To: Chair Paltin and Members of the Disaster Recovery, International Affairs and Planning Committee
September 13, 2026
Aloha Chair Paltin and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding the South Maui Community Plan.
For years, South Maui residents have consistently raised concerns about the direction of growth in our community. We have warned about increasing wildfire risk, flooding, traffic congestion, inadequate evacuation routes, water availability, overdevelopment, and the continuing loss of housing to visitor use.
These are not hypothetical concerns. They are conditions that residents experience today—and they are risks that will become more serious as South Maui continues to grow.
The Community Plan will guide decisions about South Maui’s future for decades. For that reason, the County should not adopt a plan that simply accommodates additional development while leaving fundamental infrastructure and public-safety problems unresolved.
If the current draft plan is adopted without substantial changes, the problems South Maui residents have been identifying for years will become much, much worse.
We can do better.
A community plan should establish a vision for a community that is safe, resilient, livable, and capable of supporting the people who actually live there. It should not function primarily as a blueprint for continued development.
The plan should therefore establish clear limits and conditions on future growth.
1. Wildfire safety must be a fundamental planning constraint.
The Maui wildfires demonstrated the devastating consequences that can occur when development, evacuation, infrastructure, and emergency response are not adequately planned for catastrophic wildfire.
South Maui cannot plan for decades of additional growth without first determining whether existing and proposed communities can be safely evacuated during a major wildfire.
The plan should identify evacuation constraints, emergency access limitations, areas of elevated wildfire risk, and the infrastructure improvements necessary before additional development is permitted.
Public safety must come before additional density and development.
2. Flooding and climate-related hazards must be incorporated into land-use decisions.
South Maui faces flooding and drainage concerns that cannot be treated as isolated engineering problems for individual development projects.
As development increases, impervious surfaces increase, natural drainage patterns can be altered, and the consequences of flooding can become more severe.
The Community Plan should take a comprehensive approach to drainage, flooding, sea-level rise, and other climate-related hazards and should ensure that new development does not transfer increased risks onto existing residents.
3. Transportation and evacuation infrastructure must keep pace with growth.
Residents already experience significant traffic congestion. Additional development without corresponding transportation improvements will increase congestion and further complicate emergency evacuation.
The County should not assume that existing roads can simply absorb continued growth.
Before approving substantial additional development, the County should identify:
• the capacity of existing roads;
• evacuation constraints and bottlenecks;
• emergency-access requirements;
• necessary road and intersection improvements;
• opportunities for meaningful alternatives to automobile dependence; and
• the cumulative transportation impacts of planned development.
A community plan should not approve growth first and hope that infrastructure catches up later.
4. Water must be treated as a limiting resource.
Water availability is fundamental to South Maui’s future.
The Community Plan should not assume that sufficient water will simply be available to support every level of proposed growth. The County must realistically evaluate existing and future water demand, infrastructure capacity, drought conditions, and the needs of existing residents and agricultural and cultural resources.
Growth should be matched to demonstrated water availability—not the other way around.
5. South Maui needs housing for residents, not continued conversion of housing into visitor accommodations.
One of the most serious problems facing Maui is the loss of housing that could serve local residents.
South Maui should not continue expanding in a manner that increases the demand for housing while simultaneously allowing existing housing stock to be converted to visitor use.
The Community Plan should prioritize long-term housing for residents and working families and should include meaningful policies to preserve and expand the permanent housing supply.
6. The cumulative impacts of development must be considered.
Residents do not experience development one project at a time.
They experience the cumulative result of every project: more cars, more water demand, more stormwater runoff, greater evacuation challenges, greater infrastructure demands, and increasing pressure on housing and community resources.
The Community Plan is precisely the place where these cumulative impacts should be addressed.
It is not sufficient to conclude that each individual project can mitigate its own impacts. The plan must ask the larger question:
How much additional growth can South Maui safely and sustainably accommodate?
That question should be answered before the County commits South Maui to decades of additional development.
7. The community’s concerns must meaningfully influence the final plan.
South Maui residents have been raising these concerns for years. The Community Plan process should not merely document those concerns—it should respond to them.
The County has an opportunity now to establish a different trajectory for South Maui.
We should not wait for another disaster, another evacuation crisis, another water shortage, or another loss of housing before taking action.
Conclusion
I respectfully ask Chair Paltin and the Members of the Committee to reject adoption of the current draft in its present form and direct that it be substantially revised.
The revised plan should:
1. Make wildfire preparedness and evacuation capacity prerequisites for additional growth;
2. Address flooding, drainage, and climate hazards on a cumulative basis;
3. Require transportation and emergency infrastructure to keep pace with development;
4. Treat water availability as a fundamental constraint on growth;
5. Prioritize permanent housing for Maui residents over additional visitor-oriented development; and
6. Establish clear limits on growth based on the actual capacity of South Maui’s infrastructure, environment, and emergency systems.
South Maui residents are not asking the County to stop planning for the future.
We are asking the County to plan responsibly for the future.
The decisions made through this Community Plan will shape South Maui for generations. The County should seize this opportunity to create a community that is safer, more resilient, more affordable, and more livable—not one in which today’s problems are simply multiplied by tomorrow’s growth.
If the current draft plan will make existing problems worse, we should not accept that as inevitable.
We can do better.
Mahalo for your consideration and for your service to the people of Maui.
Deleted User
about 1 month ago
If the objective were to overwhelm Maui and diminish the quality of life of the people already here, the formula would look remarkably similar: keep approving growth, density and development while allowing roads, water, wastewater, housing and public facilities to fall further behind. Real planning would do the opposite—determine what the island can sustainably support, take care of the existing population first, and require infrastructure to be completed before additional growth is approved. Public Servants, not leaders.
