Maui Planning Commission recommends EC Pāʻia Town project rezoning as private water source raises questions

The Maui Planning Commission voted 5-3 Tuesday to recommend approval of the EC Pāʻia Town Project’s rezoning, after developers said the 170-home, mixed-use development would rely on private wells and a private wastewater treatment plant rather than county systems in Central Maui that already operate at or near capacity. The commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of a related community plan amendment for the same 40-acre property.

The project, proposed by developer Sam Hirbod through his company EC Paia, would bring roughly 170 homes—120 single-family and 50 multifamily units, including 60 income-restricted workforce and gap-income units—along with a medical clinic, neighborhood commercial space, a public parking lot, and a relocated Pāʻia bypass to roughly 40 acres of former Alexander & Baldwin sugarcane and heavy-industrial mill land. The project site is mauka of Hāna Highway, makai of the former Pāʻia Mill and west of Baldwin Avenue. Currently, the grass-dense land is being used for cattle grazing. The Maui Island Plan designates the project site as a small town growth area.

Now, the commission’s recommendation heads back to the Maui County Council for action. The makai portion of the property is within the county’s special management area, so it will return to the commission with an application for an SMA permit.

The commission votes

The commission’s recommendation on the rezoning came only after a motion to deny it outright, made by Commissioner Mark Deakos and seconded by Commissioner Crichton Lind, failed 2-5. Voting to deny: Deakos and Lind. Voting against denial: Commissioners Christopher Elizares, Joshua Circle-Woodburn, Virgilio “Leo” Agcolicol, Prentis-Ray Noʻeau Patao and Keaka Kamai.

The commission then approved a substitute motion recommending the rezoning to Council with conditions, 5-3. Voting yes: Elizares, Circle-Woodburn, Agcolicol, Patao and Kamai. Voting no: Deakos, Lind and Vice Chair Andrea Kealoha, an archaeologist who said she was troubled that the commission’s deliberations touched only briefly on environmental and cultural-resource concerns near the project’s shoreline-adjacent parcel. Chair Brian Ward was absent from the meeting.

Water and wastewater concerns

Much of the commission’s skepticism centered on infrastructure the project doesn’t yet have secured—and on a state-level question of whether the water source proposed for the project actually exists.

Potable water. Presenting the project’s water plan, Harold Edwards, president of ITC Water Management, told commissioners the development would need 75,738 gallons per day of potable water and roughly 52,235 gallons per day of non-potable water, based on 2002 county water standards combined with the county’s newly adopted equivalent-single-dwelling-unit standards.

Asked why the project isn’t planning to connect to the county system, Edwards said: “Because the county system is basically at capacity, the plan would be to go mauka, about the 300-foot elevation, install two wells and storage/treatment facilities to support the project.” 

Project attorney Cal Chipchase had him confirm the project has no plans to connect to or draw from the county water system at all.

That matches the Department of Water Supply’s Aug. 14 letter to the Department of Planning, which put the Central Maui system at 98% to 100% of its maximum reliable capacity, with “no additional source capacity” available for new or expanded service.

Aquifer use. With the county system off the table, the project’s private wells would draw instead from the Pāʻia aquifer. In response to that, Deakos cited a 2024 state Commission on Water Resource Management report showing the Pāʻia aquifer drawn at roughly 195% of its official sustainable yield, and the Kahului aquifer—a separate system—at more than 700%.

Chipchase told commissioners the project’s private wells would draw from the Pāʻia aquifer specifically, and that its current overdraft is attributable to the ongoing East Maui drought reducing irrigation-water deliveries to Mahi Pono—not a structural, long-term shortage—with conditions expected to normalize before the project needs water in 10 to 12 years.

In response to a request for further information from Maui Now, Chipchase said a potential source of water is the Pāʻia aquifer.

“We believe that there will be an adequate water source when the water need for this project arises,” he said. “One approach would be to deliver agricultural water to the agricultural users in return for potable water from existing wells. Alternatively, the existing skimming well on the property would be a source for water service and could be treated to a potable standard through a reverse osmosis process.”

