THE TOWN THAT WAITS
Three years after the fire, Lahaina has 232 finished buildings, five commercial permits as of July 2, and a beautiful new sidewalk. A special report on what the numbers actually say, and the questions government still has not answered.
BY LAHAINA LEE · ALOHA GROUP MAUI
All permitting and debris figures are from the County of Maui Rebuild Dashboard, updated July 6, 2026. Sources are listed in the endnotes.
I A Blessing for a Sidewalk
On the afternoon of July 1, about 150 people gathered on the 700 block of Front Street to bless a sidewalk.
That is not sarcasm. It was a real ceremony for real work: roughly 1,450 feet of repaired sidewalk, some 700 feet of new stainless-steel railing capped with ipe wood, twelve light poles, fifteen benches, five bike racks, eight planters, thirteen milo trees. The County’s Department of ʻŌiwi Resources led the blessing. The Mayor spoke. People applauded. Shuttle buses ran up from the Lahaina Aquatic Center, because that block of Front Street is still closed to through traffic.
That last detail is the whole story.
I have walked that block more times than I can count. I have shown property on it. I have had coffee on it. But I was not there on July 1. I was off island, staying with friends who also lost property in Lahaina, and we watched the blessing the way most of Lahaina watched it: in pieces, on Facebook, from somewhere else. I want to be honest about what that room felt like. Not cynical. Not ungrateful. Frustrated. Because what was being presented to us as progress was a sidewalk, and every person in that room had lost a house.
Stand at the new railing and look out, and Lahaina is as beautiful as it has ever been. Turn around, and you are looking at block after block of cleared, empty, silent lots where a town used to be. The sidewalk is finished. The town is not.
I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to read this report as an attack on the people doing the work. It is not. The debris is gone: all 1,390 residential lots, all 148 commercial and public lots. The sewer system is back to one hundred percent. Two hundred thirty-two buildings in Lahaina have passed final inspection, and behind every one of those numbers is a family that stopped waiting. That is not nothing. That is people’s lives.
But there is a difference between making progress and making enough progress. And three years on, with the numbers finally clear enough to be honest about, somebody has to say the second part out loud.
So let me say the thing this whole report is really about, and then spend the rest of it proving the point.
We have gotten comfortable calling things open that are not open, and paid that are not paid.
The harbor is “open.” It is not. A handful of operators are back under restricted hours and controlled access, with large sections still fenced. Front Street is “open.” It is not. They ran shuttles to the July 1 blessing because the block is closed to traffic. The settlement money is “flowing.” It is not. A first batch of offers went out and nobody has been paid. Bill 88 is “awaiting the Mayor’s signature.” It is not. It has been law since June 22, and almost nobody on this island knows it.
Every one of those sentences is defensible, sourced, and in this report. Together they describe a habit. And that habit is how three years pass.
The sidewalk is finished. The town is not.
Lahaina lost approximately 2,200 structures on August 8, 2023. One hundred two people died. More than 12,000 residents were displaced, the overwhelming majority of them renters.
As of the County’s own dashboard on July 6, 2026, thirty-five months later, Lahaina has completed 232 buildings.
And as the County itself reported on July 2, 2026: five commercial permits have been issued for Lahaina town. One is under construction.
One.
II Recovery by the Numbers
Every figure below comes from the County of Maui’s official Rebuild Dashboard, updated July 6, 2026, with permitting data supplied by 4Leaf Inc. the County’s contracted permit administrator.
Permitting in Lahaina
|
Status |
Total |
Residential |
Non-residential |
|
Being processed |
348 |
158 |
190 |
|
Issued |
562 |
532 |
30 |
|
Completed |
232 |
220 |
12 |
Permitting in the countywide burn zones (Lahaina and Kula)
|
Status |
Total |
Residential |
Non-residential |
|
Being processed |
348 |
158 |
190 |
|
Issued |
574 |
544 |
30 |
|
Completed |
236 |
224 |
12 |
|
Homes under construction |
315 |
n/a |
n/a |
Debris removal: complete
|
Category |
Lots |
Status |
|
Residential |
1,390 of 1,390 |
Complete: Sept. 11, 2024 |
|
Commercial / public |
148 of 148 |
Complete: Feb. 26, 2025 |
|
Historic structures shored & braced |
6 of 6 |
Complete |
The commercial core, as reported by the County on July 2, 2026
|
Metric (as of July 2, 2026) |
Count |
|
Commercial permits issued, Lahaina town |
5 |
|
Commercial projects under construction |
1 |
|
Commercial properties in permitting |
2 |
|
Commercial properties in pre-application consultation |
12+ |
|
Makai-side commercial properties on complicated paths |
10 |
The five permitted properties, named by the County: 612, 632, 714, 724 and 744 Front Street, all on the mauka side. 612 is the former Six Fathoms building; 632 is the site longtime visitors knew as Paia Fish Market; 744 is Fleetwood’s, which the County has called the most complicated permit currently in its queue.
