More people are taking advantage of changes designed to streamline Honolulu's cumbersome building permit process, but builders still have to line up as early as 4 a.m. to get projects approved.

Chronic delays at the Department of Planning and Permitting persist despite efforts over the past two years to improve the system.

"People are realizing we can only take so many customers over the course of the day," said Henry Eng, director of the city department.

Rachel Tuiaki, who runs a Kailua rockwall landscaping company, arrived at 6 a.m. one day last week and waited all day before leaving without even having her plans reviewed.

"You lose a whole day's work sitting here," Tuiaki said.

So she returned to the Frank F. Fasi Municipal Building at 4:15 Wednesday morning, only to be the second person in line.

City officials have received some praise for setting up a separate line to let people pay for their permits and for creating an online building permit service for simple projects like solar-power systems, electrical meters and plumbing.

Of all the applications for these types of projects received by the department, 10.4 percent were filed online, up from 8.1 percent last year.

For more complex building projects, 20 percent of applications were filed online.

But large developers don't use the Web site or the online application process, said Karen Nakamura, CEO of the Building Industry Association-Hawai'i.

"I don't know anyone who uses it," Nakamura said. "It would be for smaller contractors or owner-builder permits."

Many contractors instead use third-party permit facilitators who have been certified by the city to speed up the process, Nakamura said.

'DAUNTING' PROCESS

Since the program began in 2005, the number of city-approved, third-party facilitators has grown to more than 20 and can be found on the city's Web site.

City officials could not immediately say how often third-party facilitators are used to get permits approved.

Bernie Paik-Apau, president of 'Anonui Builders, likes many of the city's changes but calls the overall task of getting permits approved "daunting."

"I appreciate all the work they are doing," Paik-Apau said. "They have so many laws they have to look up and they only have so many reviewers. But somehow the process has to be simplified."

Filling out a permit application online only eliminates the work of doing it by hand at the Department of Planning and Permitting, she said.

"You won't get an approval online," she said, after experiencing the process at Kapolei Hale. "The only way to get your building permit is to go down there. Then you get your number and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you spend hours watching them go from here to there typing out forms and filling out paperwork."

Eng said part of the problem comes from perennial staffing delays at the counters of the department's Kapolei and main offices, where the public meets the city workers who review their plans.

Since Eng took over in 2005, he's been faced with retirements and the loss of workers who have been lured by construction companies looking for white-collar workers who know their way around building plans.

In 2005, one employment figure jumped out at Eng as "an alarming statistic": Out of a then-workforce of 230 employees in the Department of Planning and Permitting, only 17 were under the age of 45.

Now the number of employees is up to 250, but there are still only six building permit clerks out of an authorized 12 positions to handle routine, residential permits.

UNFILLED POSITIONS

The commercial, industrial and apartment permit operation also has six examining engineers when it can have as many as 10.

The money exists to fill all of the permit clerk and examining engineer positions, Eng said, "but while we're working mightily to try to reduce the number of vacancies, we're also competing against a very tight labor market.

"We're working with human resources to aggressively fill those positions, because we need them," Eng said. "We're doing the best we can to stay afloat. If we had the people, sure we'd do better."

As Honolulu's once red-hot construction industry shows signs of slowing, the number of building permits has dropped from the 16,203 issued between July 2005 and June 2006 to the 15,679 that were issued from July 2006 to June 30.

Bruce Kimura of Kimura Custom Construction calls the permitting process "awful."

He showed up before 7 a.m. recently and got number 13. But he didn't sit down with a clerk until 2 p.m. Then the clerk could not find the building plans Kimura had submitted a month before.

"Maybe next time I'll try the online thing," Kimura said.

The Web site also can be used to monitor which number is being serviced in real time, Eng said, so people can leave and return as their number approaches.

Other contractors hire "routers" such as Wayne Mandapat, a retired Board of Water Supply employee, who lines up at 4 a.m. and navigates the permitting system for at least $200 per day.

"I more or less know how the process goes," Mandapat said, "but it takes so long."

For larger companies, Nakamura said, paying for third-party facilitators or hiring routers makes economic sense.

"It's actually very expensive to take a number and wait for hours for your number to be called and then you might not get your permit that same day," she said. "Hiring someone outside the process is still much faster."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.