The Maui County Council voted 5-4 on Friday against sending hotel-zoning proposals for four oceanfront condominium complexes in West Maui and Māʻalaea to the Maui Planning Commission, rejecting the last four properties Council Chair Alice Lee had sought to add to the referral process.

Lee introduced both resolutions. Each failed with four ayes and five noes.

Resolution 26-160 applied to Nohonani and Hoyochi Nikko condominiums on Lower Honoapiʻilani Road in Lahaina, and Resolution 26-161 covered the Māʻalaea Kai and Island Sands in Māʻalaea. Each would have sent two bills to the commission: one amending the community plan and one rezoning the properties from apartment to hotel use, which would let owners keep renting units to visitors.

Lee, Vice Chair Yuki Lei Sugimura and Council Members Tom Cook and Kauanoe Batangan voted ayes on Resolutions 26-160 and 26-161. Council Members Gabe Johnson, Tamara Paltin, Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, Shane Sinenci and Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins voted no. Although Uʻu-Hodgins usually votes with the Council’s majority members, she broke away for these two votes and joined the Council’s progressive members.

Uʻu-Hodgins, who chairs the Housing and Land Use Committee and introduced Resolution 26-129, said the new resolutions conflict with the criteria she wrote for that measure.

She said she read the properties’ declarations as showing they were originally intended for residential use, with rentals to transients allowed only occasionally. She also doubted the commission would act in time.

The commission recommended denial for most of an earlier batch of 48 properties. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can count to 120, and 120 days is not in this term,” she said.

The four complexes were left out of Resolution 26-129, which the Council approved 5-4 on Sept. 29 to refer 32 other shoreline complexes to the commission. The Council defeated an amendment that day to add Nohonani and Hoyochi Nikko. Māʻalaea Kai and Island Sands had been dropped earlier under a committee criterion tied to long-term residential use in 2008.

Bill 9 (Ordinance 5909) is phasing out vacation rentals in apartment districts, with the ban taking effect Dec. 31, 2028, in West Maui and Dec. 31, 2030, elsewhere in the county. Bill 88 (Ordinance 6008) created the H-3 and H-4 hotel districts, effective June 22, for properties seeking to continue transient vacation rentals.

Lee said the four properties face severe coastal hazards and that their 1970s condominium declarations allowed rentals to transients. They were “never intended, designed or built to function as long-term workforce and affordable housing,” she said. She also said the Council must “treat every property fairly consistently and not arbitrarily.”

Cook, who represents South Maui, said the vote only sent the proposals to the commission for review. “That is not a big ask,” he said. He also cited the risk of litigation if the Council treats property owners unequally, calling it “the elephant in the room.”

Opponents raised several concerns. Johnson said the matter should go through a Council committee first. “Let’s have that thorough review in committee,” he said.

Paltin, who represents West Maui, said the area’s housing need outweighs the case for more visitor lodging. “We desperately need housing in West Maui, and we don’t need more vacation rentals,” she said. Sinenci said he had supported sending some A-1 properties to the commission in the past but had problems with shoreline properties, and he would keep his earlier position.

Batangan said he would support referral because the Planning Department had offered to evaluate properties sent to the commission, and he wanted to keep the process moving forward.

Just before the vote on the first resolution, Lee called the process for handling of the properties had been “very unfair… Not consistent, arbitrary, and often random.” After the second vote, she called Bill 9 “the worst possible legislation we ever passed.”