Helton hopeful that Lahaina recovery will move faster

from Grassroot Institute

The rebuilding of Lahaina has been slow for myriad reasons, but that doesn’t have to continue, according to Jonathan Helton, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii policy analyst.

Speaking this past Sunday with host Johnny Miro of the H. Hawaii Media radio network, Helton, author of Grassroot’s newest report concerning Lahaina’s recovery, said the rebuilding could move along faster if the state and Maui County would:

1) fix the historic review process,

2) provide certainty on infrastructure assessments,

3) address shoreline setback challenges and

4) give Lahaina residents and businesses some long-term tax relief.

Speaking this past Sunday with host Johnny Miro of the H. Hawaii Media radio network, the report’s author, policy analyst Jonathan Helton, said the rebuilding could move along faster if the state and Maui County would fix the historic review process, provide certainty on infrastructure assessments, address shoreline setback challenges and give Lahaina residents and businesses some long-term tax relief.

Asked by Miro if he was hopeful of these recommendations being adopted, Helton responded:

“Well, we have to have hope. And I will say that each of the recommendations that we made — those four recommendations — are all based off of bills that have been introduced at the Maui County Council or at the state level, or that have been discussed as possible ways to make the process more predictable for rebuilding. So, I think it is certainly within the window of opportunity to get something like these changes passed, and we are looking to work with people at the county and state level to make that happen.”

Asked about how long it might take for Lahaina to fully recover, Helton added:

“If the county and the state were to prioritize making the rebuilding process certain and fair and predictable, I think you’d see a lot more business owners decide to apply for their permits. I think you’d see a lot more people start building. And I think that would give people hope.

“You know, you’d see some people start building, and then you’d realize, ‘Oh, you know, maybe I can start building, this process won’t take two years just to get the permit.’ So, you know, five years, pessimistically, but, you know, I don’t want to be pessimistic. I want to believe that we can work together and make the process work for everybody.”

TRANSCRIPT

8-10-25 Jonathan Helton with host Johnny Miro on the H. Hawaii Media radio network

Johnny Miro: Happy to have you along on this Sunday. I’m Johnny. It’s time for our public access programming on our five Oahu radio stations, and five Kauai stations, along with five radio stations on Maui, all under the umbrella of H. Hawaii Media, HawaiiStream.fm, Live365, and the Facebook page, also a way to pick us up. 

And it’s now been over two years since Lahaina was destroyed by the tragic wildfires of August 8th of 2023, that killed 102 people, left thousands of people homeless.

Rebuilding of the homes, businesses, and the Lahaina community has been slow going, though, just a handful of homes have been rebuilt, and many people have left Maui for good.

A new report from the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii aims to identify a few of the reasons why rebuilding has been delayed, and what, if anything, lawmakers can do about it. 

So, to find out more about what’s in that report, it’s Jonathan Helton, policy analyst with Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, the report’s author, joining me this morning. Good morning, Jonathan.

Jonathan Helton: Good morning, Johnny. Good to be with you.

Miro: Not exactly a great anniversary, but nonetheless, it needs to be discussed as far as the rebuilding efforts and people being able to remain on Maui and in Lahaina specifically. So, Jonathan, for Lahaina residents, how has the rebuilding process been going so far? We’ve heard a lot of stories, and how many homes have been rebuilt?

Helton: Well, Johnny, I was in Lahaina just about two weeks ago, and there were a couple of homes that were either in the process of being rebuilt or that had been rebuilt, but it was, you know, heartbreaking to see a lot of empty lots. 

So, you know, according to the county, there’s been 50 homes that have either been rebuilt or have been repaired. There’s another 280 that are under construction. So, we’re certainly seeing some signs of progress.

It’s been about a year since the Army Corps of Engineers finished their cleanup of the residential lots. But so far, there has been no progress on rebuilding any of Lahaina’s businesses. To my knowledge, there has not been a single permit issued for rebuilding, and there have certainly been no businesses that have been able to rebuild so far.

Miro: Mayor [Richard] Bissen just came out with a statement that he’s prioritizing the homes over those businesses. That was a statement he made just the other day. So, I guess, that’s one of the reasons, but other reasons for why rebuilding has taken so long?

Helton: One of the big reasons — and I think this is out of a lot of people’s control — is how much insurance they have. You know, we’ve seen this repeatedly show up in the news coverage of Lahaina, is that a lot of people were underinsured.

Miro: Yeah.

Helton: And, you know, of course, increasing the amount of coverage on your house is expensive, a lot of people living in Lahaina, of course, are having to — before the fire — you have to figure out, you know, what do you want to put your budget toward. And people didn’t expect a disaster like this. 

