A large wave of opposition has been building from vacation rental owners and property managers to Mayor Richard Bissen’s proposed phase-out of an estimated 7,000 transient vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts in Maui County.

Tomorrow will mark the first public hearing on the proposal, which will come first to the Maui Planning Commission. The proposal also has been submitted to the Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi planning commissions.

Apparently expecting a big crowd of in-person testifiers, the Department of Planning has arranged for the commission to meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the Maui County Council Chambers on the eighth floor of the Kalana O Maui Building. The agenda notes that commission members may not be physically present at the location, and it says, in boldface, that testimony will be limited to a maximum of three minutes. Also, the agenda says that “commissioners shall not be contacted by the Chat function; the Chat function shall not be used to provide testimony or comments.”

The meeting also will be online via Webex Videoconferencing: Meeting ID: 2661 310 6605 Password: MPC1

The agenda has links to a Department of Planning memorandum from Planning Director Kate Blystone to the commission with attachments, including dozens of written testimonies, overwhelmingly opposed to the phase-out bill.

Much of the testimony comes with predictions of, among other things, the collapse of Maui’s economy, widespread business failures, the loss of tax revenue, visitor arrivals and spending and large-scale unemployment. Many of those submitting written testimony argue that vacation rental housing is inappropriate for long-term housing for a variety of reasons, such as small unit sizes, few parking stalls and limited storage.

In a May 4 email, Cimi Morgan of Epic Realty, identifying herself as a “prominent business owner on Maui for over 33 years,” expressed vehement opposition to the short-term rental phase-out in Maui apartment districts.

She wrote: “This bill is a HUGE MISTAKE AND IS COMPLETELY SHORTSIGHTED IN ITS UNDERSTANDING OF THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF IMPOSING A BAN!”

In addition to being critical of Bissen’s fairness in even proposing the phase-out, Morgan wrote that: “The Lahaina Strong protesters sitting in front of Whaler’s Village were only a nuisance to the big hotels they sat in front of… Why Bissen caved after six months of protests makes zero sense unless you are the hotels.”

Morgan said she’s not unsympathetic to people left displaced by the Lahaina wildfires.

“I personally offered three of my existing STR’s (short-term rentals) to house displaced fire victims and converted 45% of my STR’s (about 27 units).”

Morgan said that in late April there are more than 600 short-term rentals “sitting vacant, which makes no sense to me.”

“These are beautiful condos and homes that either the fire victims are refusing to occupy, FEMA not being organized or a combination of these factors. Saying there is a shortage of housing is simply not the truth when it gets down to it,” she said in her email. “Some of the fire victims are simply saying they would rather stay in hotels. We have been told this time and time again.”

Morgan predicts a Maui economic catastrophe if short-term rentals are phased out, saying the bill “will ultimately cause an agonizing correction that will shrink the economy, implode the economy, cause mass unemployment, further increase the disparity between the haves and the have-nots and lead to a forced mass exodus of locals and business owners leaving the island.”

Morgan said the following “will happen”: thousands fewer overall accommodations units; closures of local businesses; “huge unemployment”; and “drastically reduced” flights to Maui, visitors coming to the island, and tax and visitor dollars.

Morgan’s email is just the first in many dozens, if not hundreds, of others overwhelmingly opposed to the short-term rental phase-out.

Penny Peppes, 50-year owner of Hale Kamaole in Kīhei, said: “The island will shut down with only the rich able to stay in the hotels inflated priced rooms.”

However, not all of the testimony is opposed to phasing out the apartment-zoned short-term rentals.

Mahinahina resident David Weeks said he has lived in West Maui since 2011, and “this area has been turned into a tourist town. That was never the design or intent for this area… Now it is a tourist town where no one can live, and people are continually forced out. All of Honokōwai should go back to local housing.”

Weeks said phasing out vacation rentals “will help generations be able to continue to live here on the West Side.”

“The exodus of people is staggering,” he said, adding that the list of job openings at two major hotels has never been longer and there’s a “massive shortage” of skilled and unskilled workers.

“People will always come to Maui because of the beauty and mana it provides,” Weeks said. “But there will be no services, no workers and no Aloha.” 

Tomorrow’s commission meeting comes on the heels a vacation rental phase-out study released earlier this month and funded by the Travel Technology Association that represents “travel technology innovators,” including short-term rental platforms. The study forecasts vast amounts of tax income and economic losses for Maui County.

Mayor Bissen questioned the study’s facts, objectivity and underlying assumptions. He also pointed out that the study made no attempt to assess the economic impacts on residents who’ve been forced out of Maui’s high-octane housing and rental markets.

Bissen said the county plans to engage the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization for “a more balanced economic analysis.”

Under the bill, short-term vacation rentals would no longer be a permitted use in apartment-zoned districts as of July 1, 2025, for West Maui, and Jan. 1, 2026, for the rest of Maui County.

On May 1, the state Legislature passed Senate Bill 2919. Gov. Josh Green quickly signed that measure, and now state law allows counties to regulate grandfathered vacation rentals. The law clarifies that transient vacation rentals are not considered residential uses and may be phased out.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct that short-term rentals would no longer be a permitted use in apartment-zoned districts, if the proposed bill becomes law.