Two things about the permitting table deserve more attention than they usually get.
First, read the “non-residential” column carefully. There are 190 non-residential permits in process, a number the County can point to as evidence that a commercial wave is coming. But the dashboard’s own footnote defines “non-residential” to include properties with four or more dwelling units and all Puamana permits. In other words, a large share of that 190 is housing. It is not Front Street. Five was the Front Street number on July 2. Five.
Second, look at the direction of travel on completions. In January 2026 the County reported 112 completed permits. By early July it reported 236. Completions roughly doubled in six months, and they are still accelerating. That is genuinely good news and I will not pretend otherwise.
But hold both facts at once. At roughly 220 completed homes against approximately 2,200 structures lost, Lahaina is about ten percent of the way back, in three years.
Ten percent is an abstraction. Try it this way instead.
Nine out of every ten structures Lahaina lost are still waiting.
Walk down your own street and count the houses. Now imagine that one of them has come back, and the other nine are bare dirt or covered in crushed rock. That is Lahaina in July 2026.
Even at the improved rate of the last six months, simple arithmetic puts full residential recovery years away. And commercial recovery, measured by permits actually issued for Lahaina town, is not slow. It is virtually nonexistent.
A number that does not reconcile
At the July 2 press conference announcing ʻUlu o Lele, Mayor Bissen was asked how recovery timelines compare with expectations from three years ago. As reported by Maui Now, he said more than 500 homes have been built in Lahaina, with about 700 residential permits issued and another 700-plus pending approval.
The County’s own dashboard, four days later, reported 220 completed residential permits in Lahaina.
Those two statements can be reconciled, and I want to be fair about how. Add Lahaina’s 220 completed permits to the 315 homes the dashboard lists as under construction and you get 535, “more than 500.” That is almost certainly the arithmetic behind the Mayor’s number, and it is not dishonest arithmetic.
But a house under construction is not a house that has been built. A family cannot live in it. It has not passed final inspection. The County maintains a public dashboard whose entire purpose is to distinguish between issued, under construction and completed, and then its chief executive, standing in front of cameras, collapsed that distinction into a single word.
I would ask the County to reconcile the figures publicly. Not as a gotcha. Because the difference between 220 families home and 500 families home is 280 families, and they are the ones who would notice.
At roughly 220 completed homes against 2,200 structures lost, Lahaina is about ten percent of the way back, in three years.
III Three Years: A Lahaina Timeline
Every entry below is sourced to a primary document, a County of Maui release or dashboard, a FEMA or Governor’s Office announcement, a court record, or wire-service reporting. Where the exact day could not be confirmed, the month is given instead.
Aug. 8, 2023 The Lahaina wildfire burns roughly 2,170 acres and destroys approximately 2,200 structures. One hundred two people are killed. The Associated Press reports more than 12,000 residents displaced, roughly 89 percent of them renters at the time of the fires.
Oct. 28, 2023 FEMA brings in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prepare a 34-acre state-owned site off Fleming Road for temporary group housing, the project that becomes Kilohana.
Jan. 2024 Residential debris removal begins.
Feb. 2024 Debris removal expands to commercial and public properties.
Apr. 29, 2024 The County opens the Recovery Permit Center in Kahului, launching expedited Disaster Recovery Building Permits, with 4LEAF Inc. contracted to administer them.
May 2024 Mayor Richard Bissen proposes phasing out transient vacation rentals in apartment-zoned districts, the proposal that becomes Bill 9. That same month, the Recovery Permit Center issues its first rebuilding permit, to a Lahaina couple on Komo Mai Street.
Aug. 2, 2024 Gov. Josh Green announces a $4.037 billion global settlement in principle with Hawaiian Electric, the State of Hawaiʻi, Maui County, Kamehameha Schools and other defendants. It remains contingent on resolving insurers’ claims.
Aug. 9, 2024 First residents move into Ka Laʻi Ola, the State’s interim housing village on 57 acres, planned for up to 450 units, ultimately built with 432.
Sept. 11, 2024 Residential debris removal complete, 1,390 of 1,390 properties.
Late Nov. 2024 The first rebuilt homes in the burn zones are completed.
