Unreasonable Construction Laws in Hawaii

[mdd7000]

All one has to do is drive around and look at the "houses" that somehow have passed the permitting over the years. I have never seen as many junk/dilapidated homes anywhere else in the country. We have looked at a number of relatively new homes and I am certainly not impressed with the quality.
I know that I could build better, myself.

[mikewj]

DavidM mentioned that an inspector waved the 'liability' flag. Here in California, most if not all local authorities have enacted law stating that the authority cannot be sued even though they collected fees and passed the construction as being safe. At least you can stil do the work yourself, but it is blatantly obvious that permits and inspections are revenue gathering devices only.

[EightFingers]

Hallelujia!!! I won't even get started on the d*** unions and the f****** lawyers [}]

I totally agree! I do all my own wiring and plumbing and have done so for 20 years. I pass all my inspections on the first round.

I was getting ready to read a response of "I don't give a f*** how you do it on the mainland, this is Hawaii". Very refreshing not to see that here.

So can anyone start a petition to change the law?

[nanasohana]

What would it take to change this?

[Wao nahele kane]

EightFingers,
You can indeed, just determine what direction you want to take.
You can go through the initiative process and get the required signatures to get it before the people for a vote or you put it in the hands of the state legislature through a bill and lobby for it.




E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.

[Wao nahele kane]

If anyone there wants to be involved in something like that... (a new initiative or bill) I'm more than willing to help out however I can from over here in the Seattle area. I'll be moving back to Hawaii as soon as we get the house sold and its being listed this Thursday. The real estate agent thinks it will be sold in less than 90 days, so, hopefully all will work out well.

Bottom line... my support for a change in these laws is 180% stoked to get them changed ASAP.

E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.

[Wao nahele kane]

The next thing I would like to see changed is the leased lands... places like Banyon Drive in Hilo are a victim of the leasing practices. The whole thing about leasing needs to be kicked in the b*** quick as it's really tearing up the economy in more ways than one.
Anyhow... that's a whole new topic in itself.

E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.

[JWFITZ]

I think such an effort would have a lot of support for it as long as the effort was forward thinking and sincere. There is an opportunity to really makes some powerful forward strides on this issue, but it's a bit of a quagmire and more complicated than it may appear on the surface. There are a lot of vested interests comfortably feeding at the trough here, and it's families that bear the cost. There will be a lot of resistance to meaningful change.

It's been my experience that lawsuits are more effective than legislation. I'd throw in on that sort of strategy if we could find a unified vision.

[Rob Tucker]

A Federal lawsuit would be the most direct route and there are constitutional issues to depend on. Overturning the statues in court would be more practical than an initiative. Look what happened to the 2% Land Preservation Fund.

[JWFITZ]

I agree.