Aloha Chair and Members of the Committee,

I am submitting this testimony to address the obvious policy failures and impending legal liabilities generated by the county’s mismanagement of Bill 9 and its subsequent regulatory band-aid, Bill 88.

The legislative trajectory of the past couple of years has been defined by extraordinary, economically illiterate, and fantastical claims. Mayor Bissen, UHERO, Matt Jachowski, Lahaina Strong, and the council's progressive voting bloc (Paltin, Johnson, Rawlins-Fernandez, and Sinenci) assured the public that the blunt instrument of Bill 9 would instantly solve Maui’s housing crisis. The narrative was simple: with the stroke of a pen, thousands of resort-area tourist condos would magically transform into affordable inventory for local families.

The reality of this policy has completely inverted those promises. Local families are not buying these units - and contrary to Ms. Jordan Ruidas’ testimony - nor do they appear to have the appetite or ability to assume the astronomical carrying costs, maintenance fees, and AOAO liabilities inherent to these resort-corridor complexes.

Look at what it actually costs to carry a condominium on Maui. HOA fees in luxury complexes (ie: Wailea and Kaanapali) are running between $800 to $1,500 a month. Following the Lahaina fires, property insurance premiums for condo associations exploded between 300% to 1,000% in a single renewal cycle, with some complexes seeing their annual premiums skyrocket from $2,700 to $272,000. These catastrophic increases flow directly into monthly dues, causing HOA fees to jump by as much as 60% in under two years. Combine that with Hawaii's highest-in-the-nation electricity rates, and the monthly carrying costs alone easily rival a mainland mortgage.

To suggest that a local working family can step into a resort-zone condo and absorb a $9,000 monthly overhead is naïve and mathematically impossible. Local families have proven over the last few decades that there is no appetite to live in resort zones (otherwise, when these condos were for sale at 1/5th the price, they’d have bought them then), and they structurally cannot afford to.

Instead, property values have cratered, transactions have frozen, and the market has suffered severe paralysis. Overall sales volume has dropped precipitously, yet the proportion of cash buyers has paradoxically increased. Contrary to what was emphatically and objectively asserted by the mayor, Lahaina Strong and their acolytes, the inventory is simply not being “reclaimed” by local residents; it is being acquired at a steep discount by a wealthier cohort of mainland buyers who possess the liquidity to absorb these assets and weather the crushing overhead without relying on short-term rental revenue. By destroying asset values, you have simply subsidized entry for wealthy and ultra-wealthy investors who won’t have visitors throwing cash into the county money pit through TAT, MCTAT, and GET. This is merely a government-backed transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper class.

Recognizing the immediate economic damage of Bill 9, the council advanced Bill 88, attempting a complex legislative retreat via the creation of H-3 and H-4 hotel zones. This framework is a far cry from the expansive, streamlined relief promised to the 104 properties on the target list. Though I know she meant well, Committee Chair U’u-Hodgins demonstrated a lack of foresight in assuming that a notoriously bureaucratic, heel-dragging body like this council could execute property-specific rezonings with any modicum of efficiency. Bill 88 has not, and will not, automatically rezone a single unit. It merely invites thousands of individual owners into a painfully slow, property-by-property political gauntlet. As evidenced by the sparseness of Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, this council has shown that it is not only incapable of introspection, but that it is still a tail being wagged by a corrupt canine in a red shirt.

That this council fell for this red herring of “hotelness” shows that they aren’t the ones calling the shots. Resolution 26-111 states:
“…some A-1 and A-2 Apartment District properties with Transient Vacation Rental uses that operate like hotels - for example, by providing front-desk or similar services or employing groundskeepers and other staff - are appropriate for H-3 and H-4 Hotel District zoning, respectively, to allow for continued Transient Vacation Rental uses.”

Since virtually every condominium on this island (regardless of zoning) employs groundskeepers to maintain the property, this is a ridiculous and intellectually lazy criterion for distinguishing an apartment-zoned condo from a future hotel-zoned condo. So the idea that a "front desk" defines what is or isn’t a constituent part of a hotel completely ignores the structural reality of modern luxury hospitality. Ultra-luxury brands globally allow elite travelers to completely bypass physical lobbies. The Ritz-Carlton utilizes remote check-in to unlock secure elevators and resort suites directly. The St. Regis and EDITION (both part of Marriott's top-tier luxury portfolio) support comprehensive contactless arrival so a visitor can head straight to their villa. The Park Hyatt ecosystem fully integrates this digital framework, while the Waldorf Astoria and Conrad utilize the Hilton Honors app for 100% remote key generation. Virgin Hotels feature a dedicated, proprietary application named "Lucy" that skips the physical desk entirely while giving guests full control over room temperatures and ambient lighting.

