HLU-22 Reso 26-130 RESOLUTION 26-130, REFERRING TO THE MAUI PLANNING COMMISSION PROPOSED BILLS TO AMEND THE KIHEI-MAKENA COMMUNITY PLAN AND WEST MAUI COMMUNITY PLAN, AND TO CHANGE THE ZONING FOR PROPERTIES IDENTIFIED AS TAX MAP KEY (2) 3-9-016:019, K?HEI, HAWAI'I, AND TAX MAP KEYS (2) 4-5-013:002 AND 026, LAHAINA, HAWAI'I, IN THE A-2 APARTMENT DISTRICT (HLU-22)
This is Sonny Cave and Stefanie Workman, owners of Unit 408 at Ma'alaea Kai writing in strong support of Resolution 26-129. We previously submitted this testimony via email on August 2, 2026, but are unable to confirm its receipt. Thus, we are re-submitting it via this eComment portal. Mahalo for your consideration of this testimony.
To: Housing and Land Use Committee, Maui County Council
Re: Testimony in Strong Support of Resolution 26-129
From: Sonny Cave and Stefanie Workman, Owners, Unit 408, Maʻalaea Kai (70 Hauʻoli Street, Maʻalaea)
Date: August 2, 2026
Aloha Chair Uʻu-Hodgins and HLU Committee Members,
We write in strong support of Resolution 26-129, and commend the policy judgment behind it: properties documented within the State’s Sea Level Rise Exposure Area (SLR-XA) are not well suited to conversion into long-term workforce residential housing, and instead deserve the distinct H-3 or H-4 zoning path the Maui County Council (MCC) created under Ordinance 6008. That policy is not built on speculation. It rests on a decades-long documented history and current, peer-reviewed science, including from the State of Hawaii, cited throughout in the footnotes below [at the end of the testimony].
I. Maʻalaea’s “impact area” has a documented history of coastal erosion
Before 1950, a continuous sand beach ran along Maʻalaea Bay. A 2022 coastal engineering assessment by Coastal Environments, Inc., citing 1951 aerial photography, designates eight of the ten condominium properties on this stretch — all of them, including Maʻalaea Kai, situated outside the harbor’s jetties — as the impact area of the Maʻalaea Small Boat Harbor’s construction.1 The harbor was built in stages beginning in 1952,2 and its jetties cut off the longshore sand supply that had sustained this beach. The State’s 2024 environmental assessment for the neighboring Kanai A Nalu property confirms harbor construction “resulted in the loss of 1,500 feet of narrow beach.”3 Longtime residents describe the resulting sand loss as “immediate, sudden, and dramatic.”4 Maʻalaea Kai has no beach today, only a constructed seawall, because it sits inside this same impact area.
II. The erosion threat here is measured, not modeled
Maui is the most erosional of the main Hawaiian Islands: 85% of its beaches are eroding, and 11% of its sandy shoreline has been lost entirely over the past century.5 Along this stretch of Maʻalaea, University of Hawaiʻi Coastal Geology Group data show an average long-term erosion rate of roughly 0.5 feet per year, reaching as much as 0.9 feet per year at some points;6 within the impact area itself, erosion reached as much as 1.5 feet per year between 1900 and 1987.7 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates this littoral cell loses roughly 800 cubic yards of sand every year.8 These are historical measurements of what has already happened here, not projections of what might happen someday.
III. The State’s forward-looking SLR-XA map is built directly on that history
The SLR-XA that the State uses to identify at-risk parcels, and that Resolution 26-129 relies on, is not an abstract climate model. The Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission’s guidance confirms that erosion hazard projections “consider both historic shoreline change data and modeled responses of the beach profile to increased sea level,”9 combining the measured trend data above with a peer-reviewed beach-response model. The resulting 3.2-foot SLR-XA threshold is also the legal trigger for Hawaiʻi’s mandatory sea-level-rise real estate disclosure law statewide10. This means the Legislature has already adopted this benchmark as the applicable standard of risk. The State’s 2022 Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report update has since superseded that 3.2-foot benchmark, recommending 4 feet as the new statewide minimum for all planning and design, based on a revised mid-range projection of 3.9 feet of sea level rise by 2100.11 This threat is arriving sooner than modeled, not later.
