Did a group of politicians woke up one morning and decided to attack the US Constitution or something?

Read HB 538 in the context that the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) is struggling. It has been mired with corruption and mismanagement for years.

At Honolulu Mayor Rick’s Blangiardi’s City Address on March 15, 2023, he stated that the average time for a permit approval was 300 days. Three hundred (300) days is actually on the fast track.

HB 538 first started with wanting entry into homes without consent. (Interestingly, another bill SB 1468 asks for surveyors entry into any property too.)

Page 2 of HB 538 proposes:

46-A Authority to enter private property; zoning
violation. (a) Notwithstanding chapter 322, a county planning
or permitting agency may enter privately owned residential real property, without the consent or cooperation of the owner or
occupant of the real property, for the purpose of investigating
any condition on the premises that the officer reasonably
believes may constitute a violation of any county zoning
ordinance, rule, or regulation that:

On Page 4, it continues:

§46-B Penalties for unaddressed zoning violations. The
penalties for a violation of any county zoning ordinance, rule,
or regulation shall be as follows, regardless of whether a
county planning or permitting agency’s investigation was
conducted without the owner’s or occupant’s consent or
cooperation pursuant to section 46-A(a) or by other means:

(1) An owner of real property who fails to remediate all
conditions that gave rise to issuance of the notice of
violation, to the agency’s satisfaction and within the
agency’s specified time frame, shall be assessed by
the agency a fine of not less than $1,000 for each day
the violation persists;

(2) If fines assessed to the owner of real property exceed
$5,000, then the notice of violation shall constitute
a lien upon the real property within thirty days; and

(3) If within thirty days of receiving notice of the lien,
the owner of real property fails to:
(A) Satisfy the lien specified in paragraph (2); and (B) Commence and diligently conduct remediation of
all conditions that gave rise to issuance of the
notice of violation, to the agency’s
satisfaction, then the applicable county planning or permitting
agency shall commence foreclosure proceedings,
judicial or nonjudicial, on the real property without
delay.”