Twenty months have passed since the devastating Lahaina wildfires on Maui, yet only 341 permits have been issued, and just eight homes have been rebuilt.
But there is hope on the horizon, according to Grassroot Institute policy analyst Jonathan Helton, speaking on March 30, 2025, with radio host Johnny Miro on the H. Hawaii Media radio network.
Most notably, Helton said, the Maui County Council last month passed and Maui Mayor Richard Bissen signed into law Bill 105, which lets many of Lahaina’s historic buildings be rebuilt without facing challenging zoning and permitting requirements that didn’t exist when those buildings were originally constructed.
Another hopeful sign is a bill before the Legislature that would make permanent the Gov. Josh Green’s emergency proclamations concerning Special Mangement Area use permits and school impact fees.
Regarding the SMA permits, Helton said they apply to construction projects over $500,000 in areas close to the coast, but obtaining them is difficult.
“In the past 10 years,” he explained, “the Planning Commission on Maui had only issued 41 Special Management Area use permits for the whole island.” But because of the fires, “For Lahaina, you’re talking about well over 100, hundreds of buildings that would need a Special Management Area use permit.”
Helton said to help speed up the process, Gov. Josh Green waived the SMA permit requirement for most properties in Lahaina. But since the SMA and school impact fee exemptions are only temporary, the state Legislature is considering bills SB1296 and HB422, respectively, to make those changes permanent.
Helton invited anyone dealing with permitting challenges to share their stories with him and the Grassroot Institute.
“We’re very interested in Lahaina because we want to help people be able to rebuild their lives and their businesses, their homes. But the whole state, Grassroot is involved,” he said. “We want to hear from you.”
To listen to the full 20-minute conversation, click on the image below. A complete transcript is provided.
3-30-25 Jonathan Helton interviews by Johnny Miro of H. Hawaii Media radio network
Johnny Miro: Good Sunday morning to you. I’m Johnny Miro. Once again, it’s time for our H. Hawaii Media radio station’s public access programming on our five Oahu radio stations and five stations on Kauai. Hawaiistream.fmlive365 — another way to pick us up if you’re out and about, away from the terrestrial radio.
Well, it’s been nearly a year and a half since the devastating fires of Lahaina and the surrounding areas of Kula. They’re starting to get some semblance of some good news as far as the rebuild efforts are concerned. All right?
So It was burned down by those wildfires. Most of those residents still struggling to rebuild, and that’s thanks to the abundance of the inflexible zoning, land use and other regulations that have stood in their way. But there might be some progress, might be some good news, and silver linings coming up here.
As we’re joined once again by Jonathan Helton, policy analyst with the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. And he says there’s hope on the horizon, as a bill approved by the Maui County Council in mid-March and signed into law by the mayor just this past week will help with the rebuilding of so-called non-conforming properties and uses. All right.
So, Jonathan, good morning to you, and has some good news in light of all the, of course, bad news since the Aug. 8 of 2023. Good Sunday morning to you.
Jonathan Helton: Yeah. Good morning to you too, Johnny. Always happy to be on the show. And yes, there is good news, and I’m excited to talk about it.
Miro: All right. The state Legislature is debating a bill that would streamline approvals for many buildings in Lahaina’s town core, especially those in the state’s [Special] Management Area along the coastline. That’s very important to people.
After all this time, Jonathan, since Aug. 8 of 2023, how are the rebuilding efforts going? I know you’ve kept your eye on this. How many people have received their building permits so far?
Helton: So far, there’s 341 permits have been issued, so that’s an uptick from a couple of months ago.
Eight homes have been rebuilt. And that doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’ve been reading in the, you know, after the wildfires that happened in Los Angeles, I’ve been reading and, you know, the disaster recovery on Maui is happening slowly. And, you know, my heart goes out to everybody who is waiting on their building permit, waiting on their insurance, waiting to figure out if they can rebuild.
But compared to other disasters and other wildfires across the country, Maui is moving slowly, but it’s not that much slower. And unfortunately, this takes time.
