#Department of Planning

Maui residents are invited to join a conversation with water resource and finance experts to help shape a sustainable, equitable and community-led future for East Maui’s watershed, according to an announcement. The Kula Community Association, Haʻikū Community Association and wikiwai.org are supporting the East Maui Water Authority and its community board, the ‘Aha Wai O […]

Citing Maui’s severe post-wildfire housing crisis, the Bissen administration presented its formal case to a County Council committee to phase out approximately 6,000 short-term vacation rentals mostly in West and South Maui. “We simply can’t build fast enough to meet the scale of demand we’re facing,” Mayor Richard Bissen told members of the Housing and […]

The contentious debate over the future of thousands of short-term vacation rentals in Maui County is heading to a much-anticipated public hearing Monday, June 9, before the Maui County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee. The committee posted an agenda for a meeting beginning at 10 a.m. Monday in the Council Chambers on the eighth […]

Residents are encouraged to attend the County of Maui’s Lahaina Community Meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, at the Lahaina Intermediate School cafeteria.

A federal lawsuit accuses Pāʻia Inn owner Michael Baskin of “rampant sexual harassment” of young female employees, including some teenagers, since at least 2015. Through a representative, Baskin denied the allegations filed Thursday in US District Court by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The commission’s news release says Baskin violated federal law when he […]

Residents are encouraged to attend the County of Maui’s in-person Lahaina Community Meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 7, at the Lahaina Intermediate School cafeteria.

As Lahaina begins to rebuild in the wake of the August 2023 wildfire disaster, residents and visitors of the beloved historic town are asking whether it will retain the historic character that went up in smoke and ashes.

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.

A proposed $1.85 million project to rebuild an oceanfront home on wildfire-ravaged Front Street in Lahaina is getting support from neighbors who also want to rebuild while taking hits from critics concerned with coastline impacts, rising sea levels, and what one opponent called “another mansion on the shoreline.”

The County of Maui Department of Planning is encouraging property owners whose legally nonconforming structures were destroyed in the August 2023 wildfires to apply for building permits and begin the process of rebuilding.

With growing numbers of Maui County employees, on paper, at least, is there enough space for them to park at the Kalana O Maui campus in Wailuku?

Maui County Council members heard about progress and plans for future needs Tuesday from the Maui Emergency Management Agency, now less than two years after the August 2023 wildfires disaster.

Residents are encouraged to attend the County of Maui’s Lahaina Community Meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at the Lahaina Intermediate School cafeteria.

Maui County Council members voted unanimously, 9-0, on Friday to approve by resolution the use of up to $5 million from the Managed Retreat Revolving Fund for property acquisition by the Lahaina Community Land Trust.

A waiver of special management area rules for Lahaina wildfire survivors is expected to reduce rebuilding permit processing by about a year, speeding reconstruction and economic recovery for the West Maui community impacted by the deadly Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires.

A bill to help with rebuilding historic Lahaina town advanced Monday afternoon out of the Senate Water and Land Committee, chaired by Sen. Lorraine Inouye of Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island.

Rebuilding in historic Lahaina town would not require special management area permits, under a bill introduced by West Maui Sen. Angus McKelvey, if the structure was destroyed by the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfire and planned reconstruction stays within the footprint of structure that stood before the disaster.

When asked about the worst thing about life in the County, the top response was Economy and Cost of Living (40%), followed by Social and Population Issues (19%) and Infrastructure and Services (16%).

Public comments are due Jan. 22 for a proposed installation of a “geotextile, sand-filled burrito” as erosion control at the Kanai A Nalu, a nearly 50-year-old, four-story condominium in Māʻalaea.

Residents are encouraged to attend the County of Maui’s Weekly Disaster Recovery Community Meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, in the Lahaina Intermediate School cafeteria. The meeting will include a presentation by Keʻeaumoku Kapu on the work of Nā ʻAikāne of Maui and the cultural monitoring program in place for debris cleanup in Lahaina.