IV. Maʻalaea Kai meets this threshold, confirmed directly on the State map
Maʻalaea Kai sits squarely within the State's official Sea Level Rise Viewer's mapped 3.2-foot SLR-XA, confirmed by a direct parcel lookup for 70 Hauʻoli Street, Maʻalaea. This is precisely the objective, State-recognized criterion Resolution 26-129 applies to identify qualifying parcels.
V. The complexities and costs of physical seawall management are not hypothetical in this impact area
Physical seawalls here require frequent, costly maintenance and cannot correct the underlying loss of sand supply caused by the harbor’s jetties. Kanai A Nalu, on this same stretch of Hauʻoli Street, illustrates what these erosion threats can escalate to: its seawall’s middle section collapsed and was removed in 2009, University of Hawaiʻi researchers measured roughly a foot of shoreline erosion per year at that site, and the County has now approved a $2.4 million plan to remove the remaining seawall and build a new dune.12 These are the real, high, and continuous costs of shoreline armoring in this impact area. They are not a distant hypothetical, and they are not unique to one property.
VI. Conclusion
Rezoning SLR-XA-qualifying properties like Maʻalaea Kai into the H-3/H-4 framework the Council already created matches the facts on the ground. We respectfully ask the Committee to advance Resolution 26-129 with Maʻalaea Kai included, and thank you for grounding this decision in evidence.
Mahalo,
Sonny Cave and Stefanie Workman
Owners, Unit 408, Maʻalaea Kai
FOOTNOTES:
fn1 Coastal Environments, Inc., Letter Re: Beach Impact Area Assessment, Sept. 9, 2022, https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LTR-9-9-22-CE-INC.-BEACH-IMPACT.pdf
fn2 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Maalaea Shoreline Change historical report, https://rsm.usace.army.mil/Hawaii/documents/kihei/maalaea_shoreline_change.pdf; Hawaiʻi DLNR Submittal D-6, https://files.hawaii.gov/dlnr/meeting/submittals/151009/D-6.pdf
fn3 State of Hawaiʻi DBEDT, Draft Environmental Assessment, Adaptive Pathways – Seawall Removal and Dune Restoration, Dec. 23, 2024, https://files.hawaii.gov/dbedt/erp/Doc_Library/2024-12-23-MA-DEA-Adaptive-Pathways-Seawall-Removal-Dune-Restoration.pdf
fn4 Coastal Environments, Inc., Letter Re: Beach Impact Area Assessment, Sept. 9, 2022, https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LTR-9-9-22-CE-INC.-BEACH-IMPACT.pdf
fn5 Fletcher, C.H. et al., 2012, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011-1051, https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1051/; Romine & Fletcher, UH Coastal Research Collaborative, https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/crc/publications/Romine_Fletcher_inpress_HI_ShoreChange_Summary_JCR.pdf
fn6 University of Hawaiʻi Coastal Geology Group, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, Māʻalaea, Maui: Historical Shoreline Position and Change Rate (transects 913–958, nearest Maʻalaea Kai), last updated July 2021, https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/crc/index.php/resources-2/historical-mosaics/maalaea/
fn7 Coastal Environments, Inc., Letter Re: Beach Impact Area Assessment, Sept. 9, 2022, https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LTR-9-9-22-CE-INC.-BEACH-IMPACT.pdf
fn8 Sea Engineering, Inc., Kanai A Nalu Beach Management & Erosion Response Plan, July 5, 2019 (citing 2011 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers littoral-cell sand-loss study), https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SEI-25677-KAN-Beach-Management-Erosion-Response-Plan-20190705.pdf
fn9 Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission, Guidance for Using the Sea Level Rise Exposure Area, https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Guidance-for-Using-the-Sea-Level-Rise-Exposure-Area.pdf
fn10 Haw. Rev. Stat. § 508D-15; PacIOOS, State of Hawaiʻi Sea Level Rise Viewer, https://www.pacioos.hawaii.edu/shoreline/slr-hawaii/
fn11 Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission, Hawaiʻi Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report — 2022 Update, https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Sea-Level-Rise-Adaptation-and-Vulnerability-2022-Update_Final2-1.pdf
fn12 Maui Now, "Maui County and Maʻalaea condo reach agreement on a softer approach to shoreline erosion," June 24, 2026, https://mauinow.com/2026/06/24/maui-county-and-maalaea-condo-reach-agreement-on-a-softer-approach-to-shoreline-erosion/
Testimonies received from HLU Committee as of 8/5/2026 8:15 a.m.