Commission on Water Resource Management weighs in

Maui Now asked the Commission on Water Resource Management for updated information on the Pāʻia and Kahului aquifers. In a written response on Wednesday, Deputy Director Ciara Kahahane provided updated pumping figures showing the situation has gotten worse, not better since the last report in November.

For the 12-month moving average through May 31, 2026, the daily water draw was 15.175 million gallons a day for the Pāʻia aquifer—about 217% of its 7 mgd sustainable yield—and 7.760 mgd for the Kahului aquifer, about 776% of its 1 mgd sustainable yield. Both figures are higher than the ones the water commission provided to Maui Now in November last year.

On the drought question specifically, Kahahane acknowledged that “East Maui has seen wetter conditions in recent months; however, because the 12-month moving average reflects pumping over the preceding 12 months, it can remain elevated even after monthly pumping has declined.”

Kahahane noted that: “The current technical work being done by (state water) commission staff is not designed to determine how much groundwater pumping is attributable specifically to reduced East Maui surface water deliveries versus longer-term groundwater demand. The relationship between imported East Maui surface water, irrigation return flow, and recharge of the Central Maui aquifers is complex and cannot be reduced to a simple one-to-one relationship. Answering that question would require a separate analysis of groundwater users, their pumping patterns, and the availability and use of alternative water sources, including access to surface water deliveries from East Maui.”

Commission staff have continued their analysis of groundwater conditions in the Central Maui aquifer sector, she said.

“That analysis is ongoing and is not yet ready for public distribution,” she said. “Staff are also working to site deep monitor wells within the Pāʻia and Kamaʻole aquifer systems, which will provide key information about aquifer conditions, including the thickness and salinity profile of the freshwater lens. Both wells are currently in the pre-construction stage of development.”

State commission staff, along with the US Geological Survey, are conducting a broader study of Central Maui aquifer boundaries—set decades ago under different irrigation and recharge conditions—that could eventually lead to revised sustainable-yield figures for the Pāʻia and Kahului systems, including new deep monitoring wells planned for the Pāʻia and Kamaʻole aquifer systems.

Kahahane said staff aren’t able to estimate when that work will be complete or what any revised numbers might show. Asked directly about the viability of a new private withdrawal from the Pāʻia aquifer for this project, she said the state commission doesn’t have enough detail about the proposed well to comment.

Wastewater. On wastewater, the project is expected to generate 57,000 gallons per day, according to the Department of Planning’s staff report. The county’s Wailuku-Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility is operating near its 7.9-million-gallon-per-day capacity, and Central Maui may have no significant additional wastewater capacity until the Central Maui wastewater facility comes online around 2030. In the interim, the project would rely on a private treatment plant on an adjacent parcel, using recycled R-1 water for on-site irrigation.

Deputy Corporation Counsel Michael Hopper also noted the private wastewater plant is likely to trigger its own environmental review under Hawaiʻi law.

Rezoning conditions

The Maui Planning Commission’s rezoning recommendation carries the three conditions the County Council attached when it adopted Resolution 26-84 in June: workforce-unit affordability in perpetuity, no separate parking fee for residents of the affordable units, and inclusion of laundry facilities. Commissioners added:

• An “order of implementation” requiring infrastructure to be built first, the public parking lot second, and workforce/gap-income housing third, ahead of the balance of the project
• Free parking for Maui residents at the new public lot, potentially through the county’s existing Park Maui program
• A commitment to “meaningful” community engagement going forward

During the hearing, Chipchase voluntarily proposed increasing the project’s gap-income units—from 16 to 20 single-family homes, plus adding six new gap-income units within the multifamily component. Combined with the 34 workforce units, that brings the project’s total income-restricted units to 60 of 170—up from the 50 originally presented to the Council in May.

A separate push, led by Deakos and Kealoha, to require additional affordable units beyond code minimums failed 2-4. Hopper had advised the commission it would need a specific impact-based justification to require more than Maui County Code Chapter 2.96’s baseline affordable-housing standard, and no commissioner offered one.