Feb. 10, 2025 The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court rules unanimously that insurers cannot bring independent subrogation actions against the settling defendants, the decision that rescues the global settlement. The formal opinion follows on March 17.
Feb. 2025 FEMA completes Kilohana, a 167-unit temporary group housing site, in roughly 13 months. Commercial and public debris removal is also completed, 148 of 148 properties, bringing the total cleared to 1,538.
Apr. 16, 2025 The County announces Lahaina’s sewer system is 100 percent active. All 3,526 sewered lots in West Maui are back in service.
June 2, 2025 Notice to proceed on the Front Street Railing, Sidewalk and Seawall Repairs, County Project No. 19-28. Contractor: Goodfellow Bros. Contract value: $5,042,795.
Oct. 2025 The last wildfire debris moves from the temporary Olowalu storage site to permanent disposal at the Central Maui Landfill. Restoration of the Olowalu site continues.
Dec. 2, 2025 The County marks the 100th completed structure in the burn zones. 4Leaf has issued 629 building permits to date.
Dec. 15, 2025 Lahaina Small Boat Harbor partially reopens after 28 months, a first group of commercial operators returns under restricted hours and controlled access. The same day, the Council passes Bill 9 by 5–3 and Mayor Bissen signs it into law.
Jan. 2026 FEMA temporary housing assistance is extended through February 2027.
Feb. 2026 In a second ruling, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court holds that insurers may not intervene in the settlement, affirming Judge Peter Cahill’s June 2025 denial of their motion to join as independent parties.
Apr. 2026 The last insurer appeal is withdrawn, clearing the final appellate obstacle. Claims administration proceeds.
June 17, 2026 BrownGreer PLC, the court-appointed claims processor, issues the first award determination notices, an initial batch, not a mailing to all claimants. A notice is an offer to settle, not a payment.
June 19, 2026 The Maui County Council passes Bill 88 on second and final reading, 7–2.
June 22, 2026 Bill 88 takes effect as Ordinance 6008, creating the H-3 and H-4 hotel districts. It rezones no property.
July 1, 2026 A community blessing marks completion of the Front Street Railing and Walkway Project.
July 2, 2026 The County and Hawaiian Council announce ʻUlu o Lele, an interim marketplace at the former Outlets of Maui site. The County estimates construction and operations for the two-year initiative at approximately $8 million.
July 2026 The Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee takes up Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, the first Council-initiated proposals to move specified properties into the new districts, and advances them. No property has been rezoned. Maui Planning Commission consideration is anticipated in September.
IV The Ten-Year Sidewalk
Here is the part of the Front Street story that has not been widely reported, and it matters.
The County’s own account is that last year’s Front Street work, and the project blessed on July 1, grew out of a plan to improve Front Street that began in 2015, eight years before the fire, with public input and consultation. The County’s capital file for the railing, sidewalk and seawall repairs carries the designation Project No. 19-28. The contract went to Goodfellow Bros. at $5,042,795, with notice to proceed on June 2, 2025.
So let us be precise, because precision is what makes the criticism stick.
Nobody should claim the County rebuilt a pre-fire sidewalk and called it disaster recovery. The construction is post-fire, and the seawall and streetscape genuinely did need repair after August 2023. But the plan is a decade old. The concept, the community consultation, the design intent, all of it predates the fire by years. This was a Front Street beautification and seawall project that the fire caught up with.
That is worth saying plainly for one reason: on July 1, the completion of that decade-old plan was presented as a milestone in Lahaina’s commercial recovery. The Mayor said the project helps create the conditions for businesses to reopen, for local jobs to return and for private investment to move forward.
Does it? A sidewalk is a precondition. It is not a business. Nothing about 700 feet of new railing resolves the historic-district review, the shoreline and flood requirements, the infrastructure sequencing, or the permitting layers that are actually blocking commercial rebuilding. And we know they are blocking it, because the County says so itself: it acknowledges that permitting and approvals in the Lahaina historic districts are among the most heavily regulated processes in the state, involving national, state and local rules.
That is not a defense. That is a description of a problem the County has the standing to fix, or at least to fight, and has not.
One conversation keeps repeating itself in meetings. A business owner tells me what they used to have on Front Street, and then asks the same question, in a slightly different way each time: what do I actually have to do to come back, and how long will it take? And the honest answer is that nobody has published one. Not a hard answer, not a soft one. Three years on, the response to the most basic question a displaced merchant can ask does not exist in writing anywhere.
