Kama holds on as Housing and Land Use Committee chair; minority ouster attempt fails

By a 5-4 vote, Maui County Council Member Tasha Kama maintained chairmanship of the Housing and Land Use Committee last week, although it came with diluted committee responsibilities and no jurisdiction over proposals for increasing housing availability or affordability.

Minority council members tried to oust Kama for allowing legislation for post-disaster rebuilding to languish while a luxury housing development in South Maui was prioritized and then shut down in the closing weeks of 2024.

The largely symbolic attempt Thursday to remove Kama came less than a month after first-reading bills to advance the Honuaʻula master-planned community, formerly known as Wailea 670, were pulled from a full Council meeting agenda because of a “procedural requirement.” Under the County Code, the bills require a public hearing in South Maui before returning to council members for first reading. There have been complaints that Kama rushed the bills through her committee, cutting public testimony short.

During last week’s organizational meeting, Kama’s committee handling of the Honuaʻula project amendments was far from forgotten, especially by minority members.

Minority members nominated one of theirs, Council Member Gabe Johnson, as Housing Committee chair. But that failed, 5-4.

Majority Council Member Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins was elected vice chair of the Housing Committee, replacing Council Member Tom Cook, who held the vice chair post last term. That was the only leadership change approved by council members for any committee. All other committee chairs and vice chairs remain the same from last term.

Last week’s skirmishes over leadership positions underscored the ongoing 5-4 Council divide: The majority led by Chair Alice Lee includes Vice Chair Yuki Lei Sugimura, Kama, Cook and Uʻu-Hodgins. The minority follows Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Tamara Paltin and includes Johnson and Shane Sinenci.

During debate over the Housing Committee chairmanship, the minority’s criticism was bitingly personal at times, although Kama initially accepted it graciously.

“I don’t feel offended,” Kama said during Thursday’s organizational meeting. “I’m very grateful because these are the kinds of discussions that are hard to have, difficult to verbalize, but that’s what true love looks like. So, I’m proud of this Council.”

Minority members said during Thursday’s meeting that the chairmanship of the Housing and Land Use Committee is a “heavy lift,” with a great deal of work and complexity. They said Kama has struggled to manage meetings and has shown herself incapable of handling the workload of such an important committee.

“It would be an injustice to our community to not hold folks accountable,” Rawlins-Fernandez said. “It’s uncomfortable for everyone, but when power like this is held and abused and the community suffers because of it it’s incumbent upon us to speak to the injustice because, even though we don’t have the votes and we know that this is going through anyway, we are the voices of our community . . . We are their voice, and they need to be heard.”

Rawlins-Fernandez said Kama did not introduce bills, relying instead on administration-introduced measures; and “she often falls asleep in meetings.”

“I didn’t want to say that, but that’s part of the accountability, and if you’re not even able to stay awake during meetings, then how can you be doing your job?” she asked. “I’m sure there’s a good reason. I’m not saying there isn’t one, but if you cannot stay awake during meetings, then this much, this many important issues; should it be under the care of that person?”

In written comments Tuesday morning, Kama said: “I would prefer that council members focus on the substance of public policy and not engage in personal attacks.”

“During the organizational meeting, some members of Council chose to attack me personally,” she said. “I am disappointed that their zeal to advance policies that limit personal economic freedom led them to those personal attacks. I assure the public who elected me to office that I am physically capable of fulfilling the requirements of the office. If there comes a time when my doctor tells me otherwise, I will pray regarding that medical advice and decide my future guided by my faith.”

During Thursday’s meeting, Lee defended Kama, saying that, in “all fairness,” she was coping with a new department (of Housing) “that didn’t even exist yet.”

She credited Kama with managing the Council’s multi-purpose rezoning of Queen Kaʻahumanu Center, to make it possible to develop affordable housing in Kahului; and with handling land use measures related to the state’s acquisition of the former Haggai Institute (now called Hale ‘O Lā‛ie) in Kīhei, where there are now more than 150 units of housing for wildfire survivors.

“There are big ones that went through her committee, and she did well,” Lee said.

Lee acknowledged that Kama, as Housing Committee chair, has taken criticism for the Council’s handling of the Honuaʻula master-planned community project district. The committee majority agreed to eliminate language that would require 450 affordable units in the Kīhei-Mākena Project District 9.

Lee said it’s “unfortunate” that Kama has come under fire for that hotly disputed project, which has been under County review for more than 16 years.

“A lot of people don’t understand that this was the third Council to review that project,” she said. “And when it came to us (last term), it wasn’t for a change of zoning. That zoning was done years ago. It was to take out a golf course. It was to put in the preservation land, a cultural preservation land, and a few small other changes. But, in turn, it turned into something that people started to say, ‘Oh, why don’t we have more affordable in this project? [There’s] too many market” priced homes.

“But people didn’t see the history and the progression of this project as it went through the system,” Lee said.

People also fail to understand that all “affordable” housing needs to be subsidized, she said.

“The fact is, if somebody doesn’t pay for the affordability of that house, that house is never going to be occupied by people of low- to moderate-income, and that’s a fact,” she said. “So, you know, when you take everything into consideration, . . . all the circumstances, our chair has done a good job. She really has. Can she do better? Yeah, we all can do better.”

Paltin said she wasn’t laying blame on Kama for a lack of progress on affordable housing, in general. Rather, she was critical of Kama’s role as facilitator of the Housing and Land Use Committee.

“I constantly hear: ‘Let’s get this over with,'” Paltin said of Kama. “And it’s discouraging that the facilitator of one of the most important committees can’t keep their eyes open; constantly makes remarks that they don’t want to be there; . . . cuts testimony short; starts the meeting late. You know it’s not that we’re saying all the problems are because of one person; we’re saying that it could be so much better if you would let party politics out of the way.”