A disputed condition

The Department of Planning’s staff report had recommended the commission tell Council not to act on the rezoning ordinance until the state Land Use Commission approves a required district boundary amendment—a state-level step needed because the property remains designated agricultural under state law even after county rezoning.

That language was proposed during the hearing but it was not included in the motion the Maui commission ultimately voted on and passed. 

Hopper told commissioners during the hearing that regardless of what the commission’s recommendation says, the county’s position is that the rezoning ordinance cannot take legal effect until after the state Land Use Commission acts. 

On Wednesday, the Department of Planning responded to a Maui Now query on this point and reported that its transmittal to the County Council will include the department’s recommendation that the Council should not take action to approve the ordinance until after the state Land Use Commission’s district boundary decision.

The developer’s case

In an extensive presentation at the start of the commission meeting, Chipchase said the project is a Council-initiated community plan amendment and rezoning being reviewed ahead of, rather than after, full state environmental review—a sequence he said would still take five to eight years to complete permitting alone, with construction years beyond that. Separating out rezoning consideration—instead of taking up rezoning and community plan amendments in tandem—would add at least another year, probably two years, to land-use approvals, he said.

“There’s no reason to delay the zoning action for another year or two years,” Chipchase said. “All that ultimately does is delay the development of housing, delay the development of the related infrastructure that is needed, not just for this project… [but] for the other projects that have already been approved or that are going through their separate approvals now.”

The Maui County Code authorizes the Council to introduce proposed amendments to zoning maps and land use ordinances for public hearing before the commission.

Leaving Maui as a better place

Hirbod told commissioners he loves Maui, would be accountable for his actions and wants to do something meaningful with the property he purchased with his family about 10 years ago. He envisions active agriculture, including cattle ranching, in an agricultural subdivision on 300 acres next to the project site.

“It has been a long road for us to be here,” he said. “For this land, I consider myself a steward of it. The land was here before me, and it will be here long after me. I want to leave it in a better place than I found it.”

Hirbod said he wants to develop housing opportunities.

“Our vision is that the professionals, the children on Maui, have an opportunity to stay on Maui to build their lives here and to raise their own children here. I want housing that addresses people who are being priced out, including the gap group that earns too much to qualify for traditional affordable housing, but cannot afford today’s housing market.”

Hirbod said he personally mailed letters with his cellphone number to about 170 nearby residents and answered every call before following up with postcards sent to all of Pāʻia.

“We listened,” he said. “We included their ideas. We answered their questions.” 

Community feedback from that outreach shaped elements of the plan, including the public parking lot, medical clinic and gap-income housing.

Roadway impacts and archaeology

The project team’s traffic engineer, Tyler Fujiwara of Austin, Tsutsumi & Associates, presented a traffic impact analysis report projecting the relocated Pāʻia bypass would actually reduce traffic congestion at the Baldwin Avenue/Hāna Highway intersection by diverting roughly 40% of makai-bound left-turn vehicles off Baldwin Avenue.

Overall, Pāʻia traffic conditions would improve for motorists with the project-proposed improvements, opposed to none, Fujiwara said.

The state Department of Transportation, in an Aug. 20 letter, asked that a completed traffic impact report be submitted to and accepted by its Maui District Office before any preliminary subdivision approval. The Department of Planning received the project’s final draft traffic impact report on Aug. 24—four days after the department’s letter.

ʻĀina Archaeology’s Tanya Lee-Greig told commissioners no above-ground archaeological sites were found on the property, though she called the makai portion “low, and not none” risk for subsurface cultural deposits—citing prior testing for the Pāʻia Mini-Bypass and relief-route projects that found sand deposits 150 to 350 feet inland of Hāna Highway, 90 centimeters to 1.8 meters below the surface. The State Historic Preservation Division will have a chance to recommend additional subsurface testing as the project moves through permitting, she said.

Divided public testimony

Testimony ran roughly two hours and was closely split between residents advocating for swift action on the project’s housing opportunities and those advising caution and further environmental review.

