Over 30 rebuilding permits have been issued after the fire. Here’s how some Lahaina homeowners did it

When Kari Alexander was looking for rentals after losing her home in the Lahaina fire, she pulled up a map, looked at all the places she wanted to live and sent out letters to 25 homeowners asking if they’d be willing to rent to a displaced family. 

That perseverance landed the Alexanders a one-year lease in Kahoma Village, and it also got them through the process of securing their permit to rebuild on the Komo Mai Street property where their home burned down nearly 11 months ago. 

“Take it one day at a time. Do one thing each day,” Alexander said when asked what advice she would give to Lahaina residents who are about to go through the same process.  

Since she and her husband Rich Alexander became the first Lahaina residents to receive permits to rebuild in mid-May, Kari Alexander’s phone has been ringing as others seek advice on rebuilding in the wake of the Aug. 8 wildfires that killed at least 102 people and destroyed more than 2,200 structures in Lahaina as well as 19 homes in Kula. 

A total of 31 disaster recovery permits for residential structures have been issued as of Wednesday, including 28 in Lahaina and three in Kula, according to Desilee Santiago, one of four permit technicians with 4LEAF, which received a three-year, $16 million contract to help Maui County with the permitting process following the fires. 

Another 61 permits, including 60 in Lahaina and one Upcountry, are under review, Santiago said. 

It’s been a relatively quick process for the earliest homebuilders — with some permits taking only a few days to review — but each scenario hinges on factors like the design plans and the location. 

“I would also encourage people to call our center, even if they don’t have plans drawn, even if they just want to have a pre-application meeting and talk about their property and what they want to do,” said Mike Renner, one of the directors of 4LEAF. “The more touches we have with homeowners and people building back and all the other stakeholders, the easier the rebuilding process is going to be. We can catch things early on on the property — setbacks, height limitations, special zoning issues, things like that.”

MAKING A LIST, CHECKING IT TWICE

The last year of Kari Alexander’s life has felt like “a bad country western song.” She mourned the loss of her mom, who died shortly before the fire; the destruction of her home, just two months after her twin kids’ graduation from Lahainaluna High School; and the deaths of her great-grandma and the family dog months after the fire.

The Alexanders were determined to rebuild. When they learned the Disaster Recovery Permit Center would open April 29, they started their paperwork on April 1 and tried to chip away at one thing every night. Rich Alexander builds homes for a living, but even then it wasn’t easy. 

Kari Alexander said she struggled to get answers from the county about how to access their “closeout package” proving their lot had been cleared of debris and tested for contaminants. It’s one of the most crucial things applicants need; Santiago says the office can’t issue a permit without it. After tracking it down online, Alexander now knows the steps by heart. (Go to mauirecovers.org, click on the “get updated” tab, and under “maps and data” select “closeout package.” Enter your address on the map, click on the blue pin that appears on the property and scroll down to access the closeout package.)

The permit office said the turnaround time was 15 days, and they met that timeline, Alexander said. Her home’s concrete foundation was poured last week, and the walls started going up Tuesday. 

“Everybody’s at a different stage,” she said. “And the people that aren’t ready, I don’t want to force them and I don’t want them to feel like they have to. Some people are still mourning. Some people are happy and they’re ready to move forward. Some don’t know how. And so I don’t want it to be a negative thing. I want them to be able to do it in their time.”

4LEAF currently has four permit technicians working at the Maui County Service Center in Kahului. As rebuilding ramps up, the company will add more staff and expand to the Lahaina Gateway Center, said Renner, who expects about 18 to 22 workers at the peak of the process. With staff on the Mainland helping to review permit plans and available to bring to Maui if needed, Renner believes they’ll have enough resources to handle demand.  

“To be honest, what we generally see in these recoveries, there’s an initial rush of folks who are maybe more financially independent, then as the insurance companies begin to settle with folks, there’s releases of money there. So there’s ebbs and flows to the process,” Renner said.  

The process, in general, goes like this: Residents submit their application online for the permit office and county agencies to review. It takes about five to seven business days for agencies to comment on the plans. If corrections are needed, the plans are sent back to the design professionals to make updates. The plans then undergo a final review and 4LEAF handles all of the building, plumbing and electrical inspections on-site. Santiago said the office can issue permits within 15 business days as long as the paperwork is in order.

Incomplete building plans can slow down the permitting process, and location also matters — properties in the special management area near the shoreline or historic districts warrant further review from county or state agencies. 

“Everything mauka is a little bit easier to get through the permitting process,” Renner said.

The Komo Mai Street neighborhood is more mauka than many other homes destroyed by the fire. Hi-Tech Surf Sports owner Kim Ball, a member of the mayor’s Lahaina Advisory Team who is rebuilding just up the road from the Alexanders, said the key to getting his permit quickly was hiring the same contractor who built his home to handle the paperwork and the rebuilding process. 

“My neighbors, some of them moved to the Mainland, moved off island, bought a different property from other places on Maui. They’re not gonna come back,” Ball said. “Because I think, initially, everybody thought it was going to be like five years, so now I think, talking to some of the neighbors, it’s like, ‘Oh man, maybe I pulled the trigger too fast.’ I think they had no idea. This has given us a lot of hope.”

