buildig with permit vs no permit

[tikicarver]

I planning on building a house on a lot I own that is already  developed with a little cabin on it ( that is permited)

I debating the idea to build without getting permits to save time and money. vs going the permit route.

Mostly it is a time issue, since I hear it currently takes about 9 months to get plans approved once submitted.
then there also there seems to be a hard time getting contractors lined up or to even show up for the other stuff.

For example, you could have your slab ready to pour pretty quicky,( on my garage the guys had the forms, gravel and rebar done in 3 days)  but for a house you have to wait for the elctrical and plumbing to be installed and inspected before you can get the slab inpsection and poured
my concrete guy said he is always waiting to pour becasue he has to wait for that stuff to be done.  He actually did my entire slab job in 2 weeks between waiting for other job inspections to get done.  Would have been 1 week, but we had to wait to get a concrete truck...

I would build the house to code. So I'm thinkning the only real issue would be if somehow the county found out I have a house on the property that is unpermited... Anyone know what the fines or penalties are for that?

[humble pi]

9 months? I hope not. I have been hearing of much shorter approval periods, like 3 to 6 months, and less for the pre-approved plans.

Your concrete example sounds correct though. It really is a lot to schedule. And one flakey person can grind things to a halt. Easier to have fewer people involved. That is why people pay more money for a general contractor.

I thought about going unpermitted (or semi-permitted).
For me, home is the one place you have a right to be.

[kalakoa]

When the County "found out" about my unpermitted house ... they assessed a value and started taxing it.

[tikicarver]

When the County "found out" about my unpermitted house ... they assessed a value and started taxing it.

did you find out how they found out about your house?
can it be seen from the road?

---

9 months?  I hope not.  I have been hearing of much shorter approval periods, like 3 to 6 months, and less for the pre-approved plans. 

Your concrete example sounds correct though.  It really is a lot to schedule.  And one flakey person can grind things to a halt.  Easier to have fewer people involved.  That is why people pay more money for a general contractor. 

I thought about going unpermitted (or semi-permitted). 
For me, home is the one place you have a right to be.

here is the listing of times for variuos permits
looks like they got a lot better than a year ago.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.hawaiicounty.gov/home/showdocument?id=306906&t=638348597509571699

keep in mind, if you make any changes from the pre-approved plans, those have to be reviewed.
But should not be a big deal.
example, I know one guy that bought a pre-packaged plan from HPM,,  he chnaged all the walls to 9 ft and added a much bigger lanai.  He said as long as you don't move any walls, they really didn't care much...

[randomq]

I sometimes wish I had built permitted when I see what homes sell for these days... But I couldn't have afforded it, so the decision was easy.

I don't have a mortgage or homeowners insurance. But if my home gets blown over in a storm or burns down, I can rebuild it for less than the premiums and deductible I would have payed all these years. Everything has been cheaper (catchment, solar, wiring, plumbing) because I can do it myself.

If someone slips and falls on my property and sues me, though, I'm not covered. So I keep a puka open out back, and big rock by the driveway.

[kalakoa]

County takes aerial photos and feeds them into Pictometry ($1M/year license) which calculates square footage and height.

They showed me the pictures. My tax dollars at work.

When I told them that part of my "square footage" was actually a tarp, they offered to "re-evaluate" my eligibility for the homeowner property tax rate.

[tikicarver]

9 months?  I hope not.  I have been hearing of much shorter approval periods, like 3 to 6 months, and less for the pre-approved plans. 

Your concrete example sounds correct though.  It really is a lot to schedule.  And one flakey person can grind things to a halt.  Easier to have fewer people involved.  That is why people pay more money for a general contractor. 

I thought about going unpermitted (or semi-permitted). 
For me, home is the one place you have a right to be.

So I looked at my records.  It took 7 1/2 months to get the permit from the day I bought the plans from Argus
The dates are below..

You can see it took awhile before   Argus's drafter even started on my plans. Then when I got the 1st draft
I saw he did not follow any of the notes I gave to Argus on what I wanted. For example, on the order form I said 9 ft walls
Argus put that on the sheet, but the drafter did not do it.
 So I had to send in notes of the changes needed. That took more time.
so 4 months and 1 week from time I paid for the plans until they were submitted to the Building Dept. I was expecting faster time with a "pre-approved" drawing...

then the next slowup was the county electrical guy would not sign off the permit, he kept saying the code said I had to install electrical.
He was wrong, but it took 4 weeks to get that straighten out. sending notes in EPIC did nothing. I had to go in person to the permit office.
( might have been faster, but I could only get over to the  BI once a month)
 so that is why I say it took 8 month...I'm counting from the day I paid for the plans...until I got the permit in hand....

1/4/23   bought plans from Argus
3/16/23  recieved drasft plans
4/6/23   recieved updated plans
5/4/23   recieved final architect signed plans
5/12/23 permit packet sent in
6/5/23  Land Use review complete
6/30/23 Building Plan Review complete
8/19/23  permit issued

[tikicarver]

County takes aerial photos and feeds them into Pictometry ($1M/year license) which calculates square footage and height.

They showed me the pictures. My tax dollars at work.

When I told them that part of my "square footage" was actually a tarp, they offered to "re-evaluate" my eligibility for the homeowner property tax rate.

I saw a plane flying over Puna area a few months ago, it was doing a grid pattern.  I looked it up on Flightaware and you could planely see it was doing some kind of mapping. maybe I need one of those big camo tarps and build the hosue under it...like how they hid the aircraft factories in WWII..lol

---

found their website

those photos are like spy satillite stuff...

https://www.eagleview.com/product/eaglev...pictometry&utm_campaign=SEM_Corporate_Brand_Government_Pictometry&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=1741268270&hsa_cam=13176507064&hsa_grp=125052606880&hsa_ad=626609436466&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-338558113394&hsa_kw=pictometry&hsa_mt=e&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5ea1BhC6ARIsAEOG5pzdXllwC3bQ_dHvoGJ1oc5qniTwOynhfXL7uD6xoL5Jg6mJ9bcgpJoaAte2EALw_wcB

[punikahakaiferret]

Reading the last comments on this thread about permitting, and the one about property taxes and inflation leads me to this conclusion:

They are tied together.

Property taxes are increasing to help pay for this new Big Brother hi-res surveillance shown in the link; to seek out unpermitted structures and either have them destroyed (if unable to be brought into compliance) or taxed accordingly once the miscreants are found, inspected, fined, punished accordingly, and brought into compliance.

It used to be one could build unpermitted on a big property (such as many in Puna), as long as one stayed out of eyesight of nosy prying neighbors. I think the days of solely "complaint-driven" code inspections and assessments are numbered, though still will be handled accordingly, in favor of this new technology.

There will always be a**hole neighbors, trust me. Of this I am certain. But I am just as certain that yes, Big Brother is watching.

[randomq]

Something something safety, something something end homelessness. $500,000 please.