So, you know, we’ve seen people who might get an insurance payout that’s half of what their home was worth before the fire. So they’re not able to rebuild. 

You add to that the increasing costs that we’ve seen over the past five years, really. You know, Hawaii is competing with rebuilding efforts in Los Angeles for essential materials — wood, windows, concrete, et cetera — and all of this has gotten more expensive in the past several years. And so, you know, the cost is just one big reason. 

But in addition to this, a lot of projects, whether they’re commercial, or rebuilding a home, have been stuck in the county’s permitting process. 

So, as a little bit of background, about six months after the fire, Maui County set up an expedited permit process for rebuilding. And so far, the expedited process has been better than the county process. But, you know, you’re still looking at probably over 100 days on average to get your permit to the expediter. And that sounds pretty bad. 

Keep in mind the county average, if you’re rebuilding a home, has been about, you know, 230 days over the past couple of years. So in the expedited process, you know, more or less is working, but a lot of people are still getting stuck at various places. 

And I think that for a lot of business owners especially, there’s a wait-and-see mindset. You know, with statements from the mayor that rebuilding homes is the priority — and believe me, I understand why we need to get people back into their homes. 

But on the other hand, the people need places to work. And if you’re a business owner, you’re looking at whether or not I want to rebuild, there’s not been a lot of certainty around whether or not you can rebuild or what conditions you’re going to have to, you know, meet or what hoops you’re going to have to jump through.

So a lot of people are just waiting on the county and on the state to sort of give them that certainty. And they’re not applying for permits.

Miro: Jonathan Helton, policy analyst with Grassroot Institute of Hawaii on the rebuilding efforts post two years after August 8th of 2023. And Jonathan, what about the status of the iconic Lahaina Harbor area? What’s the progress?

Helton: The harbor is, of course, the heart of Lahaina town. That was, if you’re visiting, you’re going to the harbor. If you worked in Lahaina, you work in a business, you own a business, a lot of the money that is being spent is related to people coming to the harbor. 

So the timeline says, you know, they’ve constantly been changing. Right now, we’re probably looking at 2026, optimistically, for the rebuild to be completed, maybe even as far as 2027. This year, the state Legislature did put some money aside toward getting the harbor rebuilt because the state, not the county, is responsible for the harbor.

So, you know, in terms of what you have to do to get it rebuilt, there is some cooperation needed with the federal government because the harbor has to be dredged, and that’s usually something where the state will work with the Army Corps of Engineers to figure out the process for getting that dredging permitted. And then the harbor itself has to be rebuilt, and that’s going to be the state’s responsibility. 

So, in terms of the exact date, we don’t know, but we do know that the sooner it gets rebuilt, the better for Lahaina’s comeback, and we know that this is primarily a state matter. 

So if the state is committed to getting this rebuilt, it’s going to happen quicker. And if the people in Lahaina who depend on the harbor, are vocal and indicating to the state that this needs to be a priority, then it’s going to happen quicker.

Miro: All right. Well, let’s hope for that, all right. 

Jonathan, you wrote a report for the state and Maui County to consider reforming some of the rules that might be slowing down this rebuilding process. So what were those main recommendations?

Helton: There were four main suggestions, and I can go through them one by one. But I’ll just give a quick list. 

The first is that the state and county need to fix the historic review process. The second is that the county needs to provide certainty on its infrastructure assessments. The third is that the state needs to do something to address the shoreline setback challenges. And finally, Grassroot is advocating that the county of Maui give Lahaina residents who lost their homes or their businesses some long-term tax relief. 

And so I can go through each of those four in a little bit more detail if you’d like.

Miro: Oh, yes, we’d love it. Go ahead, Jonathan.

Helton: So let’s start at the top. So, in Lahaina, there are two county historic zoning districts. And between the highway and the coast, a lot of Lahaina town is in a national historic landmark district. And so this is primarily because of the town’s historic significance, why you have these zoning overlays that all of the buildings that are built in Lahaina have to comply with certain standards. So if you are building something new, if you are doing a lot of repairs to a building that was there, then you’re going to have to meet certain aesthetic standards that sort of reflect, you know, the day and age of a lot of the buildings around there.

So that was in place before the fire. The fire destroys most of the buildings in Lahaina town. And so now, if you are rebuilding a home or business in one of these districts, you are going to have to go through the State Historic Preservation Division for review. And you will also probably have to go through review from the Maui Cultural Resource Commission. 

