Jonathan Helton

Well-intentioned attempts to protect Lahaina’s historic past have been making it extremely difficult for property owners to rebuild the town the way it was before the August 2023 fires.

But the good news is that recent initiatives from Maui County and a bill at the state Legislature could help speed up county- and state-level historic reviews.

It has been estimated that the Maui Cultural Resources Commission could need to sign off on more than 100 rebuilding plans for properties in the Lahaina National Historic Landmark District or one of the county’s historic zoning districts, yet it has approved only six since the fires — all of which were for residential homes. Even worse, not a single commercial rebuilding permit has been issued.

In fact, it wasn’t until this past August — two years after the fires — that the CRC approved residential design guidelines for rebuilding. The commission is still having hearings to set commercial design guidelines, though they are expected to be finalized soon.

Finally coming to the rescue, the Maui Office of Recovery issued a directive last month that authorizes the county Planning Department to process all like-for-like commercial rebuilding plans without waiting for review from the CRC.

Additionally, the Maui Planning Department has proposed a county measure that would streamline the process for non-commercial rebuilds.

The Office of Recovery’s directive requires that commercial rebuilds be largely similar to the pre-fire structures and follow the commission’s commercial design guidelines in order to qualify for approval from the Planning Department. Any plan that deviates from these standards would need CRC approval.

The directive was issued under Mayor Richard Bissen’s emergency proclamations related to the wildfires, so it is subject to change if the mayor updates his emergency order.

Enacting a permanent ordinance would provide more certainty for property owners in the long run — which could be accomplished by simply amending the Planning Department’s proposed bill to include like-for-like commercial rebuilds that conform with the design guidelines.

The CRC discussed the bill at its Feb. 5 meeting and unfortunately recommended against its adoption. The Maui Planning Commission will review the bill next.

At the state level, rebuilding in Lahaina has been held up by the State Historic Preservation Division, long known for taking ages to process permit applications. Part of its problem is that more than one-third of its staff positions are vacant, making delays virtually inevitable.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For commercial rebuilding projects in Lahaina, SHPD has been requiring archaeological inventory surveys, which can cost well into the six-figure range and take up to a year to complete.

A glimmer of hope that this can be addressed is a bill under consideration at the Legislature, HB1710, that would establish time frames in which SHPD must complete its reviews. If enacted, it wouldn’t resolve delays caused by the agency requiring costly surveys, but it would at least give applicants some certainty regarding when they could expect to get rulings on their project proposals.

Sadly, no matter how these initiatives resolve, they are too little too late for the many Lahaina homeowners and entrepreneurs who have already given up and moved out of West Maui. After all, two and a half years and counting is a long time to wait for permission to rebuild.

Nevertheless, it’s good to see state and county lawmakers making some progress toward speeding up the permitting process for everyone left in Lahaina who is committed to rebuilding what they had before the fires.

Jonathan Helton is a policy analyst at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.