyway, why also require the work to be performed by a licensed contractor?
as a bystander and someone without a pony in the HA race
Complaints should be weighted by proximity: next door neighbor should be taken far more seriously than someone miles away.
Lobbying by special interest groups has made this process prohibitively expensive
I believe this is exactly the point. Two obvious outcomes, each with a different "drain on the economy".
1. Everyone brings their project up to the current codes, creating an inventory of valuable real estate (which can be pledged against bond debt).
2. The non-compliant live in their illegal shacks anyway, but they can be summarily evicted (and, possibly, their property taken) whenever it's convenient.
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Lquade,
Thanks for the nod of appreciation. Yes, I also agree with you and Kalakoa that a minimum standard is acceptable and that's precisely how the whole idea of the building department began. It was from that premise that it was accepted by many communities long ago. This is something we can all agree on, that a minimum safety standard should be met by the private builder not engaging in the business of construction. The whole idea of building codes came about the coming together of Architects, Engineers and professional home builders in an effort to better the art of construction. These organizations were engaged in the professional aspect. In the beginning, it was the builders who adopted the codes published from these organizations making them a member of that professional organization. Later it evolved into municipalities adopting the codes and this is where the concept crossed the line and why for many years there was such a wide diversity of codes from one state to the next and even from county to county and city to city in some cases across the nation. Eventually all of these code organization were joined together under the International brand of codes.
These standards are fine and dandy for application in the profession of building but they cross the line when applied to the non Profession aspect of building for oneself. This would be liken to applying the established standards of professions to people practicing these arts for themselves at home and as we all know that would be completely inappropriate.
Since these codes are applied to even the common person building a home for themselves, the propensity to ignore the permitting process is increased and especially so in more rural settings. It's the lack of honoring the most basic of safety standards applicable to the self home builder that have in-fact lead to a less safe situation. I'm a firm believer in setting the two aspects of building apart from one another with regard to code standard divisions between self built verses professionally built.
Now if what I had expressed earlier with the land rights being transferred with the land and subject to change under subdivision were observed the opportunity to better meet or facilitate safety would be available to municipalities. Under such a standard practice a new subdivision could be approved where the latest of building codes could become applicable no matter if built by private home owner or a construction company. This insures more condensed subdivisions are protected by the latest advancements in the art. Such a system also subjects the contractors to the latest codes no matter where they build yet still affords the self builder the right to build to a minimum standard of safety within the older and typically larger parceled subdivisions. So we end up with land rights transferred with the land and the applicable standards of the code applied respectively to the subject parcel in question and in some cases where the subdivision was granted with the most recent of building codes applied not even a private home builder is then allowed to build to the minimal safety standards as that land right does not exist with that most modern planning applied to that granted subdivision.
This would substantially reduce the burdens placed on the big islands building department and promote a reasonable building standard amongst self builders and as Kalakoa has pointed out by adding an improvements tax reduction for following by the minimum safety standard then people would be even more inclined to follow by the applicable code. Another aspect is not recording the house plan as public record. That is technically private information that should not be made public and another aspect of another problem regarding privacies violations.
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Wao nahele kane: you make an excellent point regarding privacy of information. While I find a lot of the information on hawaiipropertytax.com to be quite useful in planning real estate transactions, I also wonder as to how appropriate it is to make all of this data available to the general public.
Just call me Mike
Me ka ha`aha`a,
Mike
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