This is Sonny Cave and Stefanie Workman, owners of Unit 408 at Ma'alaea Kai writing in strong support of Resolution 26-129. We previously submitted this testimony via email on August 2, 2026, but are unable to confirm its receipt. Thus, we are re-submitting it via this eComment portal. Mahalo for your consideration of this testimony.
To: Housing and Land Use Committee, Maui County Council
Re: Testimony in Strong Support of Resolution 26-129
From: Sonny Cave and Stefanie Workman, Owners, Unit 408, Maʻalaea Kai (70 Hauʻoli Street, Maʻalaea)
Date: August 2, 2026
Aloha Chair Uʻu-Hodgins and HLU Committee Members,
We write in strong support of Resolution 26-129, and commend the policy judgment behind it: properties documented within the State’s Sea Level Rise Exposure Area (SLR-XA) are not well suited to conversion into long-term workforce residential housing, and instead deserve the distinct H-3 or H-4 zoning path the Maui County Council (MCC) created under Ordinance 6008. That policy is not built on speculation. It rests on a decades-long documented history and current, peer-reviewed science, including from the State of Hawaii, cited throughout in the footnotes below [at the end of the testimony].
I. Maʻalaea’s “impact area” has a documented history of coastal erosion
Before 1950, a continuous sand beach ran along Maʻalaea Bay. A 2022 coastal engineering assessment by Coastal Environments, Inc., citing 1951 aerial photography, designates eight of the ten condominium properties on this stretch — all of them, including Maʻalaea Kai, situated outside the harbor’s jetties — as the impact area of the Maʻalaea Small Boat Harbor’s construction.1 The harbor was built in stages beginning in 1952,2 and its jetties cut off the longshore sand supply that had sustained this beach. The State’s 2024 environmental assessment for the neighboring Kanai A Nalu property confirms harbor construction “resulted in the loss of 1,500 feet of narrow beach.”3 Longtime residents describe the resulting sand loss as “immediate, sudden, and dramatic.”4 Maʻalaea Kai has no beach today, only a constructed seawall, because it sits inside this same impact area.
II. The erosion threat here is measured, not modeled
Maui is the most erosional of the main Hawaiian Islands: 85% of its beaches are eroding, and 11% of its sandy shoreline has been lost entirely over the past century.5 Along this stretch of Maʻalaea, University of Hawaiʻi Coastal Geology Group data show an average long-term erosion rate of roughly 0.5 feet per year, reaching as much as 0.9 feet per year at some points;6 within the impact area itself, erosion reached as much as 1.5 feet per year between 1900 and 1987.7 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates this littoral cell loses roughly 800 cubic yards of sand every year.8 These are historical measurements of what has already happened here, not projections of what might happen someday.
III. The State’s forward-looking SLR-XA map is built directly on that history
The SLR-XA that the State uses to identify at-risk parcels, and that Resolution 26-129 relies on, is not an abstract climate model. The Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission’s guidance confirms that erosion hazard projections “consider both historic shoreline change data and modeled responses of the beach profile to increased sea level,”9 combining the measured trend data above with a peer-reviewed beach-response model. The resulting 3.2-foot SLR-XA threshold is also the legal trigger for Hawaiʻi’s mandatory sea-level-rise real estate disclosure law statewide10. This means the Legislature has already adopted this benchmark as the applicable standard of risk. The State’s 2022 Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report update has since superseded that 3.2-foot benchmark, recommending 4 feet as the new statewide minimum for all planning and design, based on a revised mid-range projection of 3.9 feet of sea level rise by 2100.11 This threat is arriving sooner than modeled, not later.
IV. Maʻalaea Kai meets this threshold, confirmed directly on the State map
Maʻalaea Kai sits squarely within the State's official Sea Level Rise Viewer's mapped 3.2-foot SLR-XA, confirmed by a direct parcel lookup for 70 Hauʻoli Street, Maʻalaea. This is precisely the objective, State-recognized criterion Resolution 26-129 applies to identify qualifying parcels.