Several supporters described personal or family struggles finding housing on Maui despite steady incomes, and argued the project’s market-rate units would help subsidize its public infrastructure and affordable housing. One construction-industry representative pointed to the local jobs the project would bring.

April Saretsky noted that several pro-project testifiers are professionally connected to Hirbod, “ultimately benefitting them in some way.”

She went on to say she agrees housing is needed on the island, but “I don’t believe that $1.6 million homes are the answer,” with only 16 gap-group homes and 34 workforce rentals.

Saretsky pointed out that the Pāʻia-Haʻikū Community Plan hasn’t been updated since 1995, despite a county requirement that it be updated every 10 years.

Hanna Lilley, Hawaiʻi regional manager of the Surfrider Foundation, asked the commission to defer the project’s applications for both the community plan amendment and change in zoning.

“Our concern is not necessarily the project itself but the process being used to move it forward,” she said. Because the project is Council-initiated, “this private development is able to use a procedural loophole to bypass elements of the normal applicant-driven process,” including an environmental review normally required at this early stage of the project.

“So, essentially, it’s the cart before the horse,” Lilley said. “We’re concerned about dangerously normalizing a process where a Council initiation can be used to push forward private development without important safeguards of environmental review, and that matters because there’s a lot of unanswered environmental questions.”

Albert Perez, executive director of Maui Tomorrow Foundation, brought up concerns about rainwater runoff from the project, and he shared concerns about the usual project review being followed.

“It bypasses the true public engagement that is called for in the Countywide Policy Plan,” he said.

“When this project came before the Council, it was clear that the developer had worked behind the scenes to gather support,” Perez said. “But this project was a big surprise to the larger Pāʻia community. That is not promoting and ensuring public participation.”

Perez said the project should be conditioned on the still-unbuilt “real” Pāʻia bypass, a state highways project discussed for years to relieve Hāna Highway traffic through Pāʻia town.

Lucienne de Naie, who served on the Maui Island Plan’s General Plan Advisory Committee representing the Haʻikū-Pāʻia district, told commissioners an 8-acre parcel had originally been earmarked specifically for affordable housing for an Alexander & Baldwin project during that planning process—a commitment she said appears to have been dropped with the new landowner.

Residents provided additional opposition testimony, including concerns about shoreline and fishing-ground impacts.

Council member testimony

Testifying in a personal, not official, capacity, Council Member Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins, who holds the Makawao-Haʻikū-Pāʻia residency seat and introduced Resolution 26-84, described deep multigenerational family ties to Pāʻia, including relatives buried in the area dating back to 1877. She said she wanted to preserve the character and continuity of the town’s people rather than its buildings.

Uʻu-Hodgins told commissioners she’d like to see the Council-initiated review process used for this project—which allows zoning changes to be evaluated before a private applicant completes the full state environmental review—”normalized” more broadly for future projects. She argued that it gives the county more control over outcomes than waiting for developer-initiated applications.

“In my opinion, when we’re doing affordable housing, when we can shave off a little bit of time, I’m hoping that time saves our people money in the long run when they actually do buy these homes,” she said, noting the proposed development in Pāʻia is not the first Council-initiated process.

“Member (Tamara) Paltin has done a couple. I’ve done a couple,” she said. “We see these quite often; maybe not necessarily this scale, but we see them.” 

The council member also fielded pointed questions from commissioners about whether 34 income-restricted units justify the roughly 110 to 120 market-rate homes in the project, and about the traffic and Pāʻia bypass timeline.

Regarding housing, Uʻu-Hodgins said she’s hopeful the project will help local residents.

“I think there’s a way to tailor it as best we can to accommodate our local working class people,” she said. “And I do leave it to you folks and to us to kind of work that out.”

What’s next?

The commission’s written recommendation now goes to the County Council, which would need a two-thirds vote to approve the rezoning if it declines to follow the commission’s recommendation. The Council has no timeline in which to act upon the commission’s recommendations, according to the Office of Council Services.