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Honolulu, HI, Cuts Review Times by 70% with CivCheck’s AI Plan Review Software
70%
faster residential plan review time
67%
fewer corrections per permit
55%
faster permit decisions
58%
fewer review cycles
With CivCheck, Clariti's guided AI plan review software, the City and County of Honolulu's Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) has reduced permit review cycles by 58%, corrections per permit by 67%, and time to permit decision by 55%, saving applicants 40.5 days on average compared to non-CivCheck applications.
The Challenge
Before implementing CivCheck, Honolulu faced significant permit backlogs driven by incomplete or non-compliant submissions. With limited staff and no centralized system to support consistent reviews, plan reviewers worked across stacks of code books and handwritten notes while managing a high volume of low-quality applications. Staff training was inconsistent, and without tools to guide applicants upfront, the same permits cycled through staff hands up to five times across intake and plan review. On average, applicants waited 73 days for a permit decision.
Honolulu's 3 Goals for Permitting Modernization
The city set three clear goals: speed up permit issuance, make the process easier for applicants to navigate, and equip staff with the tools to do their jobs effectively.
"Our main goal was to speed up permit issuance. The second goal was to make the permit process easier to navigate. And then lastly… equipping staff to succeed. I know that if I can give staff the tools and the capacity to do their job effectively, everything will work out."
Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, Director, Department of Planning and Permitting, City and County of Honolulu
The Solution: Guided AI Plan Review
To address the root cause of permit backlogs, Honolulu initially launched a five-month pilot before implementing the full CivCheck guided AI plan review platform.
Across 145 pre-screened applications, the pilot delivered a 70% reduction in residential plan review time and a 64% average reduction in total review time.
Now live with the full CivCheck solution, the city and county has seen improvements across every key permit processing metric.
| Metric | Without CivCheck | With CivCheck | Reduction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avg. plan review cycles | 3.4 | 1.4 | ↓ 58% |
| Avg. total corrections | 23.5 | 7.7 | ↓ 67% |
| Avg. days to permit decision | 73 days | 32.5 days | ↓ 55% |
| Avg. permit intake cycles | 1.5 | 1.0 | ↓ 32% |
Performance metrics are based on 19 CivCheck-processed residential permits (new construction, additions, and alterations) with completed plan review data, compared against 17 non-CivCheck projects with sufficient data for comparison. Q1 2026.
What Changed for Applicants
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| No upfront guidance on what a complete, compliant application required | AI flags missing information and non-compliant elements before submission |
| Gaps discovered mid-review, triggering multiple correction cycles | Issues resolved before the application enters the review queue |
| Waited an average of 73 days for a permit decision | Permit decisions reached in an average of 32.5 days |
| Applications returned at intake before reaching plan review | Applications pre-screened at intake, reducing back-and-forth with staff |
"Instead of just submitting plans into an AI machine, CivCheck guides the applicant, helping them understand what's missing or non-compliant, which cuts down the number of review cycles."
Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, Director, Department of Planning and Permitting, City and County of Honolulu
What Changed for Staff
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Staff responsible for identifying completeness and compliance gaps across every application | Guided AI permit intake checks for completeness and compliance before applications reach staff |
| No shared review logic — checks applied differently across reviewers | Standardized rule-based checks applied consistently across the team |
| Incomplete applications discovered mid-review, requiring correction cycles | Gaps and errors caught during prescreen, reducing rework |
| Applications cycled through staff hands up to five times across intake and plan review | Avg. permit intake cycles reduced to 1.0; avg. plan review cycles reduced from 3.4 to 1.4 per permit |
"The way that CivCheck has gone through this whole process with us, from a pilot where we can really see what this means, and then their engagement with our staff, even looking at our audit without us asking, it just really shows how much they put into this."
Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, Director, Department of Planning and Permitting, City and County of Honolulu