Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 8, 1 August 2010 — PERMISSION TO BUILD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PERMISSION TO BUILD

īanoue heads Honolulu's powerful Planning and Permitting Department

By Kathy Muneno Long gone are the days of long lines at Honolulu's Department of Planning and Permitting pennit centers seen during the construction boom several years ago, but reviewing and approving 1 8,000 permit applications annually still creates a pressure cooker of activity. One of the constant challenges, says DPP Director David Tanoue, is managing the public's expectations - his department oversees pennits ranging from home renovations to construction of shopping center complexes. In other words, no development or construction projects ean happen in the City and County of Honolulu without first going through the Department of Planning and Pennitting. But his responsibility as Director is also to prepare for the next boom and keep his employees motivated, he says.

"One of the keys to being

a successful manager is having a positive relationship with your employees," says Tanoue. "Appreciating some of the core values of being Hawaiian has made me a better executive in how I manage the most important resource I have at the depart-

ment - its

employees." Tanoue learned those values from his mother, who is pure Hawaiian, from the Ho 'opai 'ohana of Hāna, Maui. His father is pure Iapanese, also from Hāna. But Tanoue, one of seven children, was born on Wake Island, where his father worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, and he says while growing up in Wailuku, he tookkarate and Iapanese language classes after school. It wasn't until after his father passed away in 1998 that he began to "notice and appreciate" his mother's ways, as that heeame a kind of oasis from the "daily grind." Her ways are "a little slower, more deliberate, but more importantly less judgmental of people," he says. "It kind of allowed me to slow down a little bit, in a good way. Not judging people, but accepting people for who they are, I believe, is one of the core values that make the Hawaiian people special." And that undoubtedly makes him

a better boss.

!till, Tanoue says, more than nee, that his professional choices were never really for a higher cause. The biology major earned his law degree at the University of Hawai'i at the suggestion of his sister, who "described law school as 'pretty good.' " Tanoue developed a specialty in land-use policy because on an island,

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he said, "There will always be issues on land use." After several years in private practice and as in-house counsel at an architectural finn, he began working for the City and County of Honolulu as Deputy Corporation Counsel in 2001. He says it was an opportunity to work with lane Howell, who "was the most experienced and knowledgeable attorney in the area of land-use policy on the island." Tanoue heeame DPP's Deputy Director in 2005 and Director last year. But don't let strategic choices fool you, because in the end, it's all about those values. Asked about his dreams

for the future - other than hitting the Vegas jackpot - this single man who has no children of his own yet, saves his dreams for all children. "I do hope as leaders in the eommunity that we find solutions to take better care of the keiki," he says. "There shouldn't be kids living in vans or on the heaeh. That might be their parents' ehoiee, but it shouldn't be allowed for kids. A child's destiny shouldn't be determined by their ZIP code." ■ Kathy Muneno h a contributing writer for Ka Wai Ola. She is a weekenā weather anchor at KHON2.

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