Council OKs up to $5M for property acquisition by Lahaina Community Land Trust

Maui County Council members voted unanimously, 9-0, on Friday to approve by resolution the use of up to $5 million from the Managed Retreat Revolving Fund for property acquisition by the Lahaina Community Land Trust.

The community organization, led by Executive Director Autumn Ness, was formed in the aftermath of the August 2023 Lahaina wildfires to keep impacted lands in resident ownership and resist offers from outside investors. Landowners are offered the alternative of selling their property to the community land trust.

During public testimony, Ness told council members that Lahaina is becoming a model for land protection and resident community organization, especially after the wildfires in Los Angeles.

The Lahaina Community Land Trust has already secured two parcels for “forever community ownership,” and “we are under contract for four more.”

Ness said the organization is also about to choose its first four insurance gap recipients to help the residents fill their gap and rebuild their homes, and “keeping them home in Lahaina while also protecting the land under their homes from speculative forces forever.”

“These four families are just the first round in our pilot program that we currently have funding to support about 10 families,” she said.

The program works by giving grants to residents to help them rebuild and retain title to their land, she said. There’s an owner-occupancy requirement, and the community land trust gets the right of first refusal if the landowner ever decides to sell. The property can then be added to the trust to provide affordable housing.

The resolution says there are shoreline-property owners with generational ties to their Lahaina properties who may need to sell, but are interested in selling to the Lahaina Community Land Trust to retain their family connections to the land.

The Maui County Department of Planning’s shoreline team meeting with shoreline-property owners in Lahaina who may need to sell their property, and the department is referring generational owners to the land trust who want to stay attached to the land in ways that cannot be addressed through state and federally funded buy-out programs.

In the current fiscal year, the Managed Retreat Revolving Fund has a balance of $12 million, with up to $12 million conditioned for the Lahaina Community Land Trust.

In a related matter, the Council adopted a resolution giving the Lahaina Community Land Trust exceptions to certain provisions of the Maui County Code “to the extent necessary to allow homeowners to maintain title to their real property and to distribute or redistribute grant funds to individual homeowners.”

One exception is from the County Code’s Section 3.35.070(A)(1), which requires that, “title to any real property must be held in perpetuity by the grantee or borrower unless conveyed to the County or to a qualified nonprofit or community land trust.”

Another exception is from the County Code’s Section 3.35.070(A)(5), which provides that the grantee or borrow must not distribute or redistribute grant or loan funds to other organizations.” This exemption allows the land trust to distribute or redistribute grant funds to individual homeowners.

The Lahaina Community Land Trust’s mission is “to protect and perpetuate Lahaina, by empowering the Lahaina community to live, engage, and prosper, restoring and caring for its ʻāina and ea.”

“Our goal is to help keep Lahaina families in Lahaina, protect cultural and environmental sites and explore values-based economies as Lahaina rebuilds,” the trust’s mission statement says. “Experienced and educated kiaʻi, we are organizing to ensure Lahaina lands will remain in the hands of our community for future generations.”

In other Council action on Friday, council members passed on first reading:

• Bill 20, which expands the Council’s options for providing public notice of changes in real property tax rates and tiers. Until now, the Council must provide notice of impending property tax changes with a notice of a public hearing in a “newspaper of general circulation.” The bill removes advertising in a “newspaper of general circulation,” and simply requires “public notice” without saying how that would be done.
• Bill 23, which amends the current fiscal year 2025 budget to add $10,000 for the Makawao Parade Committee for the Kaupakalua Roping Club. The bill stems from a request from Council Member Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins, who holds the Makawao-Haʻikū-Pāʻia residency seat.
• Bill 25, which adds $425,000 in state highway safety funding to the current Maui Police Department budget for projects such as impaired driving, the electronic citation program, seatbelt and child car seat inspections and installation, vehicular homicide and motorcycle skills training, and equipment for crash investigations.

And, on second-and-final reading, council members approved:

• Bill 10, which authorizes the mayor to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with the state Department of Health’s Behavioral Health Administration for an emergency response grant to deliver mental health services.

• Bill 11, which provides for the Department of Public Works to receive $2,574,250 from the US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service for technical and financial assistance for the Kulanihakoi Stream Sediment Removal Emergency Watershed Protection Project.
• Bill 12, which adds $112,478 to the Maui Police Department’s budget for replacement of an obsolete Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer for use in forensic drug analysis.
• Bill 13 and Bill 14, which provide general obligation bond funding for Maui County’s purchase of the Von Tempsky family property for the Kula Community Center property.