And the makai side is worse. At the July 2 press conference, Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade said ten commercial properties on the ocean side of Front Street face more complicated paths back. Some of them held over-water leases from the State that were discontinued after the fire, leaving the owner with only a small footprint of dry land to rebuild on. For those owners, Wade said, the County has set up a buyout program, after which the land would be dedicated to open space and public access. That may well be the right outcome for the shoreline. But it is a decision about the permanent shape of Front Street, and it is being made property by property, quietly, in the absence of a published plan.
Here is the tell. On July 2, 2026, thirty-five months after the fire, the County reported five commercial permits issued for Lahaina town, and one project under construction. If the regulatory environment were merely difficult, we would see a queue. Instead we see more than a dozen properties stuck in pre-application consultation, the stage before the stage before the permit. These are business owners who want to come home, who are trying to come home, and who cannot get out of the anteroom.
A sidewalk is a precondition. It is not a business.
|
Voices from the wait A Lahaina business owner, born and raised in town, and now planning to take a unit at the interim marketplace, told The Maui News the project “represents hope” for people like her. She described imagining a place where families could share a meal and catch up again, the way the old town is described to her by those who remember it. A survivor still in interim housing at Ka Laʻi Ola described to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser the late-night conversations she and a neighbor rely on as a kind of “shared therapy”, a way to process grief three years on. She has since signed with a contractor to rebuild on her own lot. A 75-year-old who lost his senior housing and has been living on Kauaʻi since, hoping to afford a move back, told Hawaii News Now that his settlement determination notice gave him a number but not the full picture: survivors are being told they will not be made whole, without being told by how much. An Upcountry homeowner told reporters he expected to be in his rebuilt home by the first anniversary of the fire. On the second anniversary, his property was still a footprint. |
|
What the County has said, and what it hasn’t The County has said: permitting in the Lahaina historic districts is among the most heavily regulated processes in the state. The County has not said: what it intends to do about that. There is no published commercial permitting reform plan, no target timeline for a Front Street rebuild permit, no dedicated commercial permit lead with authority to break log-jams across agencies, and no public accounting of where the twelve-plus pre-application properties are stuck, or why. Ask it this way: if historic-district review is the binding constraint on Lahaina’s commercial recovery, and the State has already shown it will legislate around obstacles when it wants to, the Legislature exempted most Lahaina reconstruction from Special Management Area permits, and in 2026 passed HB1823 to extend a similar exemption to infrastructure projects, then what, specifically, has the County requested for the commercial core? |
V ʻUlu o Lele: Bridge, or Substitute?
On July 2, the County and the nonprofit Hawaiian Council announced ʻUlu o Lele (“Growth of Lele,” after Lahaina’s traditional name), an interim marketplace on roughly three acres at the former Outlets of Maui site near Front and Papalaua streets.
The facts, as publicly stated: an approximately $8 million, two-year initiative led by Hawaiian Council, supported by its Kākoʻo Maui Fund and a $4 million grant from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund. Hawaiian Council has secured a two-year lease. The plan is 17 retail units and eight food trucks, plus a stage for nightly entertainment, supporting an estimated 90 jobs. Rents are stated at $800 to $1,500 a month depending on unit size. It is designed as an 18-to-24-month recovery initiative and is expected to open in September 2026. Priority goes to Lahaina- and Maui-based businesses, particularly those displaced by the fire. A vendor RFP is expected, with selection incorporating community members, Hawaiian cultural practitioners, business leaders, retail advisors and Hawaiian Council staff.
I want to say clearly: I hope this works. A Lahaina business owner told reporters the project represents hope for people like her, and described it as a place families could gather again. Hawaiian Council’s chief executive called it a beginning effort to bring energy and hope back to town. Those are the right instincts, and $800-a-month commercial rent in West Maui is not a small gift to a displaced small business. This is the first project to bring storefronts back to Front Street since the fire, and the people behind it have earned the benefit of the doubt.
So let me be careful to criticize the right thing.
My concern is not Hawaiian Council. My concern is not the marketplace. My concern is what happens to the urgency of permanent commercial rebuilding once a temporary marketplace makes Front Street look alive again.
An interim solution that relieves political pressure without relieving the underlying constraint is not a bridge. It is a detour. Two years from now, when the lease expires, the question will not be whether ʻUlu o Lele was a nice place to get coffee. It will be whether Lahaina used those two years to fix the permitting system, or used them to avoid fixing it.
And to be fair to the project, several questions I have heard raised in the community are already answered on the public record: displaced Lahaina businesses do get priority; Hawaiian Council is leading it because it secured the lease and is funding it through its own Kākoʻo Maui Fund alongside HCF’s $4 million; a vendor selection process involving community input has been described.
