As cities across the country look for ways to accelerate housing development, the Honolulu Planning and Permits Department has debuted a new artificial intelligence tool to reduce housing permit backlogs and shorten application review timelines.
Last week, the agency began using software called AI Studio from Canadian company Clariti. The software is designed to help city and county permitting departments identify where AI tools can reduce delays, improve application quality and streamline reviews.
Dawn Takeuchi Apna, director of the department, said the software alerts to potential problems in the code, identifies missing information and highlights potential problem areas for both applicants and examiners.
“It’s like TurboTax, where you give permission,” Apna said in an interview. “AI can be very helpful in guiding applicants to higher quality applications, resulting in shorter review cycles and faster turnaround times.”
Apna, who has led the city-county department for four years, said the city piloted the software in 2022 as part of a broader modernization effort. This included overhauling the traditional permitting platform and moving to electronic plan reviews following years of criticism over permitting delays. He said the technology has been able to reduce housing review times by about 60% by guiding applicants through code requirements before their plans reach staff reviewers.
According to the Census Bureau, Honolulu County receives about 20,000 building permit applications a year for all construction types, but only about 1,400 new private housing units are approved each year.
“Building permits themselves are very complex and subject to different regulations because they are always different and unique in scope,” Apna explained, adding that he has also spoken to other municipalities, such as the City of Los Angeles, who are also interested in the tool. “I think we were all working on the same challenges in terms of the quality of the plan and the backlog.”
Apna said the AI tool will also serve as a training tool for staff and highlight areas of concern in their plans.
“It highlights and flags some of the plans that we’re focused on, so when new staff come in, it’s a very clear and consistent way to move forward with the actual plans,” she said.
Although the department only uses the tool to assist with residential permits for single-family and duplex homes, Apna said Honolulu is preparing to expand to commercial permits this summer and may eventually require applicants to use the system. The initiative builds on implementation already in place in Honolulu, where the agency is using Clarity’s CivCheck AI plan review platform to reduce repetitive review cycles and improve Phase 1 approval rates.
