Wildfires devastated Hawaii in August 2023, most prominently in the town of Lahaina on the island of Maui. Over 100 people were killed and thousands more were displaced. In addition to the unspeakable loss of life, Mauians were left with the destruction of over  2,200 buildings, most of which were residential, compounding the tragedy as locals were left without their homes. The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization found that three percent of Maui’s housing stock was destroyed by the fires.  While touring the damage in the following days, Governor Josh Green said “What we saw was likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history.”

The unfortunate reality is that nature has continued to rear its head across the country, and other communities have similarly suffered tragic loss of life and destruction in the wake of recent natural disasters. Most recently, the January wildfires in Southern California killed at least 29 people and destroyed more than 16,200 structures. Last fall, Hurricane Helene caused 219 deaths and almost $80 billion in damage across the southeastern U.S. As communities rebuild after these tragedies, local and state governments must do what they can to support residents and businesses; emphasis must be placed on a quick, frictionless recovery, absent extraneous administrative burdens and delay.  

The limited progress Hawaii has been able to make in rebuilding the precious communities of Maui demonstrates the overwhelming challenges residents and businesses face when rebuilding after these  disasters. As of January, 17 months after the fires, reporting found that only three homes, two of them in Lahaina, had been rebuilt. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that 5,000 people were in emergency shelters five months after the Maui fires. Unfortunately, Maui’s challenges to rebuild are not unique, and will confront every community facing similar post-disaster recovery efforts.

Essential to quickly rebuilding communities is government taking bold action, as Pennsylvania has shown is entirely possible, to reimagine how it can reduce, and certainly not add to, the burdens imposed on residents and businesses as they try to recover. Our case study by Responsive Gov fellow Don Moynihan, examining Pennsylvania’s recent success in reforming the state’s permitting application process, began with a simple truth: “People’s time is valuable, and governments should not waste it.” This is true always, but of even greater importance for those rebuilding their lives after suffering through tragedy. The case study traced Pennsylvania’s success to four main components: a clear mandate for change; actionable plans to allocate personnel, resources, and direction; specific and realistic targets; and permission to dive deep into existing processes.

Building off these learnings from Pennsylvania, the Institute for Responsive Government has  identified five policy recommendations and five practices state and local governments should adopt to better serve their constituents as they rebuild after natural disasters. These policies and practices emphasize working together to reduce administrative burdens, simplify processes, and minimize costs. To achieve these goals, and allow for residents and business to rebuild their lives as quickly as possible, jurisdictions recovering from disaster should:

1. 1. Set deadlines for permit approval based on the timeline its customers need. This is the opposite of what normally happens, where the permit is approved whenever government processes happen to conclude. Government agencies should start with the bottom line timing that their residents and businesses need – typically 30 calendar days from the point they submit the permit application – and make that the non-negotiable parameter to prioritize what information is most important for the government to review in that period. Pennsylvania established reasonable deadlines for different types of permits as one of its first steps in reforming its permit process – and went further to even guarantee a refund if it did not provide an applicant a decision by that deadline.  Arizona automatically approves any permit application still under review once the deadline is hit, and Florida reduces its permit fee by 10% every business day that elapses with a decision past its deadline.
   2. Waive or expedite any additional approval processes. Instead of requiring every home design be approved by a historical preservation commission, for example, core components for approval should instead be defined clearly and incorporated into the primary permit application. That would allow permit applications to bypass lengthy additional reviews by bodies sometimes staffed only by volunteers. 
   3. Waive processes for new build permits as long as the footprint of the rebuild is not significantly larger than the damaged or destroyed property.
   4. Allow, and even encourage, pre-approved plans for residential buildings without requiring that these plans be resubmitted for each new site. A “pre-approved plan” has already met government requirements and is simply proposed to be used at another location. For jurisdictions that may already have a pre-approval process, these processes could either issue a blanket permit for all sites using a pre-approved plan or waive permitting requirements for per-approved plans.
   5. Reduce or waive fees for permits. Lowering or removing fees, which can total hundreds of dollars per applicant, is a direct way to help the victims of natural disasters, who often face significant financial hardship even before engaging with government processes. Recognizing this, Mariposa County in California, for example, waived such fees for two years after wildfires for those residents lacking insurance coverage for these fees; similarly, Lake County in Illinois waived permit fees for several months for rebuilding property damaged by flooding. States could assist localities by reimbursing local coffers for the (modest) loss of revenue.  

