#Minatoya list

The crux of the debate is whether apartment units, long zoned for residential use, should be used as direly needed local housing or continue operating as visitor accommodations with the economic benefits of jobs, property tax revenue and income for vacation rental investors.

The Maui County Council voted 7-2 on Friday to raise fines for loud vehicle sound systems, advancing a measure that drops an earlier proposal to seize stereo equipment from repeat offenders.

The Maui County Council gave final approval Thursday to a $1.6 billion fiscal year 2027 budget, sending the spending plan to Mayor Richard Bissen’s desk, but not before adding $50,000 for Maui County campus security.

The Maui County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee voted 6-1 Tuesday to advance new hotel zoning districts for thousands of short-term vacation rentals facing a county-mandated phase-out—overriding unanimous rejection from all three county planning commissions.

A proposal to establish new hotel zoning districts — a move that would allow roughly 4,500 short-term vacation rentals to survive a looming phase-out — faces an uncertain future after the measure was resoundingly rejected last month by the Maui Planning Commission.

Hawaiʻi’s economy is moving beyond last year’s mild recession, but the recovery will be gradual, according to the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization’s first quarter forecast for 2026 released on Feb. 27. Maui is the standout, as ongoing recovery from the disastrous 2023 wildfires will continue to propel rising tourism activity, if at a slower pace than last year.

A group of West Maui property owners has filed the first legal challenge against Maui County’s controversial Bill 9, days after Mayor Richard Bissen signed the legislation into law. Filed Dec. 19 in 2nd Circuit Court, the lawsuit seeks to block the county from phasing out thousands of short-term rental units in apartment-zoned districts. The […]

Mayor Richard Bissen today signed Bill 9 into law after Maui County Council approved the measure on second and final reading, marking what he calls “a historic step toward restoring housing availability for residents” and “realigning zoning policy with its original residential purpose.”

The Maui County Council members passed Bill 9 on second and final reading Monday by the same 5-3 vote that advanced the controversial measure earlier this month. Later Monday, Mayor Richard Bissen signed the bill into law. Bissen introduced the measure to phase out transient vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts in May 2024. While the […]

Views expressed in Op-Ed pieces are those of the author’s alone and do not reflect or represent the opinions, policies or positions of Maui Now.

County attorneys have been careful not to reveal their legal strategies but say they believe the bill is legally sound.

In a move to address lingering concerns about a proposed law to phase out transient vacation rentals, the Maui County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee voted 8-0 on Wednesday to form a Temporary Investigative Group. The TIG, a “permitted interaction group” under Hawaiʻi’s Sunshine Law, would investigate policies and procedures for vacation rentals in […]

Members of the Maui County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee voted 6-3 on Thursday to recommend passage of Bill 9 on first reading, reaching a milestone in a review process that saw more than 300 people testify for and against the bill over the course of five days this summer. The measure would phase-out […]

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 […]

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 UHERO second quarter forecast for 2025 reports: “sharp increases in US import tariffs, sweeping federal layoffs, and volatile fiscal and immigration policies are undermining consumer confidence, raising inflation expectations, and worsening the business outlook—both nationally and in Hawaiʻi’s visitor-dependent economy.”

Mayor Richard Bissen and his Communications Office have provided point-by-point responses to Monday’s release of the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization’s analysis of the mayor’s proposed phase-out of thousands of vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts. The phase-out proposal has gone through Maui County planning commissions. Now, it’s pending before the Maui County Council, which […]

A Maui County Council plan to contract its own study of the economic impacts of Mayor Richard Bissen’s proposed phase-out of Maui County vacation rentals has fallen to the wayside, and Council legislative analysts will conduct research in-house instead.

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.

Wildfire recovery, the cancellation of the Maui Fair, housing solutions, and election highlights are among the stories that made our list of top features this year. Here’s a recap of some of Maui’s biggest stories in 2024.