Maui Planning Commission members gave a cursory review of a proposed policy statement in the updated draft of the South Maui Community Plan Tuesday night and unanimously agreed that the plan aims to increase long-term housing by phasing out short-term rentals from Māʻalaea to Kanaio.
Section 2.2.25 of the draft plan states: “Increase the stock of long-term housing units, whether owner-occupied or long-term rental, and whether single-family or multi-family, by gradually closing and converting existing vacation rental properties into long-term housing units.”
After an earlier discussion of draft policy language such as “require” and “encourage” in various comments, commissioners arrived at the short-term phase-out policy in the draft community plan. They quickly realized they had already addressed the so-called Minatoya List of vacation rentals. They did so by recommending the adoption of a bill proposed by Mayor Richard Bissen on July 23 to make vacation rentals a non-permitted use in Maui County apartment districts. If passed by the Maui County Council, this bill would affect about 7,000 units, primarily in South and West Maui.
Planning staff told commissioners that the draft zoning statement for South Maui may reduce the number of bed-and-breakfast permits, but that the zoning statement would not have “a major impact” beyond what has already been submitted to the County Council to restrict short-term rentals.
Commissioner Ashley Lindsey said, “Given our recent meeting on the Minatoya List and the limited size of B&Bs and short-term rentals in each area, I think we have this issue under control for now.”
Commission Chair Kimberly Thayer said, “Okay. So let’s leave this (political statement) as it is. So that’s what you’re saying? (Lindsey: “Yes.”) Okay, I see thumbs up from everyone else on the internet.”
The so-called “Minatoya List” refers to vacation rentals that are grandfathered in or allowed to continue to be used despite Maui County’s 1989 ordinance prohibiting the use of transient housing in apartment districts. Most of the affected units are located in South and West Maui.
In addition to transient vacation rentals in apartment districts, Maui County has permitted transient vacation rentals with conditional permits, short-term rental apartments, and bed-and-breakfast operations. The numbers are broken down by community plan area and can be found here; see hyperlinks under “Resources.”
The Commission received dozens of written witness statements, almost all of which opposed the inclusion of the Statement of Principles in Section 2.2.25 of the draft Plan.
When asked about the enforcement of planning provisions in general, the Planning Department replied by email that the County Council may adopt conditional zoning to implement the policy and that special conditions for administrative areas or new regulations may also apply.
Later in the deliberations on Tuesday evening, commissioners considered draft policy statement 2.2.27, which states that the plan would “prohibit new temporary housing units and mandate the development of high-quality and luxury housing to provide the necessary housing for local workers until sufficient worker housing has been created to meet existing needs.”
The Planning Department recommended that the word “prohibit” be deleted and replaced with “discourage.” The department also requested that the word “on-site” and the words “until sufficient worker housing is created to meet existing needs” be deleted.
The commissioners agreed, and the revised statement states: “New housing units for transients should be discouraged and the construction of high-quality and luxury homes should be encouraged to provide the necessary housing for workers within the project area.”
The planning department recommended softening the wording because “certain requirements may already exist for certain construction projects and a more direct wording regarding workers’ housing can be more easily implemented.”
The statements are part of the numerous policy proposals in the South Maui Community Plan Advisory Committee’s February 2024 draft.
At the start of Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners faced numerous appeals from South Maui residents urging them to keep the draft plan’s stricter and more restrictive language, such as keeping “require” and not replacing it with “encourage.”
“The South Maui Community Plan is the voice of the people of South Maui,” said Randy Wagner, Kihei Community Association board member and chair of the Design Review Committee. “The volunteers of the Community Plan Advisory Committee created this design with concrete ideas and vision through countless hours of consultation, collaboration and long meetings. We don’t have a government body that looks exclusively at what is best for South Maui. Even our council member is elected by the entire island. (And) for that reason, it’s really important to honor the South Maui Community Plan as a true representation of what the community is striving for.”
Wagner said the final wording of the plan must be retained, citing as an example that “the conditions for promoting site diversity for affordable housing must not be changed.”
When the Commission reviewed this provision, the Planning Department recommended amending the language to remove the word “require” and instead “promote an equal distribution of workforce housing among the subdivisions of the South Maui Community Plan in order to create diverse communities in all residential areas of South Maui.”
The authority stated that the requirement to distribute affordable housing evenly throughout the development plan area “could hinder the overall development of affordable housing”.
As a compromise, Commissioner Mark Deakos proposed keeping the word “require” but adding “‘where practicable'” in situations where it is unrealistic.
Vice Chairman Dale Thompson supported Deakos’ proposal. “I’m sure there are people on TV right now swearing they just said ‘mandate,’ but we required 50 percent affordable housing from 2006 to 2014 and nothing was built. … No developer would build because there’s no money in it.”
“I think if we pressure these people and strangle them, nothing can happen,” he said. “Even though everyone says, ‘We want to pressure them,’ I still think we’re doing something positive for them. We’re trying to help the community there.”
The Commission ultimately agreed with Deakos’ proposal and deleted the word ‘justified’, as suggested by Commissioner Lindsey.
Attorney Cal Chipchase cautioned against including mandatory language in the zoning plan, especially given that Hawaiian courts have ruled that construction projects must be consistent with zoning plans.
Such restrictions have led to high housing costs on the islands, he said.
“To afford the average home on Maui, you have to have an annual income of $220,000,” he said. “And the processing time for a single-family home permit is 206 days. For two or more units, the processing time is 416 days. When we review these policies, we have to ask ourselves: Are we making it harder for people who live here to build homes? Are we making it harder for them to make a living here? If the answer to both questions is yes, then we are making it harder; we should have a very good reason for doing so.”
The commission is expected to continue its review of the South Maui plan update next month.
