HSA & CSI Honolulu Combined Membership Meeting

Director Designate Dawn Takeuchi Apuna

Dawn currently serves as the Director Designate of the City & County of Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting. Previously, she worked as a Deputy Corporation Counsel for DPP, Chief Planner for the Hawaii Public Housing Authority, and Deputy Attorney General for the State Office of Planning. Dawn holds a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from U.C.L.A. and a law degree from U.C. Hastings College of Law. Dawn’s roots in Hawaii began when her great grandparents, as young as 16 years old, traveled by boat in the late 1800s to work in the sugar plantation camps of ‘Ola‘a and Hamakua on the Big Island.

Since her appointment, Ms. Apuna has committed to improving staffing levels, organizational structures, and technological processes to help drastically reduce permitting approval times for both residential and commercial projects in the City and County of Honolulu. Come listen to the Director Designate present on her plans for creating the best path forward in 2023.