As we continue with our messy but perfect move to Maui, the process may appear easy through your eyeglasses. However, our ibuprofen bottle ran empty, my cup of cold coffee developed a dried brown ring on the inside, and my pencil lead broke again. To cap off the waning afternoon, the Maui Planning Department had added one more kink and two more caveats to our ongoing building concerns. Hawaii building requirements deviate from WA state on a few levels. Of course, many submitted house plans in Maui indicate multi-housing, as the temptation to rent out rooms limits the departments’ patience. I get it. Maui is a vacation hot spot, and lucrative rental enterprises pop up, and that department keeps a lookout for specific indicators.
Yes, we incorporated a legal rental Ohana space into our plans to offset living costs. It’s required to add a firewall.
Yes, we added a lock-off style separate living space we labeled Family Living. We need to add a wall on the deck to separate the units.
Yes, our wet bar is labeled such, and we correctly identified the outdoor kitchen. We must label the sink 1.5 cubic feet max.
We penciled in ample room for family and friends into the plan, and the planning department Spidey senses alert. Modifications rattled on- communications peaked and dipped. Revise and submit was the banter until my eyes blurred and my numb typing fingers tingled.
Finally, it was time to print those hard-fought, bad boy plans, collate, and deliver the vast rolls and paperwork into their tiny Maui office. SUBMIT SEVEN FULL SETS, it read in full-on screaming caps. So, we did.
We sat at the planning department outdoor waiting area and smiled at each other for the time had arrived, the significant submission milestone. The clerk called us to the intake desk, turned her attention to our plethora of paperwork and rolls of plans. We threw out warm smiles and Alohas. She held a restrained, pleasant, but somewhat gritty tone, if you know what I mean.
“You only need to submit five copies,” the clerk stated while she fingered rapidly through our abundant house plans. “Submit the pool along with the house plans. We need the site plan moved to the front page.”
I realize not one bit of this probably matters to you, my dear Reader, but to know the frustrations at our lowest level may be helpful for you one day. When you just flew in for a limited five-day stay, rented a car, paid dearly for seven copies of 24 x 36-inch blueprint sets of twenty pages each, collate the three sets of submittal paperwork, sit outside on a bench until the clerk allows you into the tiny alcove of their department, receive condescending comments of how you forgot a page or turned in too many copies, then remove staples on five rolls of plans on a dirty counter the length of their office stapler, and re-collate with the site plan as the requested front page, remember us.
We are of kindred spirit, my friend.