V. The complexities and costs of physical seawall management are not hypothetical in this impact area
Physical seawalls here require frequent, costly maintenance and cannot correct the underlying loss of sand supply caused by the harbor’s jetties. Kanai A Nalu, on this same stretch of Hauʻoli Street, illustrates what these erosion threats can escalate to: its seawall’s middle section collapsed and was removed in 2009, University of Hawaiʻi researchers measured roughly a foot of shoreline erosion per year at that site, and the County has now approved a $2.4 million plan to remove the remaining seawall and build a new dune.12 These are the real, high, and continuous costs of shoreline armoring in this impact area. They are not a distant hypothetical, and they are not unique to one property.
VI. Conclusion
Rezoning SLR-XA-qualifying properties like Maʻalaea Kai into the H-3/H-4 framework the Council already created matches the facts on the ground. We respectfully ask the Committee to advance Resolution 26-129 with Maʻalaea Kai included, and thank you for grounding this decision in evidence.
Mahalo,
Sonny Cave and Stefanie Workman
Owners, Unit 408, Maʻalaea Kai
FOOTNOTES:
fn1 Coastal Environments, Inc., Letter Re: Beach Impact Area Assessment, Sept. 9, 2022, https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LTR-9-9-22-CE-INC.-BEACH-IMPACT.pdf
fn2 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Maalaea Shoreline Change historical report, https://rsm.usace.army.mil/Hawaii/documents/kihei/maalaea_shoreline_change.pdf; Hawaiʻi DLNR Submittal D-6, https://files.hawaii.gov/dlnr/meeting/submittals/151009/D-6.pdf
fn3 State of Hawaiʻi DBEDT, Draft Environmental Assessment, Adaptive Pathways – Seawall Removal and Dune Restoration, Dec. 23, 2024, https://files.hawaii.gov/dbedt/erp/Doc_Library/2024-12-23-MA-DEA-Adaptive-Pathways-Seawall-Removal-Dune-Restoration.pdf
fn4 Coastal Environments, Inc., Letter Re: Beach Impact Area Assessment, Sept. 9, 2022, https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LTR-9-9-22-CE-INC.-BEACH-IMPACT.pdf
fn5 Fletcher, C.H. et al., 2012, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011-1051, https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2011/1051/; Romine & Fletcher, UH Coastal Research Collaborative, https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/crc/publications/Romine_Fletcher_inpress_HI_ShoreChange_Summary_JCR.pdf
fn6 University of Hawaiʻi Coastal Geology Group, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, Māʻalaea, Maui: Historical Shoreline Position and Change Rate (transects 913–958, nearest Maʻalaea Kai), last updated July 2021, https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/crc/index.php/resources-2/historical-mosaics/maalaea/
fn7 Coastal Environments, Inc., Letter Re: Beach Impact Area Assessment, Sept. 9, 2022, https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LTR-9-9-22-CE-INC.-BEACH-IMPACT.pdf
fn8 Sea Engineering, Inc., Kanai A Nalu Beach Management & Erosion Response Plan, July 5, 2019 (citing 2011 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers littoral-cell sand-loss study), https://maalaeavillageassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SEI-25677-KAN-Beach-Management-Erosion-Response-Plan-20190705.pdf
fn9 Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission, Guidance for Using the Sea Level Rise Exposure Area, https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Guidance-for-Using-the-Sea-Level-Rise-Exposure-Area.pdf
fn10 Haw. Rev. Stat. § 508D-15; PacIOOS, State of Hawaiʻi Sea Level Rise Viewer, https://www.pacioos.hawaii.edu/shoreline/slr-hawaii/
fn11 Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission, Hawaiʻi Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report — 2022 Update, https://climate.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Sea-Level-Rise-Adaptation-and-Vulnerability-2022-Update_Final2-1.pdf
fn12 Maui Now, "Maui County and Maʻalaea condo reach agreement on a softer approach to shoreline erosion," June 24, 2026, https://mauinow.com/2026/06/24/maui-county-and-maalaea-condo-reach-agreement-on-a-softer-approach-to-shoreline-erosion/