To: Chair Paltin and Members of the Disaster Recovery, International Affairs and Planning Committee
September 13, 2026
Aloha Chair Paltin and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding the South Maui Community Plan.
For years, South Maui residents have consistently raised concerns about the direction of growth in our community. We have warned about increasing wildfire risk, flooding, traffic congestion, inadequate evacuation routes, water availability, overdevelopment, and the continuing loss of housing to visitor use.
These are not hypothetical concerns. They are conditions that residents experience today—and they are risks that will become more serious as South Maui continues to grow.
The Community Plan will guide decisions about South Maui’s future for decades. For that reason, the County should not adopt a plan that simply accommodates additional development while leaving fundamental infrastructure and public-safety problems unresolved.
If the current draft plan is adopted without substantial changes, the problems South Maui residents have been identifying for years will become much, much worse.
We can do better.
A community plan should establish a vision for a community that is safe, resilient, livable, and capable of supporting the people who actually live there. It should not function primarily as a blueprint for continued development.
The plan should therefore establish clear limits and conditions on future growth.
1. Wildfire safety must be a fundamental planning constraint.
The Maui wildfires demonstrated the devastating consequences that can occur when development, evacuation, infrastructure, and emergency response are not adequately planned for catastrophic wildfire.
South Maui cannot plan for decades of additional growth without first determining whether existing and proposed communities can be safely evacuated during a major wildfire.
The plan should identify evacuation constraints, emergency access limitations, areas of elevated wildfire risk, and the infrastructure improvements necessary before additional development is permitted.
Public safety must come before additional density and development.
2. Flooding and climate-related hazards must be incorporated into land-use decisions.
South Maui faces flooding and drainage concerns that cannot be treated as isolated engineering problems for individual development projects.
As development increases, impervious surfaces increase, natural drainage patterns can be altered, and the consequences of flooding can become more severe.
The Community Plan should take a comprehensive approach to drainage, flooding, sea-level rise, and other climate-related hazards and should ensure that new development does not transfer increased risks onto existing residents.
3. Transportation and evacuation infrastructure must keep pace with growth.
Residents already experience significant traffic congestion. Additional development without corresponding transportation improvements will increase congestion and further complicate emergency evacuation.
The County should not assume that existing roads can simply absorb continued growth.
Before approving substantial additional development, the County should identify:
• the capacity of existing roads;
• evacuation constraints and bottlenecks;
• emergency-access requirements;
• necessary road and intersection improvements;
• opportunities for meaningful alternatives to automobile dependence; and
• the cumulative transportation impacts of planned development.
A community plan should not approve growth first and hope that infrastructure catches up later.
4. Water must be treated as a limiting resource.
Water availability is fundamental to South Maui’s future.
The Community Plan should not assume that sufficient water will simply be available to support every level of proposed growth. The County must realistically evaluate existing and future water demand, infrastructure capacity, drought conditions, and the needs of existing residents and agricultural and cultural resources.
Growth should be matched to demonstrated water availability—not the other way around.
5. South Maui needs housing for residents, not continued conversion of housing into visitor accommodations.
One of the most serious problems facing Maui is the loss of housing that could serve local residents.
South Maui should not continue expanding in a manner that increases the demand for housing while simultaneously allowing existing housing stock to be converted to visitor use.
The Community Plan should prioritize long-term housing for residents and working families and should include meaningful policies to preserve and expand the permanent housing supply.
6. The cumulative impacts of development must be considered.
Residents do not experience development one project at a time.
They experience the cumulative result of every project: more cars, more water demand, more stormwater runoff, greater evacuation challenges, greater infrastructure demands, and increasing pressure on housing and community resources.
The Community Plan is precisely the place where these cumulative impacts should be addressed.
It is not sufficient to conclude that each individual project can mitigate its own impacts. The plan must ask the larger question:
How much additional growth can South Maui safely and sustainably accommodate?
That question should be answered before the County commits South Maui to decades of additional development.
7. The community’s concerns must meaningfully influence the final plan.
South Maui residents have been raising these concerns for years. The Community Plan process should not merely document those concerns—it should respond to them.
The County has an opportunity now to establish a different trajectory for South Maui.
We should not wait for another disaster, another evacuation crisis, another water shortage, or another loss of housing before taking action.
Conclusion
I respectfully ask Chair Paltin and the Members of the Committee to reject adoption of the current draft in its present form and direct that it be substantially revised.
The revised plan should:
1. Make wildfire preparedness and evacuation capacity prerequisites for additional growth;
2. Address flooding, drainage, and climate hazards on a cumulative basis;
3. Require transportation and emergency infrastructure to keep pace with development;
4. Treat water availability as a fundamental constraint on growth;
5. Prioritize permanent housing for Maui residents over additional visitor-oriented development; and
6. Establish clear limits on growth based on the actual capacity of South Maui’s infrastructure, environment, and emergency systems.
South Maui residents are not asking the County to stop planning for the future.
We are asking the County to plan responsibly for the future.
The decisions made through this Community Plan will shape South Maui for generations. The County should seize this opportunity to create a community that is safer, more resilient, more affordable, and more livable—not one in which today’s problems are simply multiplied by tomorrow’s growth.
If the current draft plan will make existing problems worse, we should not accept that as inevitable.
We can do better.
Mahalo for your consideration and for your service to the people of Maui.
If the objective were to overwhelm Maui and diminish the quality of life of the people already here, the formula would look remarkably similar: keep approving growth, density and development while allowing roads, water, wastewater, housing and public facilities to fall further behind. Real planning would do the opposite—determine what the island can sustainably support, take care of the existing population first, and require infrastructure to be completed before additional growth is approved. Public Servants, not leaders.