HONOLULU -- The city plans to crack down on chronic building code violators by doubling their maximum fines under a bill working its way through the Honolulu City Council.

Some businesses and homeowners don't bother to get permits for construction work, and are cited several times for improper building activity. But they keep on working anyway. Building permits are important to ensure electrical, plumbing and other construction work is safe and built to minimum specifications.

The city receives about 10,000 building code violation complaints every year, many of them about people performing construction without a permit. The city’s Planning and Permitting Department collects anywhere from $250,000 to $500,000 a year in building violation fines.

Now the city council is considering a proposal to double the maximum daily fine for building violators, from $1,000 to $2,000.

"We feel that increased penalties, increased fines, can only help to serve as a further deterrent, and that's what we're trying to accomplish with this bill," said Kyle Chock, who heads Pacific Resource Partnership, an advocacy group for unionized contractors and the carpenter's union.

"I think that when a contractor or any business is willing to absorb the fine as part of the cost of doing business, then that's unacceptable, and that's telling us that the fines aren't large enough," he said.

Chock points to the case of Keeaumoku Plaza, a three-and-a-half acre parcel of land on Keeaumoku Street across from the HMSA Center. It's a sprawling complex of low-rise buildings, full of restaurants, bars, strip clubs and small retailers.

Last fall, KITV 4 News reported on extensive renovations underway on a Korean barbeque restaurant with no building permit. City building inspectors issued three stop work orders there, but construction continued anyway.

Then in February, city inspectors saw illegal construction underway on the second floor of another building on the same property. Once again, the city issued a stop-work order.

"I think it goes on a lot more frequently than people would even suspect, especially in a bad economy where people are looking to save a buck at any angle possible," Chock said.

A representative of the owner, Cuzco Development USA, declined an on-camera interview, but blamed their February violation on a contractor, who he claimed told them he applied for a demolition permit when he had not.

The City Council’s Planning Committee last week killed a proposal to increase the minimum fines for building code violations from $50 to $250 a day.

“If you give us a bigger hammer, we have to hit everybody with it,” said David Tanoue, the city’s Planning and Permitting Director. Tanoue told the committee he worries increasing the minimum fine would hit mom and pop operations and families that mistakenly do smaller projects without a permit.

The city grants anywhere from 400 to 275 after-the-fact building permits every year, mostly for small jobs like building a tool shed or extending a wall or fence, Tanoue said.

Building code violators rarely pay the maximum fines. The city uses them as a threat to get people to stop illegal construction, obtain their permits and negotiate a fine, which is usually much lower than the current $1,000 a daily maximum.

The proposal doubling the maximum daily fine to $2,000 passed the City Council's planning committee last week and now goes to the full council for the second of three required votes.