Maui County Has Been So Slow To Come Up With A Plan To Help People Rebuild In Lahaina That A State Lawmaker Is Doing It Instead

Maui Rep. Elle Cochran isn’t waiting.

Hearing continual frustration from Lahaina constituents about what they call a lack of clear direction from Maui County government on when they can rebuild their homes, Cochran is creating a coalition of contractors, architects, suppliers and other building professionals to guide people who have questions.

Her goal: To enable people to rebuild quickly once they get the green light from Maui County.

“I want the families who are from here to be able to get back to their properties,” she says.

Cochran’s effort comes at what may be a turning point for the county. Maui officials last week announced the process for creating a much-anticipated, long-term recovery plan for Lahaina.

But that plan will take months to develop. In the meantime, on Tuesday evening, county officials plan to hold a public meeting with homeowners, which could provide answers. Officials are expected to inform the public about infrastructure, rebuilding, permitting and insurance.

Cochran doesn’t hesitate when asked what constituents say they want to hear from the county on Tuesday.

“That they’re going to set up a one-stop shop” for permitting, she says. “Boom: One-stop shop.

”And if you don’t have enough staffing, you outsource and get this done,” she added.

The effect of delay, Cochran says, is enormous. Buildings can be rebuilt. But Cochran says delays and an information vacuum are causing people to leave Maui. And the experience of other disaster areas is that many residents who leave don’t return.

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement has estimated that 1,500 people have moved away from Maui County since the August fires. And the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization has reported that Maui County had lost more than 1,000 households as of February. Even the town’s Santa Claus has joined the exodus from Lahaina.

It’s people who created the community and culture of Lahaina, Cochran says. And if they don’t return, the harm will be irreparable.

“Many don’t understand that it’s not the beaches and tourist attractions that make Lahaina special — it’s the people, our community and our local culture,” she said. “So knowing that there is a plan might give them hope. They’ve already been through so much, and I want them to have one less thing to worry about.” 

County officials declined requests for an interview for this article.

Among those struggling to get information from the county is Jim Davis, a Lahaina resident who lost his home near Front Street. Davis said he understands some delays. Even though Army Corps of Engineers crews have cleared his lot, Davis said Corps crews and trucks are still in his neighborhood, so trying to get construction trucks in and out now doesn’t make sense.

But, he said, “the public is going to become less patient as time goes on, less understanding.

“Now that I’ve got an open patch of dirt it’s hard not to want to get in there and build.”

Davis says he’s fortunate. He and his wife found a home in Haiku, so they have a place to live. Davis also works from home as a computer animator and filmmaker, and he’s been able to raise enough money from insurance proceeds and a GoFundMe campaign to buy equipment to resume working. Finally, Davis says he and his wife bought the Lahaina house just five years ago, so unlike some of his neighbors, they’re not underinsured.

Davis has even lined up an architect, who is drawing plans for a new house with the same old-style plantation architecture as the old one.

But not knowing when they can build and move back means not knowing how much longer they’ll have to stay in Haiku — and how much of their insurance proceeds they’ll need to set aside for rent there, Davis said. Getting answers from county agencies can be nearly impossible, he said.

“I’ve got so many emails out to so many people just trying to get answers,” he said. “Every reply I’ve gotten is basically passing the buck.”

Maui County Expects To Finish Its Recovery Plan By The Fall

Last week, County Planning Director Kate Blystone and Jennifer Maydan, an executive assistant in the county Office of Recovery, discussed the county’s long-term recovery plan at a community meeting at the Lahaina Civic Center.

Maui County’s process for creating a plan is similar to what Paradise, California, did after fires destroyed the town and killed 85 people in 2018. Paradise held seven listening sessions over two months with residents and took surveys so officials could see what the community wanted most. The town synthesized the findings into a final report. 

As Blystone and Maydan described it, Maui County’s planning process will follow the same broad contours.

But there’s at least one difference between Paradise and Maui. Paradise completed its plan in seven months. Eight months after the fires, Maui County is just getting started.

Blystone indicated Maui expects to complete the report in the fall, more than a year after the fire’s first anniversary.

She outlined initial findings from 350 residents — the town’s population was about 13,000 before the fire — who have shared what they see as Lahaina’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. Eight priorities emerged. Ranked in order of importance, they were recreating Front Street and its town character, building resilient and sustainable infrastructure, building housing, sustaining cultural values, enhancing public safety, protecting water and land, responding to climate change and developing a non-tourism dependent economy.

Specific suggestions included turning Front Street into a pedestrian mall, placing utility lines underground and creating long-term and workforce housing.

Cochran is drilling down on the need for housing. She understands that the county plays a central role in permitting and regulating home building. But Cochran said there’s also a need to help residents with logistics, to make sure they have access to architects, general contractors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, cement and suppliers — everything that goes into the daunting task of building a home, especially when hundreds of people start trying to build at the same time.

People might be able to build not just faster but more cheaply if they join forces and create economies of scale, paying for design, material and labor in bulk rather than piecemeal, she said.

Cochran has laid these ideas out in a seven-page plan for residents. The document is ready to release, she said, but added, “out of courtesy and respect, I want to ask a few more Lahaina residents and groups to review it” before it goes out.

What About The Coastal Zone?

Rebuilding Lahaina will be complicated by its proximity to the ocean. Much of the burn zone, from Honoapiilani Highway to the ocean, is governed by the Coastal Zone Management Act, a federal environmental law that regulates building near coastlines. It is administered in Hawaii by the state and county governments under the Hawaii Coastal Zone Management Act and county land use laws.

The law requires some landowners wishing to build in the designated zones to go through an elaborate process that may require a public hearing before the county can grant a building permit. For homeowners, the good news is that single-family homes may be excluded from the Special Management Area permit process, according to a citizens’ guide to the program published by the Hawaii Office of Planning and Sustainable Development.

But commercial properties aren’t exempt, and many will face the bigger regulatory hurdles. It’s an ominous situation for business owners like Amber Meade, whose Front Street bar, the Dirty Monkey, burned down in the fire. Meade said if her landlord “can rebuild, she wants us to be tenants. And we would do it.”

But she said the word on the street is that properties on Front Street won’t be able to rebuild due to coastal zone laws and land use ordinances. Unfortunately, she and other business owners will have to wait to get more information from the county. While the county encourages homeowners to attend Tuesday’s meeting, the hearing notice says businesses are a different story.

“A separate meeting for commercial properties will be scheduled and announced in the near future,” the notice says.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

Civil Beat’s coverage of environmental issues on Maui is supported by grants from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Hawaii Wildfires Recovery Fund, the Knight Foundation and the Doris Duke Foundation.