The following have not been answered. They should be.
|
What we still don’t know about $8 million
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VI Bill 88: The Easy Part Is Over
Bill 88 is law. It took effect on June 22, 2026 as Ordinance 6008.
If you are relying on a real estate update written before that date, including my own June edition, you are working from a stale map. Here is where things actually stand.
A law that arrived with almost no public notice
It is worth pausing on how Bill 88 became law, because almost nobody on this island noticed.
When Mayor Bissen signed Bill 9, he did it the same day the Council passed it, and he said so publicly, calling it a historic step toward restoring housing availability for residents. The signing was covered everywhere.
Bill 88, the measure that partially walks back Bill 9’s reach, appears to have taken effect with almost no public notice. It became Ordinance 6008 on June 22, 2026. I can find no County announcement of it, and no reporting of a signing, in Maui Now, The Maui News, Civil Beat or the Star-Advertiser. The clearest public confirmation that the ordinance exists at all appears in the Council’s own legislative text for the rezoning resolutions now before it, which recites, almost in passing, that the H-3 and H-4 districts were established by Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026.
Here is how I know the notice was inadequate. I follow this issue almost daily. I write about it every month. I talk with owners, AOAO boards and brokers across this island for a living. And I believed Bill 88 was still awaiting the Mayor’s action, I said so in print, in my own June edition, until I went into the legislative record and found it recited there as settled law.
If someone following this as closely as I do got it wrong, I have to assume a great many property owners have it wrong too. And they are not making idle decisions. They are deciding whether to authorize six-figure consultant contracts, on a timeline set by a law they do not know is already running.
As of this writing, real estate trackers across this island, mine among them, until today, still describe Bill 88 as awaiting the Mayor’s signature.
Now, I could tell you I do not know whether the Mayor signed Bill 88 or whether it lapsed into law without his signature, and that would be true. Under the County Charter, either route gets you to the same place: an ordinance in effect. I have not gone digging for the answer, and I want to explain why.
Because it does not matter. That is the whole point.
If he signed it, nobody was told. If it lapsed, nobody was told. The mechanism is a footnote. The failure is the same either way, and it is not a failure of paperwork, it is a failure to tell 7,167 units’ worth of owners that the clock they are living under has started running.
So I am not alleging that anyone did anything improper, and I am not going to guess at what happened inside the building. I will only describe what the public experienced. Bill 9 came with a signing and wall-to-wall coverage. Bill 88 arrived in silence. A government that holds a press conference for 700 feet of railing found nothing to say about the most consequential zoning ordinance in Maui County in a generation.
If I have any of that wrong, if there was an announcement and I missed it, the County can correct me, publicly, and I will print the correction. That is a low bar. It is, in fact, precisely the bar I am asking them to clear.
The Bill 88 legislative timeline
|
Date |
Event |
|
May 2024 |
Mayor Bissen proposes the vacation-rental phase-out that becomes Bill 9 |
|
Fall 2025 |
Council’s Temporary Investigative Group (TIG) recommends creating H-3/H-4 zoning |
|
Dec. 15, 2025 |
Council passes Bill 9, 5–3; Mayor Bissen signs it the same day |
|
Early 2026 |
The three county planning commissions, Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi, each recommend denial of the H-3/H-4 framework, raising the Council threshold to a six-vote supermajority |
|
May 26, 2026 |
Housing & Land Use Committee advances Bill 88, 6–1 |
|
June 5, 2026 |
First reading passes the full Council, 7–2 |
|
June 19, 2026 |
Second and final reading passes, 7–2 |
|
June 22, 2026 |
Bill 88 takes effect as Ordinance 6008 |
|
July 1–9, 2026 |
HLU Committee takes testimony on Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111 and advances them |
|
Sept. 2026 (exp.) |
Maui Planning Commission takes up the first rezoning bills |
A government that held a press conference for 700 feet of railing found nothing to say about the most consequential zoning ordinance in a generation.
The Bill 88 legislative timeline, continued
Two structural facts about those votes are worth understanding.
The 7–2 margin was not just comfortable, it was necessary. Because all three county planning commissions recommended denial, Bill 88 required a supermajority of six votes. It cleared that bar with one to spare. Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Gabe Johnson dissented.
And the bill does far less than the celebrations suggested. Housing and Land Use Committee Chair Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins, who moved its passage, put it about as plainly as it can be put. As reported by Maui Now: “This bill only establishes the district and it does not rezone any properties.” Rezoning, she said, has to happen separately.
That is the entire story of Bill 88. It created two new zoning districts, H-3 and H-4, modeled on the existing A-1 and A-2 apartment standards, with one difference: they permit transient vacation rental use. It rezoned nothing.
