Honolulu County, HI Building Safety: Building Permits (2026)

1(a)(1) sets Honolulu's baseline: no person may erect, construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, improve, remove, convert, or demolish any building or structure without first obtaining a building permit. Stripping and replacing a roof is repair or alteration of the building, so most reroofing on Oahu starts at the Department of Planning and Permitting. Subsection (b)(3) then carves out one narrow exemption, and it has two conditions that must both hold. First, the reroofing work must not adversely affect the structural components of the building. Second, the building must be a Group R-3 occupancy, meaning a single-family home or duplex, or a Group U utility occupancy.

A like-for-like recover on a single-family house that leaves the framing alone can proceed without a permit under this exemption. 1(a). And the exemption never applied to other occupancy types at all, so reroofing an apartment building, commercial space, or any structure outside Groups R-3 and U requires a permit regardless of how light the work is. When in doubt about whether planned work touches structure, the safe reading of the ordinance is that the general rule in subsection (a) governs.