AI Frontier Institute

Relating To Permitting.

View primary source →

Hawaii H.B. 1968 H.D. 1 (33rd Legislature, 2026) directs the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT) to develop an AI-assisted pre-compliance intake pilot platform for permitting, in collaboration with a county selected by the department. The bill is grounded in findings from the SPEED (Simplifying Permitting for Enhanced Economic Development) task force, established under Act 133, Session Laws of Hawaii 2025, whose December 2025 final report identified incomplete submissions, misrouted applications, and poor-quality plans as major sources of permitting delays. Under Section 2, the pilot platform must be limited to single-family home permitting intake and must: screen applications for completeness, missing documentation, and inconsistencies; enforce required fields at intake; validate parcel and zoning information; route applications concurrently to all relevant county agencies; and provide applicant-facing chat and FAQ guidance. Critically, Section 2(a)(8) requires that automation enhance rather than replace human service, preserving in-person and phone support. Section 2(b) requires DBEDT to develop a policy or metric to measure the platform's success and assess suitability for statewide adoption. Section 3 appropriates general revenues for fiscal year 2026-2027 for this purpose, conditioned on the selected county providing matching funds. The act's effective date is listed as July 1, 3000, indicating it has not yet been finalized for enactment.

← Back to the tracker