DO WHAT’S ‘GOOD FOR YOUR FAMILY’

Gene Milne’s Malanai Street home was 70 percent finished when the wildfire ripped through town and destroyed all his progress. 

“I was in complete denial that the fire would ever get to my home,” said Milne, who evacuated along with his wife on the evening of Aug. 8. “When we built the house it was as fireproof as it could possibly be.”

But Milne had a point in his favor — because his home wasn’t finished, he still had permits open with the county, which “made it very easy for me to get my permits again.” The permit office reviewed his paperwork and within three days he got the green light to construct the ‘ohana unit where he and his wife will live until they can rebuild their main home. 

According to the county, Milne is the first Lahaina resident to start rebuilding his home. He’s already put up the walls of the ‘ohana unit and expects to have it finished within the next six to seven months.

“Getting on site for me is the biggest healing effect that I have,” Milne told local reporters invited by the county to see the progress of recovery in Lahaina last week. “Cause I know that I’m moving forward now and that I can see, even though it’s a long way, I can see the end.”

Residents like Milne who had open or pending permits with the county prior to the fire don’t have to start the process from scratch. Santiago said once permits clear reviews that had been pending before the fire, they can be converted to disaster recovery permits and issued to the applicants. 

Residents also can get their building permits reissued if it’s within five years of when they first received it, and will pay half the cost if they build the same house in the same location. Building permit fees are based on the home valuations, which depend on square footage and are different from the home’s market value, Santiago explained. For example, a home with a valuation of $650,000 comes with a building permit fee of $3,780; a reissued permit would cost half of that. 

Some developments that got permits around 2017-2018, like the Kahoma Village and Kahoma Residential Subdivision projects, have gotten an exception to the five-year rule because the design firms involved are recertifying the plans, Santiago said.  

But, just because a home is newer doesn’t mean it’s automatically easier to go through the process. And, reissued permits may not be the best route for everyone, especially those who want to make changes to their new homes. 

“Everybody’s in a different situation,” Santiago said. “Some people are in a different financial (position). Some people can wait and are able to wait, some people don’t want to wait. Some people are sentimental to the point where they just built their home, they want to build that house, the house they want. Or maybe they want to go smaller. … We always say, do what you think would be good for your family and your situation.”        

ROAD TO RECOVERY

One thing the experts agree on — Lahaina’s rebuilding process has started much earlier than expected. Jennifer Gray Thompson, the CEO of After the Fire, has worked in the aftermath of 18 “megafires” across five states, and she’s “never seen a rebuild begin before the debris removal was finished.”

“It really speaks to the determination of the community to come back,” Gray Thompson said during a visit to Lahaina last week.

4LEAF has set up recovery permitting systems after multiple major fires, including the deadly Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., and Renner said Lahaina’s recovery process has been “very fast” in comparison to other places. He thinks that’s due to the speed of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the debris cleanup.

Col. Eric Swenson, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Maui Wildfires Recovery Field Office, said last week that debris removal efforts are “ahead of schedule.” Residential debris removal started in January and is expected to be done by January 2025, while commercial debris removal started in February and is slated to wrap up by February 2025. 

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, 1,283 of the 1,399 total residential properties have been cleared of primary debris. Of those, 891 have been fully completed, with paperwork turned back over to the county so residents can apply for building permits. Fifty of the 159 total commercial lots have been cleared, of which 23 have been completed with paperwork turned back over to the county. There are also 30 total public/historic properties; two of those lots have been cleared so far. 

John Smith, chief of Maui County’s Highways Division, said last week that about 63 percent of the sewer system in the impact zone had been restored, and Kimo Landgraf, deputy director of the Maui County Department of Water Supply, estimated that Lahaina’s water system would be back up and running by mid-August. 

When asked how he would respond to concerns about rebuilding moving too quickly, Renner said it likely doesn’t feel that way for people who have been living in hotels for 10 months. He added that 4LEAF is encouraging homeowners to build back responsibly, with fire-resistant materials like Class A roofing and cement-based siding, and defensible spaces that will also help lower insurance costs.

Gray Thompson noted that “it’s one of the great inequities of disaster” that places with higher property values typically get rebuilt faster. Homeowners, or whomever they sell their property to, have the resources and the interest in rebuilding quickly on desirable land. For lower-income communities, the disaster can put an even greater strain on financially strapped households — one survey found that was the case in Colorado’s Marshall fire recovery. 

Lahaina is a unique setting, with high property values that don’t match the relatively lower incomes, Gray Thompson said. 

“It has worried me since the very beginning,” she said. “In my opinion there should be, and there already is, a big push from the public, private, nonprofit sector to help people get all the way home by figuring out how to narrow the delta between what they have to rebuild and what it’s going to take to rebuild.” 

Santiago said information continues to change, and residents should stay informed by contacting the Disaster Recovery Permit Center, which is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Maui County Service Center at 110 ‘Ala‘ihi St., Suite 207, in Kahului. They can also call (808) 270-5724 or email rpc@mauicounty.gov. 

For information on the steps and paperwork needed to apply for a rebuilding permit, visit mapps.mauicounty.gov/DSA-DRBP.