The Lakeway, Texas, regulations provide a useful example of how drainageways and floodplains can be identified and protected through measurable buffer requirements and GIS mapping.
However, Maui's unique topography, rainfall patterns, and flood hazards demand standards based on local conditions, not regulations simply borrowed from another jurisdiction.
The fundamental question for the DRIP Committee remains unanswered: Have South Maui's proposed development areas been adequately evaluated for drainage, flooding, infrastructure capacity, and emergency evacuation?
If these conditions have not been thoroughly evaluated, HOW can this Committee possibly determine how much additional development South Maui can safely accommodate?
These are not minor technical details to be addressed later. They are fundamental planning responsibilities that should be resolved before additional development potential is established.
After countless hours of meetings, testimony, departmental correspondence, and discussion, what has this Committee actually determined?
How much more time and taxpayer money will be spent producing another twenty-year Community Plan that postpones difficult decisions, leaves existing deficiencies unresolved, and passes the consequences of political expediency, shortcuts, and inadequate planning to the next generation of elected officials and Maui residents?
A Community Plan should establish what can responsibly be accomplished, not simply document ambitions and leave future administrations to deal with the consequences.
There was quite a bit of discussion no gulch buffer zones, riparian corridors, drainwageways, etc yesterday. I want to point out to DRIP this great example of a comprehensive set of regulations in Lakeway, Texas. Subsection 5 of their environmental regulations Chapter 28.10 define buffers for streams based on drainage area, with alternative buffers based on FEMA 100 yr floodplains.
The minimum is 5 ac and the buffers become bigger for larger watersheds. When Planner Comcowich referred to flow lines, those were lines that I generated in GIS from LiDAR data with a 5 acre limit. I think I used the 5ac cutoff as a filter for gulches that other GIS staff created, removing the ones that were draining under 5ac. It would be possible to do further GIS analysis, with the new LiDAR data released by USGS last year, to separate flow lines based on acreage. Categories could be created similar to how Lakeway has categories for 40ac, 128ac, and 320ac with varying buffer sizes. FEMA 100 yr flood zones could also have their own buffer.
It would be simplest and least confusing to have all gulch and flood buffers on a separate map and separate GIS data set, IE an "overlay" separate from the designation map.
I've attached the code section PDF. This link has the Lakeway code in an interactive format: https://ecode360.com/39616767 I also attached a screenshot from this FEMA flood hazard data: https://geoportal.hawaii.gov/datasets/HiStateGIS::flood-hazard-areas-dfirm-maui-county/explore?location=20.758389%2C-156.443719%2C12
After multiple meetings devoted to the proposed South Maui Community Plan, extensive public testimony, departmental correspondence, historical implementation records, infrastructure assessments, development projections, and cost estimates, I believe it is reasonable to ask what this Committee has actually accomplished.
What has the Committee determined—not discussed, requested, proposed, or referred, but formally determined—that demonstrates South Maui is better prepared to accommodate the development contemplated under Bill 108 than it was when the 1998 Community Plan was adopted?
The County's own 2025 implementation report identifies 58 actions under the previous plan, of which only 20 were classified as completed. Yet the Committee is considering replacing that plan with another containing 145 implementation actions, many without established funding or completion schedules.
Before recommending adoption, the Committee should clearly identify its findings on four matters:
Unfinished obligations: Which commitments from the 1998 Community Plan have been fulfilled, which remain outstanding, and how will those obligations be addressed under Bill 108?
Existing development: Has the Committee established that South Maui's infrastructure can adequately support its existing population, visitor activity, and development already approved but not yet built?
Public safety: Has the Committee established that sufficient emergency evacuation capacity, transportation access, water, wastewater, and other essential services exist to accommodate additional development?
Financial accountability: Has the Committee established what the proposed plan will cost, which improvements are funded, who is responsible for delivering them, and when they will become operational?
If these determinations have not been made, on what factual basis can the Committee recommend repealing the existing Community Plan and establishing additional development potential?
The public has participated. County departments have submitted information. The Committee has devoted considerable meeting time to this proposal.
At what point does discussion become a finding, and a proposed action become an enforceable commitment to deliver?
The Committee's responsibility is not simply to produce another Community Plan. It is to evaluate the record, make defensible findings, and explain to the public why its recommendations are justified.
South Maui does not need another twenty-year list of promises without a demonstrated ability to fulfill them.
The public deserves findings, measurable commitments, and accountability—not another list of actions left for future administrations to address.
To Whom It May Concern:
The Lakeway, Texas, regulations provide a useful example of how drainageways and floodplains can be identified and protected through measurable buffer requirements and GIS mapping.
