Maui Planning Commission defers action on precedent-setting Lahaina home rebuild

The Maui Planning Commission is wrestling with a precedent-setting decision on the first special management area permit for reconstruction of an oceanfront Front Street home destroyed in the August 2023 Lahaina wildfire, after concluding public testimony Tuesday.

Other applications are already in the pipeline. Of 86 similarly situated properties destroyed or damaged in the disaster, 11 are seeking SMA permits to rebuild, according to information from the Maui County Department of Planning, sent via email from County of Maui Communications. However, each application is unique and reviewed separately.

Applicants Stanley and Dilara Deal plan to spend $1.85 million to reconstruct their home at 1045 Front Street. Now, only a fenced-in swimming pool and rock walls remain on an 8,668-square-foot lot that previously had a contemporary-design, two-story, 3,617-square-foot home, originally built in 2018. The property also has a rock seawall built before 1963.

According to Zillow, the pre-fire market value of the property at 1045 Front St., with four bedrooms and six bathrooms, was more than $8.8 million. Currently, the County’s assessed value of the fire-damaged property is zero. However, Maui County property tax records show the Front Street property was purchased for $2.15 million in May 2016, and the owners paid $70,813.75 in 2023.

Assisted by planning consultant Munekiyo Hiraga, the Deals have proceeded on the premise of rebuilding their home to “substantially” the same condition it had been before the wildfire, according to a Department of Planning staff report. The project includes new improvements for greater energy and water-use efficiencies. Plan details are here.

On Tuesday, the contemporary design of the home, with its flat roofs and tall windows, remained a major sticking point with commissioners and the public. One critic has described the home as being more “Malibu” than historic Lahaina, with the beloved town’s plantation and whaling era buildings now reduced to ashes.

Deal, a retired Boeing executive who plans to retire at the rebuilt Front Street home, maintained his composure as he resisted commissioners’ efforts to persuade him to redo his home’s design. He said he understood, as he went through an earlier project planning process, that he could rebuild substantially the same pre-fire structure on his property. (The application for an SMA permit was submitted in August 2024.)

He asked commissioners for an “objective criteria” for rebuilding that would not leave him with “one more thing; one more thing; and one more thing.”

“If you change the roofline to look more like a plantation style, we would consider it,” Deal said. “But if it’s ‘go from two stories to a single story,’ I think that is probably a bit too far.”

The commission discussed possible conditions for approving the Deals’ request for a special management area permit, including a possible requirement for the rebuilt home’s design to align with Lahaina’s historic district architectural design guidelines.

Commissioners also want to evaluate the height of the property’s exterior wall for improved public view plans and consider additional best management practices for reducing the amount of water in the property’s pool, which might need to be removed later because of rising sea levels and erosion.

Another possible condition involves consulting with owners of neighboring parcels to explore public shoreline access; and another would be to provide an engineering report on seawall repairs and certified shoreline from 2008 to 2016.

Commissioners also want to explore the option of moving the planned location of the home within the minimum building area of the property to the extent possible, or explain why that’s not feasible. And, for landscaping, commissioners are asking the Deals to consider including a mango or ulu (breadfruit) tree and native plants characteristic of Lahaina.

Commissioners said they also wanted the Deals to follow through with consulting with the Aha Moku Council and go before the Cultural Resources Commission for a project review. The cultural commission’s next meeting is June 5.

According to the Maui County website for that commission, it has five members: Chair Keʻeaumoku Kapu, Vice Chair Kapono Kamaunu, Theodore Awana Jr., Andree-Michelle Conley-Kapoi and Hinano Rodrigues.

In public testimony Tuesday before the planning commission, Kapu identified himself as a chief executive officer for the nonprofit Nā ‘Aikāne o Maui Inc., located in Lahaina.

“I am totally against this development for now,” he told commissioners. “I think it should be different. And it shouldn’t pass.”

Planning commissioners also briefly considered relocation of the Deals’ planned barbecue grill, but they decided to abandon that idea.

Commissioners also did not agree with Commissioner Mark Deakos’ suggestion to consider requiring removal of the Deal property’s seawall, which shields the lot from waves and coastal erosion.

Deakos said removing the wall would allow the beach to return there and permit more public shoreline access. He also pressed for a recertification of the property’s shoreline to assess the high reach of waves, but Tara Owens, University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College coast processes and hazards specialist, told him such a process would take at least six months and cost thousands of dollars.

Regarding the idea of removing the seawall as a mitigation measure, Commission Chair Kim Thayer told Deakos that, while “I appreciate where you’re going with this,… my concern is asking this of every single homeowner. Some of whom may not have the resources to be able to undertake such a thing.”