What is actually happening now
The rezoning phase has already begun, and most owners do not know it.
On July 1, the Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee opened testimony on Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111, the first Council-initiated rezoning resolutions under the new framework. The committee advanced them this week. If the full Council adopts them, they go to the Maui Planning Commission, expected in September.
Resolution 26-111 covers seven properties the County says already function like hotels, including Wailea Ekahi I, II and III, Wailea Ekolu, the Palms at Wailea, Papakea and Maui Eldorado. Resolution 26-110 covers timeshare, leasehold and other characteristics, including Hono Kai and Milowai-Māʻalaea in Māʻalaea, Maui Sunset and Maui Hill in Kīhei, and Kahana Outrigger, Hale Mahina Beach Resort and Kāʻanapali Royal in West Maui.
If your building is on the Minatoya List but not named in those two resolutions, the Council has not initiated your transition. You are waiting for a later wave, and the criteria for the next wave are already being signaled: affordability, and sea-level-rise exposure.
That second criterion deserves attention. A Planning Department memorandum cited in testimony identified 43 Minatoya List properties, roughly 2,440 units, primarily in West Maui, sitting within a 3.2-foot sea-level-rise exposure zone. Council Member Tamara Paltin, who voted for Bill 88, has said she intends to revisit whether shoreline-adjacent properties should be eligible for the new districts at all.
Read that again if you own a West Maui oceanfront condo. Support for Bill 88 does not equal support for rezoning your building.
The number that could nullify all of it: $200,000 to $500,000
At the June 19 hearing, condominium owner TJ Victorine, whose 26-unit association unanimously supports Bill 88, told the Council that land-use planners had quoted him $200,000 to $500,000 per property to prepare the studies a rezoning application currently requires. He called that prohibitively expensive for most properties, including his own, and said it effectively nullifies the intent of the bill.
He is right, and this is the most important unresolved issue in Maui real estate.
Consider what it means for a 40-unit complex. A $400,000 rezoning bill is roughly a $10,000 special assessment per owner, and more or less depending on unit size, before legal fees, with no guarantee of approval, in a market where the same units have already lost value. Every AOAO on the Minatoya List now faces the same board meeting: spend six figures on consultants for a permission slip that may be denied, or do not spend it and accept the phase-out. There is no good answer, and the County has not offered one.
This is the gap between passing a bill and delivering a policy.
Bill 88 gave 104 properties a door. It did not tell them what the door costs, who is allowed through it, or when it opens.
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What every Minatoya owner should be doing right now
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VII The Money: A Notice Is Not a Check
There is a development most Lahaina coverage is treating as a legal story. It is actually the most important real estate story of 2026, and it is being described far more optimistically than the facts support.
Start with what is true. The $4.03 billion global settlement is resolved. It took two Hawaiʻi Supreme Court rulings to get there, one in February 2025, holding that insurers could not bring independent subrogation actions against the settling defendants, and a second in February 2026, holding they could not intervene in the settlement either. The last insurer appeal was withdrawn in April 2026. More than $1.1 billion now sits in a trust account, the first of four annual distributions.
Now the part that keeps getting lost. On June 17, 2026, BrownGreer PLC, the court-appointed claims processor, issued the first award determination notices. First is the operative word. According to an April report from the special masters, BrownGreer anticipates roughly six months to render initial findings on all filed claims. Liaison counsel Cynthia Wong has said she expects initial awards to begin being paid in July or August, and to continue for six months after that.
And a notice is not a check. Jan Apo, a Lahaina-born attorney who lost two family homes in the fire, put it about as plainly as it can be put to Hawaii News Now: “The notice of determination is not an actual payment.” It is an offer to settle, which the claimant has 30 days to accept or contest.
So if you have not received a notice, you are not behind and you have not been skipped. Most claimants have not received one. The process has started; it has not arrived.
That distinction matters, because “the settlement money is flowing” has already entered the local vocabulary, and it is not yet true. Judge Peter Cahill, who has presided over the case, captured the delay bluntly at a March hearing: the settlement was done in record time, he noted, and yet, as Civil Beat reported, “no one’s seen a penny.” As of this writing, that is still essentially the case.
When the money does move, the scale will be real. UHERO projects roughly $550 million reaching Maui households in 2026, with payments continuing through 2029 for a cumulative $2.8 billion after approximately $1 billion in attorneys’ fees and about $200 million in insurance liens, an increase in county personal income of roughly 5.4 percent this year. That is a projection, not a receipt, and it assumes a determination-and-payment schedule that has already slipped more than once.