However, Maui's unique topography, rainfall patterns, and flood hazards demand standards based on local conditions, not regulations simply borrowed from another jurisdiction.
The fundamental question for the DRIP Committee remains unanswered: Have South Maui's proposed development areas been adequately evaluated for drainage, flooding, infrastructure capacity, and emergency evacuation?
If these conditions have not been thoroughly evaluated, HOW can this Committee possibly determine how much additional development South Maui can safely accommodate?
These are not minor technical details to be addressed later. They are fundamental planning responsibilities that should be resolved before additional development potential is established.
After countless hours of meetings, testimony, departmental correspondence, and discussion, what has this Committee actually determined?
How much more time and taxpayer money will be spent producing another twenty-year Community Plan that postpones difficult decisions, leaves existing deficiencies unresolved, and passes the consequences of political expediency, shortcuts, and inadequate planning to the next generation of elected officials and Maui residents?
A Community Plan should establish what can responsibly be accomplished, not simply document ambitions and leave future administrations to deal with the consequences.
Dale Finkle, Maui Resident
There was quite a bit of discussion no gulch buffer zones, riparian corridors, drainwageways, etc yesterday. I want to point out to DRIP this great example of a comprehensive set of regulations in Lakeway, Texas. Subsection 5 of their environmental regulations Chapter 28.10 define buffers for streams based on drainage area, with alternative buffers based on FEMA 100 yr floodplains.
The minimum is 5 ac and the buffers become bigger for larger watersheds. When Planner Comcowich referred to flow lines, those were lines that I generated in GIS from LiDAR data with a 5 acre limit. I think I used the 5ac cutoff as a filter for gulches that other GIS staff created, removing the ones that were draining under 5ac. It would be possible to do further GIS analysis, with the new LiDAR data released by USGS last year, to separate flow lines based on acreage. Categories could be created similar to how Lakeway has categories for 40ac, 128ac, and 320ac with varying buffer sizes. FEMA 100 yr flood zones could also have their own buffer.
It would be simplest and least confusing to have all gulch and flood buffers on a separate map and separate GIS data set, IE an "overlay" separate from the designation map.
I've attached the code section PDF. This link has the Lakeway code in an interactive format: https://ecode360.com/39616767 I also attached a screenshot from this FEMA flood hazard data: https://geoportal.hawaii.gov/datasets/HiStateGIS::flood-hazard-areas-dfirm-maui-county/explore?location=20.758389%2C-156.443719%2C12
Chair and Members of the DRIP Committee:
After multiple meetings devoted to the proposed South Maui Community Plan, extensive public testimony, departmental correspondence, historical implementation records, infrastructure assessments, development projections, and cost estimates, I believe it is reasonable to ask what this Committee has actually accomplished.
What has the Committee determined—not discussed, requested, proposed, or referred, but formally determined—that demonstrates South Maui is better prepared to accommodate the development contemplated under Bill 108 than it was when the 1998 Community Plan was adopted?
The County's own 2025 implementation report identifies 58 actions under the previous plan, of which only 20 were classified as completed. Yet the Committee is considering replacing that plan with another containing 145 implementation actions, many without established funding or completion schedules.
Before recommending adoption, the Committee should clearly identify its findings on four matters:
Unfinished obligations: Which commitments from the 1998 Community Plan have been fulfilled, which remain outstanding, and how will those obligations be addressed under Bill 108?
Existing development: Has the Committee established that South Maui's infrastructure can adequately support its existing population, visitor activity, and development already approved but not yet built?
Public safety: Has the Committee established that sufficient emergency evacuation capacity, transportation access, water, wastewater, and other essential services exist to accommodate additional development?
Financial accountability: Has the Committee established what the proposed plan will cost, which improvements are funded, who is responsible for delivering them, and when they will become operational?
If these determinations have not been made, on what factual basis can the Committee recommend repealing the existing Community Plan and establishing additional development potential?
The public has participated. County departments have submitted information. The Committee has devoted considerable meeting time to this proposal.
At what point does discussion become a finding, and a proposed action become an enforceable commitment to deliver?
The Committee's responsibility is not simply to produce another Community Plan. It is to evaluate the record, make defensible findings, and explain to the public why its recommendations are justified.
South Maui does not need another twenty-year list of promises without a demonstrated ability to fulfill them.
The public deserves findings, measurable commitments, and accountability—not another list of actions left for future administrations to address.
Edward Codelia
Maui Resident
Can we do anything about the wastewater lack of treatment in Maalaea? The bacteria is crazy with the raw sewage injection wells. Right into the water.