But, you know, as you alluded to, there’s a couple of bills that have passed and that are being debated now that could speed things up a little bit.
Miro: I didn’t even hear that there were eight homes you said rebuilt already? I mean, that’s …
Helton: Yes.
Miro: Okay. I haven’t even really seen that brought forward. So that’s good news. Very good news, obviously.
And the one thing, just to bring up that Los Angeles area, people are selling their lots for cash. They’re saying, you know, like, it’s not gonna be worth the effort. So that’s not taking place in Lahaina. They’re really standing strong and firm against that.
How would you describe, Jonathan, the regulations that people are facing as they rebuild right now?
Helton: I’m gonna use the words of one of the people who works in construction and planning for the Maui County government. This person said that Lahaina is one of the most regulated places, one of the hardest places to deal with all of the permits and all of the zoning, you know, in the whole county of Maui.
And if you think about it, that makes sense. Lahaina was a very old town. There was a lot of charm because it was old, but older areas often come with higher regulations.
I made a list. I wanna sort of go through each one, not in-depth, but just to list it.
So normally, if you’re looking to build something on Maui, you’re gonna have to deal with, you know, making sure you have the right zoning for what you wanna build.
You might have to get a flood permit, depending on if you’re close to the coast or if you’re close to a stream.
You know, you are going to need to make sure that what you’re building complies with the community plan.
You’re going to need monitoring from the State Historic Preservation Division, if you’re gonna be doing any sort of disturbance to the ground.
And you’re gonna need your building permit.
And that’s just if you wanna build something, you know, pretty much anywhere in Maui — you’re gonna have to navigate those.
But in Lahaina, you have all of those, and then you add to that dealing with the Special Management Area, which covers most of the town core.
There’s also the shoreline rules, which apply to properties that are directly on the shoreline. So there’s a handful of those.
Parts of Lahaina are in the county historic zoning district, and those districts require a lot more review because they want the buildings there to have a certain look and a certain aesthetic.
Lahaina is also subject to some national rules. Most of the town is in the National Historic Landmark District. And again, that’s going to mean if you’re building something in the town core, you have to have some sort of aesthetic.
And then, if you’re trying to build a business [or] an apartment building, you’re going to have to pay street improvement fees or do street improvements as well.
So, you know, it’s a list of 10 things, and really I don’t think I covered all of them. But depending on where your parcel is at, you know, where your home or your business was, you might have to deal with all of these, maybe five or six of them.
But I share the list to illustrate how complex navigating the county, state, federal permitting process is. And that’s part of the reason things have been so slow.
Miro: Jonathan Helton, a policy analyst at Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. He was on the program recently. He talked about Bill — what was that — 105. It’s now passed by the city council. Can you remind us, Jonathan, what it does?
Helton: Yes. Bill 105 passed by Maui County Council on March 21. The mayor signed it on March 24. We were very excited about this. We think that this bill can really help a lot of folks who are looking to rebuild, but I’ll quickly explain what it does.
So it was a little bit confusing, but the bill waived what are called nonconformity rules. So, let’s give you an example:
You built a building 40 years ago, and you built it to the zoning of 40 years ago. But then, a couple years later, the county changes the zoning, and you wouldn’t have been allowed to build what you built under the new zoning. What you built is called nonconforming.
So you can have a nonconforming building; maybe it’s too tall for the zoning district. You can have a nonconforming use; maybe you had an ice cream shop, but then the county changed the zoning rules, and your ice cream shop wasn’t permitted in that zone anymore.
So there’s all of these rules on nonconformities, and typically, if your structure is damaged or you stop the use for a while, you don’t get to go back to what you had.
But in Lahaina, you know, it’s a very old town, as we’ve talked about, and a lot of the buildings were nonconforming, or a lot of the properties had a nonconforming use.
So the bill waived the county’s normal rules for this and is basically going to help people be able to come back to what they had before the fire.