Here is why it matters to anyone who owns, buys or sells on this island.
Settlement money is rebuild capital, eventually. The largest brake on the Lahaina rebuild has never been willingness. It has been the gap between what insurance paid and what construction costs. Settlement funds close some of that gap. But the first distribution is one of four, spread through 2029, and determinations will run into 2027. Expect the permit-to-completion pipeline to accelerate, later and more gradually than the headlines imply.
But few victims will be made whole. Roughly 21,750 victims sharing $4.03 billion averages about $190,000 per person, spread across four annual installments through 2029. That is not a rebuild fund. For many families it is a partial down payment on a life.
And it lands in a soft market. Per the REALTORS® Association of Maui, the Q1 2026 year-to-date condo median was $699,000, down 12.1 percent year over year. Inventory and days on market are both up. One owner testified to the Council that she had cut her asking price from $875,000 to $650,000 over two years without a single offer from a local buyer.
Falling values, arriving settlement cash, a newly created hotel zoning district, and a rezoning process whose cost nobody can quote. That is the Maui market in July 2026. Anyone who tells you it is simple is selling something.
VIII Questions Government Should Answer
These are not accusations. They are the questions I am asked every week by clients, neighbors and business owners, and to which I have no answers to give them. Each one is answerable. None has been answered.
On the eligibility list and rezoning process
- Why was there no public announcement when Bill 88 became law? Bill 9’s signing was announced the same day it passed. Ordinance 6008 took effect on June 22 and the County said nothing, leaving owners across the island to believe, weeks later, that it was still awaiting a signature.
- Where is the Planning Department’s published H-3/H-4 eligibility list, and when will it exist?
- What, specifically, does a rezoning application require? Publish the checklist.
- What is the County’s own estimate of the cost to prepare a compliant application, and if it is anywhere near the $200,000–$500,000 range testified to on the record, what is the County doing to reduce it?
- Will the County keep initiating rezonings itself, wave by wave, or will owners eventually have to self-fund applications? Which properties fall into which category, and when will they know?
- What is the criteria set for the next wave, and how will affordability and sea-level-rise exposure be weighted?
On commercial recovery
- Why, thirty-five months after the fire, had only five commercial permits been issued for Lahaina town as of July 2, 2026?
- Will the County reconcile the Mayor’s July 2 statement that more than 500 homes have been built in Lahaina with its own dashboard, which four days later reported 220 completed residential permits? Which figure describes families actually living in finished houses?
- Where, precisely, are the twelve-plus pre-application properties stuck, which agency, which review, which requirement?
- What is the County’s target timeline for a commercial permit in the historic district, and what happens if it is missed?
- The Legislature has twice created statutory exemptions to accelerate Lahaina recovery. What has the County requested, specifically, for the commercial core?
- What is the makai-side plan? A buyout program exists, converting properties to open space and public access. How many owners have taken it, on what terms, and what is the long-term vision for the ocean side of Front Street?
On money and accountability
- What is the line-item budget for ʻUlu o Lele’s roughly $8 million, and who owns the improvements at lease end?
- Where is the public financial dashboard? Recovery involves hundreds of millions of dollars from federal, state, county, philanthropic and private sources. Residents should be able to see, in one place: funds committed, funds received, funds spent, projects underway, projects completed, estimated completion dates.
That last one is not a criticism. It is a proposal, and it is free. The County already publishes a rebuild dashboard, and it is good. Publish a money dashboard next to it. Transparency is the cheapest trust-building instrument any government has.
IX What Success Should Look Like
It is easy to criticize. It is harder to say what “done” looks like. So here is my attempt, a set of markers that would tell us, honestly, that Lahaina’s recovery is on track.
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By the end of 2026
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By August 8, 2027, four years
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And then the real test, the one that has nothing to do with permits: the people who lived in Lahaina before August 8, 2023 are the people living in Lahaina again.
That is the only marker that actually matters. A rebuilt town occupied by different people is not a recovery. It is a replacement. Every policy choice in front of this County, the phase-out, the rezoning, the interim marketplace, the buyouts, the permitting queue, should be judged against one question: does it bring Lahaina’s people home?
A rebuilt town occupied by different people is not a recovery. It is a replacement.
X A Closing Note
I have worked in this market through all of it, and I have written about it every month. I have watched clients lose homes. I have watched friends leave for the mainland, not because they wanted to go, but because they could not face the time, the uphill climb, or just the pain of going through the recovery. I have watched a real estate market absorb a policy shock while a town absorbed a catastrophe, and I have watched the language we use about the second one get steadily looser.