And so there’s about 130 properties, they’re going to need review from that commission. And so far, there have only been four residential permits that have been approved by the commission. 

And in terms of commercial permits, the first commercial project that applied to the commission for its review was reviewed just a couple of days ago. So I haven’t heard whether or not they approved it or not. But, needless to say, 130 properties need review, at least, and at best, only five have been approved so far. 

So, you know, there’s a lot of reasons for this delay. One of the reasons is that the Cultural Resources Commission had a lot of vacancies, and those vacancies were not filled until earlier this year. So they couldn’t meet and … project and issue determination. 

You know, another reason for the delay has been that the State Historic Preservation Division is badly understaffed for the amount of work that they have been assigned. And it seems that they’re requiring some pretty intense monitoring procedures even for the rebuilding in Lahaina. 

So all of this has added uncertainty, it’s added cost, to anyone looking to rebuild.

So, Grassroot’s recommendation, you know, was pretty simple. It was that if somebody is building something that they had before the fire, if you’re rebuilding your home or your business, it’s going to look similar to what it looked like before the fire. And that’s a review process. All you should have to do is go to the Maui Planning Department, say, “Here’s what I had, here’s what I’m rebuilding.” They review it, make sure that those things more or less match, you should be good to go. 

That’s the gist of our recommendation. I think there’s a lot of other ways that this historic review process could be made more certain and streamlined, but that was just one of them.

Miro: I see.

Helton: I’ll go to the infrastructure assessment, …

Miro: Yeah.

Helton: … our second recommendation. 

Right now, Maui County can require someone who’s rebuilding an apartment or a business, or a hotel to make a bunch of improvements to the nearby infrastructure. 

So this could look like if I’m going to rebuild an apartment building, I might have to widen the road beside it. I might have to put the electrical utilities underground. I might have to add in sidewalks. And obviously, if the Department of Public Works on Maui requires that for rebuilding, that’s going to add time, that’s going to add a lot of cost, to the rebuilding project.

And so there was a bill that was proposed last year, Bill 110, at the Maui County Council, that would’ve waived that rule, [for] rebuilding in Lahaina, and said, “You don’t have to make these infrastructure improvements as a condition of rebuilding.” We think that bill is a great way to address this problem. 

I’ll move to the third thing real quick, which is the state’s shoreline setbacks. 

So there are about 90 properties that are on the shoreline by Front Street. And there was a debate at the state level about whether or not those properties needed to be included in an exemption from what is known as the Special Management Area. And the Special Management Area was one of the primary hurdles for a lot of properties in Lahaina to get rebuilt.

So the state passed a bill, last session, and the governor signed it, that exempted most of Lahaina from the Special Management Area rules. But ultimately, state lawmakers decided that these about 90 properties would have to go through the Special Management Area permit process. They left them out of the exemption. 

And so far that process has been very contentious. The Maui Planning Department has only approved one of those homes for rebuilding. And just a handful of others have even applied to rebuild and started the hearing process. 

So, this is not a county issue. It would have to be addressed by the governor or by state legislation. But we think, as a matter of fairness to these 90 or so home and business owners, that they should be allowed to be rebuild, or at least they should be exempt from the Special Management Area like the rest of Lahaina was.

Miro: Yeah. The Front Street Recovery they’ve been doing what they can to get that underway and the streamline, but they’re having a difficult time doing that. It seems like Front Street area, Jonathan, is going to be taking a bit more time, I would say, than the portions of Lahaina behind that — the portions you just highlighted initially and now on the shoreline setback, so this seems to be really a sticking point that might take a little bit longer.

Helton: Yes, I certainly think that’s accurate. You know, [the group] Front Street Recovery has been doing a lot of work on the advocacy side, trying to get clarity from the state and counties on what the requirements are going to be. And I think they’ve done a lot of good work. 

So, to go on real quickly to the last item that we mentioned in our report, we talked about property tax relief. 

Now, thankfully, the county of Maui, since the fires, has not levied property tax against the homes and businesses that were destroyed in the fire. And so, if you’ve got a property that was in the Lahaina burn zone, you’re exempt from property tax until July of next year, July 2026.

And Grassroot thinks that this is great. If you lost your house and you’re not able to rebuild, you certainly shouldn’t be paying property tax on that. 

But, that exemption is slated to expire. And so in the report, we talk about what Kauai County did after Hurricane Iniki struck the island. They provided property tax relief. We would encourage the Maui County Council to provide some long-term property tax relief for people in Lahaina. 

