Unpermitted structures in Puna District (Hawaiian Acres, Leilani Estates: loan, house, buyers)

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

IMHO, just stay away from the whole mess if you can. Don't buy a house without a permit, don't build one without a permit.

Now that makes total sense......

[mikereilly]

We bought our cottage unpermitted - and then spent a lot of money getting it permitted. It probably cost about as much as building new, but the design was probably better than we would have thought up. That was back in 2012-2014 and I think the building codes have tightened up even more since then.

Unpermitted structures aren't policed (currently) very strictly. On my street, there are I think 4 permitted houses and 6 unpermitted.

[mikereilly]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

From what I've heard, they're now using some sort of satellite imagery (not Google from what I heard, but don't know the program they did use) to locate un-permitted structures along the Hamakua Coast. At least, that's the only area I know of at the moment but what I know is quite limited. Several folks from that area have contacted me about doing 'as built' permits for them, but I don't do those anymore. With the new building codes, the chances of their structures fitting within the new codes is about nil and the remedial work necessary to make them legal is more than I want to deal with. And I'm only drawing the blueprints, not actually doing the renovations.

They may also be looking for un-permitted structures in the Puna area and those folks would be looking for draftspeople/architects/engineers in that area to fix their problem.

The previous structures were (more or less) built to the Uniform Building Code (as revised by Hawaii County). Now the code is the 2006 International Building Code (as revised by Hawaii County). So there's a lot of changes in the new IBC code that structures built to the old UBC code won't cover. Hard to change stuff such as larger foundations and braced walls.

We did ours under the 2006 IBC and the biggest change was to add sheer walls to the corners (post & pier construction). The most costly was re-doing the electric since it requires a contractor and we had to open up the walls and then re-do the gyproc. We were lucky, though and the place was quite well built to begin with.

[hotzcatz]

Yup, there's a lot of un-permitted structures out there. Because of the sheer volume, it will probably take awhile for the Building Department to get around to all of them, but they seem to be starting to work on it.

What I find surprising is that the Tax Office knows about most of them and taxes them, so other than not having to get a permit, there's no real savings in building an un-permitted structure. At least, when most of them were built, the codes weren't so bad so building to code wasn't much more expensive than not. To save a couple hundred dollars then, they've left a huge mess that is gonna cost tens of thousands (or more) to clean up now.

[hapci534]

Please correct me if I'm wrong: the purpose of permitting is to make sure people's dwellings can cope with any challenge the environment imposes.

One of the main elements in Puna is flowing lava. The only way for a building to cope with a lava flow is to remain dismountable and movable after installation.

I emailed every single major house kit retailer on the island, "Do you offer a kit for a family house that can be folded back up or disassembled for truck transport in case the lava flows its way?" Most never replied, which stands for "nope", I presume. The only one who did reply, answered the equivalent of "we don't have any. You might have a hard time permitting a house that can be taken down in a panelized system."

I can buy such a movable panel house for ~$10K from a steel company in Asia. Looks like any normal house. Is that saner to do or to spend 10x as much on a non-transportable wood house kit which will burn like hay from lava? What would be the smart way to play this challenge?

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by hapci534

Please correct me if I'm wrong: the purpose of permitting is to make sure people's dwellings can cope with any challenge the environment imposes...

You're wrong. Homes are not required to be avalanche, mudslide, hurricane, tornado or lava flow proof, nor could they be without excessive cost.

[leilaniguy]

The best reason to get permitted is you qualify for fire insurance, the only thing you can do about lava.

[hapci534]

Originally Posted by leilaniguy

The best reason to get permitted is you qualify for fire insurance, the only thing you can do about lava.

We move other belongings to safety too, why not the house? Putting a (moveable) house on a truck and saving it seems a much better idea to me than just watching it burn each time.

[leilaniguy]

When you add up all you can take minus all you have to leave behind, it is a losing proposition. What you can take; just your stuff, your house. What you have to leave; land clearing work, fencing, concrete work, outbuildings, plantings, maybe your catchment or piped water. Septic system, big expense, big loss. Edited to also subtract the price of moving said house, new lot for said House, permits, delays, ya da ya da.

[hapci534]

Originally Posted by leilaniguy

When you add up all you can take minus all you have to leave behind, it is a losing proposition. What you can take; just your stuff, your house. What you have to leave; land clearing work, fencing, concrete work, outbuildings, plantings, maybe your catchment or piped water. Septic system, big expense, big loss. Edited to also subtract the price of moving said house, new lot for said House, permits, delays, ya da ya da.

Thought provoking points. As far as land clearing and plantings, the experience with Lava Tree Park suggests, the yard will come back, nature will not remain distressed looking forever. It might look different, perhaps more rugged, but just as lovely. Some of the big water catchment tanks appear to be portable, I heard people complaining about theirs being stolen? As far as septic system, a quick image search on "portable septic system" turns out photos of all sorts of such things. And my idea with moving the house is to bring it back to the exact same place a week later.

So yes, there are some "lava expenses", like a new fence (if the property had any to start with), redoing the house foundation, the cost of trucking and storing the house away somewhere for a week every time the lava comes through, perhaps every 50 years? (If the owner is one of the 3 people in Puna who didn't buy a big truck yet... joking :-) The price difference, how much cheaper an acre of land is in Puna, than elsewhere is 100 times this "lava expense", so it is more than covered, IMHO...