Miro: Well, that’s great news. You mentioned … What other sort of implications will Bill 105 have now that it’s law, Jonathan?
Helton: I’ll share a story that I think I shared when we talked about this bill last time, but it’s a really good illustration.
So you have a lot of churches and temples in Lahaina. So you have the Lahaina Jodo Mission, you have Waiola Church, and a lot of these are in residential zones.
Now, you know, these are older sites, so, you know, in a lot of cases, they probably predated the zoning. But nonetheless, the county assigned them their residential zone. Well, a religious meeting place is not allowed in a residential zone unless you get a special permit.
And so, again, Lahaina Jodo Mission, Waiola Church, a couple of others, they’re in residential zones, but they were either completely destroyed or severely damaged in the fire.
And so, you know, they were considered a nonconforming use. But now, you know, if you don’t have this bill that waives this nonconforming rules, they’re going to have to go to the Planning Commission, they’re going to have to get a permit. And then that takes a while, you know, that costs a good bit of money.
And so, it’s just an illustration of why this bill was helpful because it waived the rules. Now, if Waiola Church wants to come back and rebuild and use the building as a church, this bill has gotten rid of one layer of approval that they would’ve needed.
And, you know, it’s not just churches and temples — those are an example — but it’s important for a lot of businesses there in Lahaina. Maybe they didn’t have the required number of parking spaces the zoning code would require. They’d be allowed to rebuild with the number of parking spaces that they had, which, in some cases, was probably zero because a lot of Lahaina was very walkable, you know, because there wasn’t a parking lot in between every other building.
Miro: Right. Have folks in Lahaina gotten any sort of relief from the emergency proclamations that the governor has issued?
Helton: Yes. Yes. And I’m glad you asked. I think there’s two important things here, but let’s start with the biggest one.
So, I mentioned the state Special Management Area. The Special Management Area, for those who are unfamiliar, is essentially a rule that says if you live within a certain distance from the shore, you are going to have to get an additional permit to build because there’s an anticipation that sea level rise over the next 30, 50, however many years might affect that area.
So typically, if you’re going to build anything that is valued over $500,000, you need to get a Special Management Area use permit. And if anyone listening is familiar with construction costs, pretty much any sort of rebuilding in Lahaina is going to cost more than $500,000.
So what the governor did — he started this in the fall, and he’s issued several proclamations that addressed this — he has waived those Special Management Area rules. So, for almost all of the parcels in Lahaina, they will no longer need to get a Special Management Area permit if they’re looking to rebuild back what they had.
So we think that’s good because, again, Special Management Area permit takes a lot of time, costs money, you have to go through a hearing.
We found a statistic, in the past 10 years, the Planning Commission on Maui had only issued 41 Special Management Area use permits for the whole island.
So for Lahaina, you know, you’re talking about well over 100, you know, hundreds of buildings that would need a Special Management Area use permit. And in the past decade, the county had only issued 41. So, you know, what’s the timeline?
Miro: [chuckles] Yeah.
Helton: So that’s why we think that that waiver the governor issued is really helpful.
Miro: OK. Wow. OK, Jonathan, what action then is the Legislature taking regarding these, or do they need to, regarding the Special Management Area permitting? Do they need to take any action?
Helton: Yes. The Legislature is considering a bill for people who are interested. It’s SB1296 that would basically make what the governor has done permanent.
So, I mentioned that the governor had waived Special Management Area for almost all of the properties in Lahaina. And so what the Senate bill would do is it would waive them for all of the properties, and then it would also, you know, make that a law for future disasters.
So say, you know, you had, you know, God forbid, another wildfire somewhere in Hawaii, and it damaged some properties, then, you know, if the governor announced that that was a public emergency, the people who lost their homes or businesses in a future disaster would also have this waiver. So, you know, it would make it what the governor has done law, and it would, you know, make it apply to future disasters as well.
Miro: OK. It’s Jonathan Helton, policy analyst at Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. And are there any bills related to Lahaina that you’re tracking right now?
