The Maui Planning Commission heard from dozens of testifiers today as it began reviewing Mayor Richard Bissen’s proposed legislation to create urgently-needed housing inventory for displaced wildfire survivors and other local residents countywide by amending the County Code governing Transient Vacation Rental (TVR) use of Apartment-district properties.

Mayor Bissen’s proposed bill, transmitted last month to the County Council, calls for reverting all Apartment-District properties to their intended long-term use, removing the exception provided to properties built or approved prior to 1989 (Minatoya List) and fully discontinuing TVR use in Apartment Districts. Of the total 13,700 TVRs in Maui County, the bill would potentially impact 7,100 units primarily located in West and South Maui.

“We recognize that this bill is only part of the solution, and that we will also need to explore strategic tax policy and zoning changes to support our objective of creating more long-term housing,” Mayor Bissen said. “This is just the first step in a process that will include consideration of community input, economic impact research, and potential tax policy and zoning changes, but we have reached a point where we simply cannot continue to prioritize off-shore investments over the needs of our people.”

There are approximately 13,700 TVRs in Maui County, and this bill will potentially impact 7,100 units, also known as the Minatoya list. This bill primarily focuses on units in West and South Maui, and intends to identify units best suited for long-term residential housing.

“Our housing crisis stems from a myriad of complex issues that have challenged our community for decades,” Mayor Bissen noted. “This is a consequence we cannot accept. The system is broken, and long overdue for change. And while this proposed bill is only part of the equation, we must continue to seek innovative ways to address our housing crisis.”

University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization (UHERO) will conduct an economic impact study of the bill that will provide an objective and educated forecast and analysis of this bill. UHERO released an analysis today showing that this bill “would increase Maui’s long-term residential housing stock by 13 percent, representing a dramatic increase in housing supply.”

According to Maui County real property tax data, approximately 85 percent of potentially affected TVR owners have out-of-state mailing addresses. Of the 6,914 properties on Maui and 246 on Moloka‘i, 87 percent are being used as TVR-Short-Term Rentals (STR). Just 2 percent are listed as long-term rentals, with 7 percent owner-occupied and 4 percent as timeshare units. For more information, including a map of affected TVR complexes and TVR-related data, visit https://app.helpingmaui.org/data/mina.

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