Maui County Council voted to urgently close Holomua Road for safety reasons. One year later, it’s still open

PĀʻIA — Since the Maui County Council voted a year ago to close down Holomua Road where dozens of homeless community members have been living on the outskirts of Kūʻau and Pāʻia town, Tania Kawaakoa has been on edge.

“We’re just going day by day, waiting,” said Kawaakoa, who lives in makeshift housing along Holomua Road. “They haven’t told us anything though. … We’re just waiting for them to say something.”

The decision to restrict access to Holomua Road, a roughly 3-mile stretch connecting Hāna Highway and Baldwin Avenue, continues to be a contentious issue. Council members and some North Shore residents worry about regular fires along the road spreading to nearby towns, while advocates say the move would displace the houseless community there without solving the fire risk. 

In June 2024, after nearly 40 fires burned along the road in just a few months, council members quickly passed the bill that would close the mauka portion of Holomua Road above the entrance to old Maui High School, and prohibit parking and vehicle access on the lower portion of the road from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

But a year later, nothing has been done to restrict road access and address the public safety issue that council members cited in the wake of the destructive August 2023 wildfires in Lahaina and Upcountry. 

“If we do not learn our lesson after Lahaina, we are negligent as a county, and I refuse to be negligent,” Council Member Nohe U‘u-Hodgins, who proposed the bill and lives in the district that covers Makawao, Ha‘ikū and Pāʻia, said at the time. 

U‘u-Hodgins did not respond to phone requests for comment this week but said via email Thursday: “We are in the beginning stages of the permitting process to install the gates and will have closures during nighttime hours.” 

In the meantime, both the residents and organizations that work along Holomua Road are left in limbo.

‘HEIGHTENED SENSE OF CONCERN’

At the Maui Invasive Species Committee facilities that are located in the Old Maui High School grounds, public relations specialist Lissa Strohecker said staff are currently planning for fire preparedness. She is concerned that the county hasn’t done anything yet, especially as it gets drier in the summer. 

“I would say it’s a regular fire risk for sure,” Strohecker said. “There’s nothing between Holomua Road and Pāʻia, and on an intensely windy day, I don’t know what would stop a fire. … We have a heightened sense of concern and I think it’s not unwarranted.”

Since Jan. 1, there have been 19 fires on the Holomua Road corridor, said Maui Fire Department spokesperson Chris Stankis. All of the fires have been less than an acre, and most are “nuisance fires” of not much more than 20 by 20 feet.

“All the fires have been human caused: the result of unattended cooking fires or abandoned vehicles that have been burned,” Stankis said via email.

The most recent incident was a vehicle fire early Thursday morning that extended into the surrounding brush but was contained just minutes after the firefighters arrived on scene. 

The Fire Department has been working with nearby landowner Mahi Pono to create firebreaks to address community concerns on Holomua Road. Mahi Pono said in an email on Thursday that the firebreaks are 150 feet wide “and arranged in a configuration that reasonably considers the prevailing wind direction in that area.” 

Strohecker said blame for the fire risk can’t all be put on the unhoused community, pointing out that some of the fires have been above the Old Maui High campus rather than below where the people are living.

The Maui Invasive Species Committee moved its baseyard to the area around 2020, and at the time, there was not a significant amount of people living along the road, Strohecker said. But staff watched the community really start to grow around 2021 after the sweeps at Baldwin Beach Park in 2017 and Amala Place in 2021.

Strohecker drives the road twice a day, waving to the same people, and she said the organization’s staff and Holomua Road residents generally stay out of each other’s way.

“I feel it’s about as respectful of a relationship as feasible,” she said. 

However, she said, every day is unpredictable. The area has become a hotspot for dumping and stripping cars, and every so often the county comes through, tags cars and hauls them away. Sometimes residents are lying on the ground working on cars, and other times dogs are wandering unleashed on the road. Gas has been siphoned from some of the organization’s vehicles, but because of the low resolution of the security cameras, it’s hard to tell who’s responsible.

Still, rather than closing the road — which she said would cut off a key alternate route to Upcountry and impact staff who come back from fieldwork late at night — she’d like to see the residents housed and the road improved for use by the wider community. 