If you are somebody who is holding onto your lot, maybe you haven’t gotten your insurance claim together, maybe you haven’t gotten enough money to completely rebuild, but you were hoping that you’ll be able to rebuild at some point soon, Grassroot would highly encourage the county, those people should be exempt from the property tax. 

I think another two-year exemption. until 2028, is certainly warranted, but we’ve heard estimates, people are saying, “Lahaina’s not going to get rebuilt for another five years.” So we’re looking even past 2030. 

So, as long as there are delays in the process and people are unable to rebuild, you know, Grassroot believes that they should not be having to pay the property tax.

Miro: Jonathan, do you remember, or do you have information on how long that Hurricane Iniki tax exemption went on for?

Helton: I think it was two years after Hurricane Iniki. The Kauai County Council provided a 50% tax-rate reduction for businesses, and that only lasted a year. 

I think the nature of the hurricane was such that a lot of different homes on the island were damaged in some way, but perhaps not completely destroyed, and so the disaster sort of looked different in terms of, where in Lahaina you had a lot of concentrated destruction in one area. So, in some ways, the Maui County Council has already been more generous than Kauai was, but we think that, because the rebuilding is likely to take so long, that that tax relief should be extended.

Miro: All right, we’re speaking with Jonathan Helton, and he is a policy analyst with Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. And of course, the report is out there. So far, what’s been the reception, and you’re hopeful that these reforms will be passed?

Helton: Well, we have to have hope. And I will say that each of the recommendations that we made — those four recommendations — are all based off of bills that have been introduced at the Maui County Council or at the state level, or that have been discussed as possible ways to make the process more predictable for rebuilding. So, I think it is certainly within the window of opportunity to get something like these changes passed, and we are looking to work with people at the county and state level to make that happen.

Miro: And you just mentioned maybe we’re looking at 2030, but is that the timeframe you’re realistically looking at and maybe the rest of the folks who worked on this paper?

Helton: The rebuilding after Hurricane Iniki, it took about two and a half years to get a lot of the residential structures, sort of back to where they were. Now, Kauai’s economy did not recover for another eight years. So, in terms of realistically, I think another five years for Lahaina, at the rate things are going, is how it’s going to look. 

Now, I think it could be quicker. I think that if the county and the state were to prioritize making the rebuilding process certain and fair and predictable, I think you’d see a lot more business owners decide to apply for their permits. I think you’d see a lot more people start building. And I think that would give people hope.

You know, you’d see some people start building, and then you’d realize, “Oh, you know, maybe I can start building, this process won’t take two years just to get the permit.” So, you know, five years, pessimistically, but, you know, I don’t want to be pessimistic. I want to believe that we can work together and make the process work for everybody.

Miro: Yeah, let’s hope so. Anything else, Jonathan, you’d like to share from this report that you put forth?

Helton: I think I would add two more things. 

In the report, it’s mostly focused on what can the state and county do to help Lahaina rebuild. But we also talk about housing policy in Maui a little bit more generally. 

Since the fires, rents on Maui have gone up astronomically. There is a shortage of housing; there was before the fire. 

So there are two things we talk about that could make housing a little bit more available to people in Maui. 

One is a bill that would allow more homes per lot. So right now, you’re limited typically to one home and it may be an ADU if your lot is big enough on Maui. But there’s been a lot of interest in building ADUs, and we think that there’s some legislation that’s before the county council that would make it a lot easier for folks to do that — so maybe you could add a second ADU to your lot or you could convert a bedroom into an ADU that you could rent out to somebody. So we’d like to see that legislation passed. 

And then the second thing that would help housing on Maui would be to take the county’s expedited permit process for fire rebuilding, where the county partnered with a company that was based out of California to help process some of these permits., w’d like to see that expedited process used for other types of permits as well.

So, again, the permitting delays on Maui are notorious. There’s a lot of reasons for that. But one of them is that the county just doesn’t have a lot of staff who are able to review permits. So if you’re able to bring in an outside group to sort of be a safety valve and help you review more permits, you’d see more housing get built. 

So those are the two other things that we think, outside of getting rid of some of this red tape that’s holding Lahaina back, we’d like to see that would help the people of Maui build more housing.

Miro: All right. Solid information once again from Jonathan Helton. And where can folks find this report, Jonathan?

Helton: They can go to grassrootinstitute.org, and the report is on the front page of the website right now. So we’re looking at four more ways to help Lahaina’s recovery. That’s the report title.

Miro: Jonathan, thanks for chiming in once again. Great information, and we look forward to talking to you once again. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Helton: All right. You too, Johnny. Thanks for having me on.