#Department of Planning

The Maui County Council moved forward two bills this week aimed at bolstering island agriculture, but one — Bill 75, which seeks to establish agricultural tourism — sparked a debate over safeguarding indigenous Hawaiian cultural practices from commercial exploitation. In a less contentious move, Bill 76 received unanimous final Council approval to allow food trucks […]

The Maui County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee reconvened its deliberations on Bill 9 at 3:43 p.m. Wednesday after a closed executive session that went on for more than six hours. Later, the panel recessed until 9 a.m. July 23.

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

Maui County Council members are set to begin deliberations next week on Bill 9, a proposed measure to phase out short-term vacation rentals that could significantly impact housing, tourism, jobs, tax revenue, and the island’s economy. The Housing and Land Use Committee, chaired by Council Member Tasha Kama, closed public testimony Wednesday after hearing from […]

A novel approach to Maui’s severe housing crisis emerged during a third round of emotional public testimony Monday on the hotly debated vacation rental phase-out bill: leveraging short-term rental profits to finance affordable housing for local families. Jonavan Asato, senior pastor at Grace Bible Church in Kahului, proposed this alternative while testifying on Bill 9 […]

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.