“It would be wonderful to have … a small community that’s safely off the road where people are safe, there’s not a fire risk (and) they have appropriate shelter,” Strohecker said. “It’s very challenging to find a place (that takes) animals, and housing is so expensive. And I mean, it’s a beautiful place, and when you have ties to that place … you don’t want to disrupt that.”

LIFE ON HOLOMUA ROAD

For Kawaakoa, her ties to the area are why she stays on Holomua Road. 

She grew up in Ha‘ikū and attended local public schools from Ha‘ikū Elementary to King Kekaulike High School. The shady, tree-lined road is peaceful, quiet and breezy, a stark contrast from sun-scorched Kahului. 

“The reason why we’re here is because we’re from this side,” she said. “So I’d rather stay somewhere where it’s my home.”

Kawaakoa said she has struggled to find a place she could afford to rent and that could take her pitbulls that she calls “my babies.” 

She estimated there are fewer than 50 people living on the road and said the community relies on each other. Her sister Mo‘i Kawaakoa has helped organize trash cleanups along the road, and Tania Kawaakoa’s van is a go-to place for food supplies. They set up four large barrels full of water for people to access. 

“We take care of each other over here,” Tania Kawaakoa said. “Everybody knows everybody.”

In 2017, the county kicked about 100 unhoused people out of the ironwood groves and fields around Baldwin Beach Park. In 2021, they forced more than 50 unhoused people out of Amala Place. Kawaakoa’s husband Micah Ching said they’re being left with fewer and fewer options. 

“They say they don’t like to see eyesores on the roads, on the streets, on the beach, but then yet they’re pushing everybody to go back there,” Ching said. “Here, it’s totally out of everybody’s sight.”

Kawaakoa didn’t see why such a big issue had been made of the fire risk, pointing out that sugar companies used to burn the open canefields in the same areas. 

Glen Daguay also said he doesn’t know where he’d go if the road were closed — he already left Baldwin Beach Park to move to Holomua Road. He said he lost his housing when a family member decided to sell their home in Pāʻia and that rent was too expensive elsewhere. 

“It’s hard nowadays to go any kind of place, especially down by the beach now, you know, they chase you away,” he said. 

Jessica Crouse, deputy director of the county Department of Human Concerns, said the department’s contractors went to Holomua Road on Tuesday to assess conditions. They connected with 15 people — 10 declined housing services and five indicated an interest but have not yet completed intake forms with the agency. She said they also counted an estimated 10 unattended campsites and that outreach workers will continue to visit the area. 

Outreach staff also counted 65 vehicles in various conditions, with some drivable and others inoperable.

Timelines for when the county will install gates on the road vary. Maui County Managing Director Josiah Nishita said the Department of Management is working on getting professional services to help with the design and permitting of the gates. He said the process and installation was expected to take at least six months.

U‘u-Hodgins said it would take “at least one year” because of the permitting process that requires the State Historic Preservation Division to review the plans for the historic road. 

The gates are expected to be closed from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., but U‘u-Hodgins said this would be “subject to change as the gates may end up closing around the hours of operation for all beach parks under the County of Maui,” and would remain open during emergencies.

“Our office acknowledges that this is a very long process to even begin construction of the gates, but the Councilmember intends to do everything by the book,” her staff said in an email Thursday. “This is to ensure that the process is thoroughly thought through and not rushed, as permitting for anything in the County may take a while.”

Both the people who live on and use the road want a solution. The area holds sentimental value to Audrey Rocha Reed, a board member of the Friends of Old Maui High School, where all but one of her 10 older siblings went to school. She remembers sitting on her dad’s lap and getting to steer as they drove his 1946 Dodge up Holomua Road, which led to their sugar plantation camp home in Hāmākuapoko. 

She said alumni from Old Maui High still like to come to the campus annually for reunions, and she didn’t want the road closure or the unhoused community would impact that. She suggested they relocate above the campus and that the road be repaved and the area made safer and more accessible for public events, whether at the old campus or nearby Ho‘okipa Beach. 

She said: “Holomua Road can be saved.”