Honolulu County, HI Building Safety: Green Building Code (2026)
Key Facts
- Standard
- LEED Silver, U.S. Green Building Council
- Size threshold
- Floor area over 5,000 sq ft
- Funding trigger
- FY2008 capital budgets and later
- Exempt facility types
- Wastewater treatment, solid waste
- Waiver authority
- Director, Dept. of Design and Construction
- Applies to
- City-owned facilities only
- Enacted by
- Ordinance 16-29
Summary
City and County of Honolulu facilities larger than 5,000 square feet must be designed to LEED Silver, the U.S. Green Building Council's minimum sustainability standard, under Revised Ordinances of Honolulu § 2-39.3. The mandate applies only to municipal buildings funded through the executive capital budget for fiscal year 2008 and later; it does not reach privately owned construction anywhere on Oahu.
(a) Qualifying city facilities shall comply with LEED™ Silver, in the version most recently adopted by the U.S. Green Building Council, as a minimum design standard. (b) As used in this section, "qualifying city facilities" means facilities with a floor area greater than 5,000 square feet, the design of which is appropriated in the executive capital budgets for the fiscal years 2008 and thereafter. The term excludes wastewater treatment, solid waste, and other facilities for which LEED™ certification is not available or facilities for which the director of design and construction has determined that compliance with LEED™ Silver would be infeasible or inappropriate.
Official source re-checked September 7, 2026: no newer edition of the code had been published (publisher’s edition: 2026 S-10: Supplement 10, 12-2025 Ordinance No. 25-40 through Ordinance No. 25-56).
Full Breakdown
Section 2-39.3, enacted by Ordinance 16-29 within the Department of Design and Construction article of the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu, sets a design floor for city-owned buildings rather than a citywide building code requirement. Subsection (a) requires "qualifying city facilities" to comply with LEED Silver "in the version most recently adopted by the U.S. Green Building Council, as a minimum design standard." LEED Silver sits above base certification and below Gold and Platinum in the Council's four-tier rating system, and the ordinance ties compliance to whichever edition of the rating system the Council currently publishes rather than freezing it to a 2008-era version.
Subsection (b) defines the facilities the mandate reaches: any city facility with a floor area over 5,000 square feet whose design was appropriated in the executive capital budget for fiscal year 2008 or any fiscal year after. Smaller buildings and anything designed before that FY2008 budget cycle fall outside the section entirely. The subsection then carves out categories that never have to meet LEED Silver: wastewater treatment facilities, solid waste facilities, and "other facilities for which LEED certification is not available." A further path around the standard exists at the director level: the director of the Department of Design and Construction, the agency responsible under § 2-39.1 for planning, engineering, design and construction of city buildings, may determine on a project-by-project basis that LEED Silver compliance "would be infeasible or inappropriate," releasing that specific facility from the requirement.
Because the standard runs through the capital budget appropriation process rather than a building-permit counter, compliance is built into project design at the funding and design-review stage. Nothing in § 2-39.3 extends the LEED Silver requirement to privately financed construction, state facilities, or federal buildings on Oahu; it binds only city-appropriated projects over the 5,000-square-foot threshold.
Violations & Fines
Section 2-39.3 carries no fine or citation provision: it is a design standard for the city's own capital projects, not a code enforced against builders or the public. Compliance is controlled administratively, through the executive capital budget appropriation and the Department of Design and Construction's project design review, and the director may exempt a specific facility as infeasible or inappropriate. There is no permit denial or penalty mechanism written into this section for the public to be cited under.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Honolulu's LEED Silver rule apply to private buildings?
What size city building triggers the LEED Silver requirement?
Can a city facility skip LEED Silver?
Which agency enforces the green building standard?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in Honolulu County
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