Helton: Yes, there’s one more. And as I said, it was one of the other good things that the governor’s emergency proclamations have done.
So normally, if you’re going to build a home in West Maui, if you’re going to build an apartment complex, you have to pay the state Department of Education between, I think, $2,000 and $5,000, depending on what you’re building, in school impact fees.
The idea behind school impact fees is that, you know, if we build more housing, that’s going to create, you know, more need for a school facility because it’s assumed that a family might move there and their kids would go to school.
Now, the school impact fee makes sense, sort of, in theory. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well in Hawaii. These fees have been in place since 2007, and the state has never spent any of the money. The state has $20 million in school impact fees that it hasn’t spent.
The auditor did an audit of the school impact fee program, found a lot of issues with it.
So what the governor did is, in his waivers, he waived school impact fees for people looking to rebuild. So if you are trying to build back your home, you don’t have to fork over an extra $5,000 that, you know, on top of your permitting fees and on top of paying for, you know, your labor and your materials. So that was good.
And again, there’s another bill at the state Legislature. It’s House Bill 422. This bill, again, it would make the governor’s waiver permanent. So, it would repeal school impact fees. It would take that $20 million that’s never been spent and it would move it to an account where the people who are in charge of building or upgrading schools could actually use it.
So, you know, we think that bill would be helpful and not just for Lahaina. But for, you know, Maui and Honolulu, anybody who’s subject to an impact fee.
Miro: I’m sure it made a pretty big impact because I know you folks make it really easy for people who are kind of hesitant to let their voices be heard by being able to, you know, weigh in on this legislation as brought forward.
With the one that just recently passed, it seems like a lot of people let their voices be heard. And that was a part of the momentum that got Bill 105 to move forward.
Helton: Yes. Yes. And if people are interested in either of the bills at the state Legislature that I mentioned, on our website, which is grassrootinstitute.org, we have I guess you’d call it a tab at the top of the website that says “action.” And you can click on “action,” you click on “get involved,” and you can submit testimony to your senator and your representative about these bills.
You know, if you subscribe to our email list, we’ll send out notifications when these bills get hearings so that, you know, you can get your testimony in before the hearing, so that you can make your voice heard.
Miro: Definitely. Participate, folks. This is really important stuff.
Anything else, Jonathan, that you’d like to add on this Sunday?
Helton: You know, I think the biggest thing that I would add is for any listeners out there who have stories related to zoning or permitting, let us know. Because I’m trying to do all of this research, figure out, you know, which rules are affecting folks, what can state and county do to get rid of the rules, or maybe just even temporarily waive them. You know, I’d like to know, like, what rules are affecting people.
And this doesn’t have to be just in Lahaina. We’re very interested in Lahaina because we want to help people be able to rebuild their lives and their businesses, their homes.
But the whole state, Grassroot is involved at — you know, each of the county councils, we’re involved with the Legislature. So we want to hear from you. You know, I think that’s what I’d add.
Miro: Yeah. We just want to focus on that because it was so devastating, and it continues to be an incredible strain and burden on people who went through this on Maui. So, highlighting that and the progress that’s being made with legislation and some emergency proclamations by the governor.
So continue to keep an eye on that. But also on the neighbor islands, and of course, Oahu things happening within the Legislature, City Council, what have you.
Great information, once again, from Jonathan Helton, policy analyst with Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. We’ll be catching up with you soon because I know you are very busy, very active with what’s going on here within the state. So, appreciate it.
Once again, can you give out the website for people who are interested?
Helton: Yes. Again, that’s grassrootinstitute.org. You can reach me personally at the letter jhelton — that’s H-E-L-T-O-N, @grassrootinstitute.org. I’d love to hear from you. Love to see if we can help.
Miro: Thanks for, once again, informing us, Jonathan, of all we need to know about what is taking place within our community. And enjoy the rest of your Sunday. We’ll be talking soon.
Helton: Thank you, Johnny. You have a good rest of your weekend as well.