Such an undertaking would probably require a regional study because “a lot of this coastline all has seawalls,” she said.

While ideally the removal of coastal seawalls would make way for sand and beaches to return, there probably would be a transition period during which property would erode into the ocean, she said.

“I would hate to open up a larger problem,” Thayer said.

With the application deferred, the commission will reconvene to consider it again in mid July. The commission has 120 days — or until Aug. 20 — to render a decision on the Deals’ SMA permit application. Otherwise, the permit will be approved, as submitted.

The commission currently has only five members — the same number needed for a quorum and for taking action. Commission members are: Chair Thayer, Vice Chair Ashley Lindsey, Andrea Kealoha, Brian Ward and Deakos.

The commission’s three-month postponement will give additional time for the Deals, their planning consultant and the Department of Planning to address a list of issues raised by commissioners on Tuesday.

The Deals permit application launches into uncharted territory for the Planning Department and commission as they consider the first post-wildfire permit application for an oceanfront residence. The commission’s decision will determine how it handles future similar rebuilding requests.

Community concerns raised in extensive oral and written testimonies include community shoreline access (for fishing and other recreation), future erosion from sea level rise and the propriety of rebuilding a luxury home — with a contemporary design — in the National Historic Landmark District.

Underlying the public debate is Deal’s part-time residency on Maui (about 120 days per year) at a time when generational Lahaina residents are healing from the wildfire and itching to rebuild as well. According to a Current Planning Division application, Stanley Deal’s address at the time of the SMA application was Mercer Island, Washington.

Public testimony has been mixed, but mostly opposed to granting the SMA permit.

According to a testifier log, the commission heard in-person and online testimony from 30 individuals on April 8 and Tuesday during the reconvened meeting. Ten have been in support of the project’s application, and 16 opposed. Another four testifiers completed their statements, but commission staff did not list them as either for or against the application.

The project has drawn dozens of written public testimony as well. To see those, click here.

Lahaina resident Marie Sweetland testified in favor of granting the SMA permit.

“Like so many in our beloved Lahaina community, the Deals experienced unimaginable loss during the wildfire that devastated our town,” she said. “They are now working to rebuild their home on property they locally own, according to all of Maui County’s requirements to current building codes. Their application also complies with the shoreline rules that were in effect at the time it was submitted.”

Sweetland said rebuilding after such a tragedy is never easy.

“And it’s made even more difficult when families face opposition rooted in misunderstanding or misinformation,” she said. “It is my hope that the community can move forward with compassion and fairness, especially when families are doing (things) by the book.”

Sweetland asked the planning commission to “set a tone of unity, healing and fairness as we rebuild together.”

Lahaina homeowner Kelly Keahi testified that she received one of the first permits issued for rebuilding after the wildfires, and her permit was “highly scrutinized.” She said she complied with historical rules and standards to build a “plantation looking” residence in 2005.

Nevertheless, other homes were built after 2005 that did not comply with historical standards, she said, adding that “some of them are still existing today.”

Now, “moving forward; town burns down; we’re in 2025. I’m building my home again,” Keahi said. And, again, she’s being held to a “certain standard, certain looks, certain style.”

“I was told that we are now enforcing old laws and old rules that were not enforced prior to the fire,” which means she’s limited to building a three-bedroom, three-bath house that complies with historical standards, she said.

After her building permit was issued, “I’ve been watching what’s coming up behind me, since then, I see a 10-bedroom house,” Keahi said. “As we’re moving forward I’m seeing mega-mansions coming up all around me that compound and create parking and congestion in an area that we fled” during the wildfire.

“I don’t really understand why we’re building back worse than what we’re doing before the fire,” she said.

The home at 1045 Front Street “never should have been constructed the first time,” Keahi said. “It looks like an L.A., modern flat-roof structured, you know, house that has no business in the historical district.”

Lahaina was the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1802 to 1845. Later, it saw eras as a major whaling port, a sugar plantation town and tourism Mecca. In 1962, the town was designated as a National Historic Landmark, particularly for its history as a 19th-century port and whaling hub.

Rules for approval of special management area permits stem from Coastal Zone Management law, which regulates developments within designated areas along the shoreline. The law is aimed at avoiding permanent losses of valuable coastal resources and the foreclosure of shoreline management options. The law ensures public shoreline access for recreation and other purposes.

The Planning Department has recommended approval of the Deals’ request for an SMA permit, with standard and project-specific conditions. Rebuilding the home is expected to take about a year after all necessary permits are obtained.