Official decrees carrying the rule of law aren’t the only tool in the toolbox. Simple choices that government officials can make stand to meaningfully reduce the delays and burdens that have caused constituents outrage. In addition to adopting these policies, jurisdictions recovering from disaster should adopt these government practices aimed at helping their communities rebuild quickly and easily:

1. 1. Create a far more understandable presentation of information on government websites. This can include outlining permitting processes using simple, plain language without policy jargon, graphics to aid quick understanding, and a URL that’s easy to remember. This should also show residents real-time status of their applications and the timeline for its next steps. Virginia created such a dashboard, which is now credited with decreasing average processing times by more than 70 percent.
   2. Distinguish between disaster-related permit applications and those unrelated to the disaster, and prioritize the former over the latter. Moving to the front of the line those  permits to rebuild property damaged or destroyed by a natural disaster recognizes the vastly different levels of urgency for reaching a speedy permitting decision.
   3. Institute regular monthly meetings between the governor and agency heads. These meetings would publicize progress (or lack thereof), surface how efforts to streamline permitting are faring in relation to targets, and identify areas where additional support is needed to meet those targets. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s monthly convening with agency directors was a key driver of the state’s success in decreasing the backlog of applications for permits at the Department of Environmental Protection by over 90 percent, and slashed the time to process an initial business license from eight weeks to two days.
   4. Create sufficient, and the right kinds of, human capacity. If structured properly, filling existing vacancies or bringing in a surge of additional labor to augment the workforce can help expedite processes. In doing so, jurisdictions must be careful not to worsen the problem by creating additional technical training needs but instead could partner with other government agencies or nearby jurisdictions who already have familiarity, formal training, or security clearances. This can include creating an ombudsman office or position to provide a one-stop concierge service to guide residents and business through the process. 
   5. Utilize AI to process standardized, straightforward elements of permit applications at exponentially faster speeds, while ensuring a human remains in-the-loop for quality assurance checks. Federal agencies have used AI tools to significantly reduce delays for essential services they provide, including claims for veterans’ benefits, drug review and approval, and answering taxpayer questions. Similarly, Honolulu utilizes a tool called CLARITI that has decreased the length of time a resident waits for a permit decision by 70 percent – and as of last summer, has been working to integrate an AI tool that will scan permit applications for any requirements it is missing before a resident submits it. That way, residents can know right away what they need to fix and thereby save both staff resources and time that residents wait for approval.

Victims of natural disasters face the daunting tasks of rebuilding their homes, lives, and communities while dealing with tragic loss. State and local governments simply cannot compound natural disasters with one of our own doing – a disaster of response, with hugely burdensome, non-sensible processes that do not meet people’s needs, even in normal times.  Government must own the responsibility of establishing sane policies and practices to deliver vital services to their communities in a timeframe that meets the moment. While all policies and practices involve tradeoffs and some risks, they are outweighed by the actual harm caused by the status quo of way too many burdens placed on those desperately trying to rebuild. Governments can best serve their communities and facilitate a speedy return to normalcy by prioritizing reducing administrative burdens and complexity while alleviating the stresses associated with rebuilding – and might even find that some changes to business as usual are worth keeping around to better serve people and their businesses even without a wildfire or flood.

To learn more about these and other ways that government can curtail lengthy, difficult processes for rebuilding, please contact Marisa Bremer at marisa@responsivegov.org, and stay tuned for a future resource from the Institute for Responsive Government that will offer a fuller menu of options for policymakers.