Stays in these front-desk-free luxury properties exceed $2,000 per night. Please, remind us all why a physical piece of particleboard in a lobby sends just four complexes to the front of the H-3/H-4 queue. Oh right, because Lahaina Strong told you that a front desk is mandatory. Well, if these ultra-luxury international HOTEL brands don’t require a front desk for their well-heeled travelers paying $2,000 a night, it seems remarkably out of touch for this council to demand one for a budget traveler looking to spend a paltry $200 a night.

The underlying absurdity here is that hotel zoning on Maui has historically had very little to do with the physical archetype of a "hotel." Most existing hotel-zoned condos on this island look absolutely nothing like a corporate resort; they are visually and structurally identical to their neighboring apartment-zoned complexes. To pretend there is a functional, architectural, or operational variance based on groundskeepers unionized staff, and check-in desks is absurd. It is highly telling that certain anti-STR advocates pride themselves on having performatively trespassed onto the premises of hundreds of apartment-zoned condos to "definitively" declare them "not like hotels." Yet, it is completely lost on no one that these individuals carefully avoided setting foot in any of the existing hotel-zoned condos, where they would have encountered the exact same characteristics and physical layouts. But objectivity was never the goal. The goal was simply to paint bullseyes around the arrows they had already shot at the wall, manufacturing a fraudulent distinction to retroactively justify a reckless political crusade.

Beyond the bad geography and even worse economics, the implementation of these ex post facto "carve-outs" directly contradicts the explicit guidance provided by Corporation Counsel. The conservative majority on this council initially conditioned their support of Bill 9 on the explicit understanding that the county would not open itself up to heightened legal exposure through arbitrary, piecemeal exemptions. Yet, a snail's-pace carve-out is exactly what Bill 88 establishes. With the upcoming November election, the promise of H-3 and H-4 up-zoning is completely hollow. Should a “progressive” majority take the reigns, they will almost certainly abandon Bill 88's implementation, leaving property owners permanently stranded in regulatory limbo.

This leaves Maui County in extreme economic peril. By stripping away vested private property rights under the legal pretext of securing a "public good," and then subsequently carving away that very public good via Bill 88 to stave off political fallout, you have handed competent constitutional attorneys a textbook case for a regulatory takings lawsuit. Should the council member cosplaying a lawyer take exception to this legal reality, let this serve as a foundational reminder: if an aggressive regulatory intervention is justified under the guise of public utility, but every measurable metric demonstrates objective, compounding public harm, then the original statutory intent was an absolute fiction. The county has manufactured a multi-billion-dollar liability that places local taxpayers on the hook for millions in damages. Thankfully she’ll be in the hot seat when the temps get turned up. Since there is no such thing as accountability on Molokai, we’ll be sure to introduce the concept to her on Maui.

The mayor proudly signed Bill 9, then promptly jumped in front of the microphone to testify in favor of the escape hatch called Bill 88. You promised residents affordable housing without laying a single brick, and you have achieved precisely nothing but market destabilization, immense legal exposure, and an open door for a wealthier owner class that will contribute far less to our local economy as part-time vacation homeowners than owners and operators of high occupancy vacation rentals.

Exhibit 2 properties should be moved through to the H3/H4 zones en masse, as that was the condition that got Bill 9 over the finish line, "clean". What was the point of Exhibit 2 if each letter is going to be pulled tediously from the page one-by-one, and what was the point of council members reluctantly voting for Bill 9 on the condition of enactment of Exhibit 2 if all of that is now forgotten?

I support passage of Reso 26-111 in its original form and without the amendment proposed by Member Cook. The additional properties contained in Member Cook’s amendment may be appropriate for inclusion on another resolution but Member Uʻu-Hodgins was very thoughtful in preparing 26-111 to align with the Planning Commission’s prior recommendation to exclude properties with dual-zoning and/or community plan designation properties from the scope of Bill 9. In fact 26-111 only contained properties that the Planning Commission recommended for exclusion from Bill 9. Member Cook’s amendment would necessitate removal of the language currently contained in 26-111 regarding the Planning Commission’s prior recommendations which is a critical piece of information for the current Planning Commission to consider.

Member Uʻu-Hodgins made it clear that Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111 were the first two and that future resolutions were to come. Therefore, rejecting Member Cook’s amendment at this stage does not mean these other properties cannot be included on another resolution.

Passing 26-111 without amendment preserves the original intent of 26-111 and provides the Planning Commission with a clear picture of these uniquely situated properties that Maui County has identified as having dual zoning and/or community plan designations.

Testimonies received from HLU Committee as of 7/2/2026