Paltin said that living in West Maui she sees the plight of wildfire survivors every day, and “simple party politics (are) creating a shield for folks that aren’t pulling their weight, and it’s going to be the public that suffers.”

“I’m looking at people that lost everything, every day,” she said. “I’m driving to a burnt out town, every day. None of you guys have to do that just to come here. . . It’s not acceptable to the job that was done for the last two years in the Housing and Land Use Committee. It’s a hinderance to this entire county to grasp at power when you’re not capable of leading it.”

Kama thanked Council minority members for their remarks. “You’re all doing your job,” she said. “I’m doing my job because we all are accountable to the people who voted [for] us out there.”

Council members all do what they believe is right “within our hearts,” she said.

“Now, as far as luxury homes, caving in to developers, so on and so forth; those things don’t come to my head,” she said. “What comes to my head is how many units can we turn out in a year for our people. And our people doesn’t necessarily mean those who fall below 80% adjusted median income because everybody across the AMI structure needs housing. We complain that we have to fly off island because we don’t have enough technicians and doctors or nurses, but that’s because we have a housing problem. So if we don’t create housing for doctors, nurses, technicians and all the other professions that we need here, then we’re not going to get what we need.”

Kama said she hears what’s being said about her, but “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe a lot of things that are said about me. But that’s not my job to believe everything about me. My job as housing chair is to make sure we have housing for all of our people, for all of our community. So I appreciate the comments that were said here. I appreciate the support of the majority.”

Rawlins-Fernandez said that addressing Maui’s housing shortage won’t be addressed by simply building new housing. “We’re not going to build ourselves out of this problem,” she said.

“It’s a matter of housing is distributed, and that’s going to be coming up very soon with the Minatoya List,” referring to the proposed phase-out of vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts, she said. “That is about how housing is used, and it’s not being used to house our people. And we need to focus on the redistribution of housing for our people.”

This morning, Kama said there is no “housing fairy” that will, “with a wave of a wand, create affordable housing.” She said Maui County doesn’t have an “infinite supply” of money to fund affordable housing.

“Without County funding and without that ‘housing fairy,’ the only way to address the severe housing shortage in our County is a approve for-sale projects at market rates, which are required by County Code to build 25% of the units for sale at workforce housing prices set by the Department of Housing,” Kama said.

The minority Council members held Kama responsible for failing to push through Bills 103, 104 and 105 — a trio of measures drafted and proposed by the Department of Planning, after the wildfires, to help make more affordable housing available.

Kama said this morning that the three bills were rushed before the Council by the administration and aren’t ready for passage because of unanswered questions and differing views.

Johnson said that when those bills for fire survivors’ rebuilding came before the Council, “we should have been on those so fast. Those people are waiting for those bills. What? Are they stuck in limbo?”

The workload in one committee is too much, he said. “It’s just too much of an agenda. It’s too big.”

Paltin said the county administration acted quickly to get the three bills before council members “because they thought we were prioritizing behind our recovery.”

“They were baffled that we were rushing through and prioritizing [Honuaʻula] while Bills 103, 104 and 105 sit on the shelf for six months,” she said. “We’re not acting with that sense of urgency on all the things that could get us more housing.”

The people truly impacted are those paying $5,000-per-month rentals, or needing to move to the US continent or Oʻahu, Paltin said. “That’s who it affects, and that’s who we pledged to be here for. And, if it continues on this way as they continued last term, we’re not helping them. We’re hindering them.”

Bill 103 addresses density in residential districts, and Bill 104 relates to kitchenettes, kitchens, dwelling units and wet bars. Both bills would help housing development countywide.

Bill 105 is specific to disaster-recovery areas like West Maui and Upcountry. Bill 105 allows structures and uses that were non-conforming with the Maui County Code before the wildfires to be rebuilt and used as they had before. (More detail on the bill is available in its transmittal.)

Reviewed by the county planning commissions in February, the bill changes the code’s nonconformity section to include structures and uses that were affected by a disaster. Specifically, the change would allow nonconforming structures and uses impacted by the August wildfires, and future disasters, to be re-established even if more than 50% of the structure was damaged. The amendment provides for a four-year timeframe to rebuild the structures or re-establish property uses.

Bills 103, 104 and 105 have been forwarded to the Council Housing and Land Use Committee for the 2025-26 term.

In an effort to lighten the workload of the Housing Committee, council members transferred some of its responsibilities to Paltin’s Disaster, Resilience, International Affairs and Planning Committee.

Those include:

• Processing procedures for the General Plan.
• Land use ordinances relating to improving disaster recovery.
• Implementation of a digital mapping project.
• Proposals for increasing the availability or affordability of housing.

Kama was not the only majority member to take criticism for her management of a committee. Sugimura came under some fire for lack of preparation and handling of the Budget, Finance and Economic Development Committee. Nevertheless, she also remained as committee chair by a vote of 7-2, with minority members Johnson and Sinenci voting with the majority.

When asked for comment, Sugimura released a statement: “I look forward to continuing as chair of the Council’s Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee, and continuing the work of addressing our community’s needs.  I am grateful for the confidence of six of my fellow councilmembers during our organizational meeting and remain focused on serving the people of Maui County.  We will continue working with all members of the Council as we approach another critically important budget session in the coming months.”

In other action, council members changed the name of the former Efficiency Solutions and Circular Systems to Komike Aloha ʻĀina. Rawlins-Fernandez chairs that committee.

Editor’s note: This story was updated from its original post to correct the vote in favor of electing Council Member Yuki Lei Sugimura as chair of the Budget, Finance, and Economic Development Committee. The vote was 7-2, with Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Tamara Paltin dissenting.