So I want to end where I started, on that new sidewalk.
It really is a good sidewalk. The railing is beautiful. The milo trees will grow. And in twenty years, when Lahaina is whole again, people will walk that block and it will be exactly right.
The question is how long the walk takes, and who is still here to take it.
Government has done real things: the debris is gone, the sewer works, permits are moving faster than they were. But notice how easily the language slips. The harbor is not “open.” A handful of operators are back, under restricted hours and controlled access, with large sections still fenced. Front Street is not “open” either, they ran shuttles to the blessing because the block is closed. And the settlement money is not “flowing.” A first batch of offers went out, and the claims processor expects to spend roughly six months working through the rest.
We have gotten comfortable calling things open that are not open, and paid that are not paid. That habit is how three years pass.
Government has also, for three years, failed to cut through a permitting thicket it has publicly acknowledged is among the most restrictive in the state, in the commercial heart of a town that burned down. Both things are true. Only one of them is being celebrated.
Bill 88 is not a victory. At its very best, it is a pathway to getting back some of the legal rights that were taken away in the first place. The eligibility list still does not exist. The application still has no published cost. And as of July 2, 2026: five commercial permits. One under construction.
Ask the questions. Keep asking them. And hold all of us, government, business, brokers, media, community, to the only standard that counts.
Because nearly three years ago, Lahaina lost far more than buildings.
It lost neighbors. Businesses. Traditions. Familiar faces. Our community. Our way of life.
The measure of recovery is not how many permits have been issued. It is not how many meetings have been held. It is not how many sidewalks have been poured, however beautiful the railing.
The measure of recovery is whether the people who made Lahaina Lahaina are able to come home.
Everything else is just construction.
From the greatest island on earth, this is Lahaina Lee saying aloha.
Corrections: if anything in this report is wrong, tell me and I will publish the correction. Questions about how Bill 9 or Bill 88 affects a specific property? Reach out directly, I answer every message.
Lahaina Lee · Aloha Group Maui · AlohaGroupMaui.com
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, Endnotes & Sources
Figures cited in this report are drawn from the following public sources. Where a source reports a figure as of a particular date, that date is given. Readers are encouraged to verify current numbers before relying on them; the County dashboard updates frequently.
1. Permitting and debris figures, Lahaina and countywide. County of Maui, Rebuild Dashboard (mauirecovers.org/recoverydashboard), updated July 6, 2026. Permitting data provided by 4Leaf Inc. Lahaina: 348 in process, 562 issued, 232 completed. Countywide: 574 issued, 236 completed, 315 homes under construction. Debris: 1,390 of 1,390 residential lots complete (Sept. 11, 2024); 148 of 148 commercial/public lots complete (Feb. 26, 2025); 6 of 6 historic structures shored and braced.
2. Derived figures, how they were calculated. The following figures are the author’s own arithmetic from the sourced inputs above, not published statistics. They are set out here so readers can check them. (a) “Thirty-five months”: Aug. 8, 2023 to the July 6, 2026 dashboard. (b) “About ten percent of the way back”: 220 completed residential permits in Lahaina against approximately 2,200 structures destroyed. (c) “Completions roughly doubled in six months” and “roughly 20 buildings a month”: 112 completed permits reported by the County in January 2026, rising to 236 on the July 6, 2026 dashboard, 124 completions across roughly six months. (d) “Runs into the 2030s”: approximately 1,964 structures remaining (2,200 less 236 completed) at roughly 20 completions per month is about 98 months, or into the mid-2030s. (e) “About 1,140 permits in the system”: Lahaina’s 232 completed, 562 issued and 348 in process, per the July 6, 2026 dashboard. (f) “$10,000 per owner”: a $400,000 rezoning cost divided across a hypothetical 40-unit association.
3. Limitations of those figures, stated plainly. Building permits are not one-to-one with structures: the County notes that a single permit may cover more than one dwelling unit, so permit-based percentages likely understate the number of housing units actually delivered. “Structures” as counted in the loss figure includes commercial and multi-unit buildings, not only single-family homes. Not every destroyed structure will be rebuilt, some owners have sold, and the County has offered a buyout program for certain makai properties. And the January 2026 and July 2026 completion counts come from different County communications and may not use identical definitions. None of these caveats changes the direction of the finding, but each should be understood before the numbers are quoted elsewhere.
4. A caution about the “non-residential” permit column. The County’s Rebuild Dashboard footnote defines “non-residential” to include commercial properties, properties with four or more dwelling units, and all Puamana permits. The 190 non-residential permits in process therefore cannot be read as a commercial-rebuild pipeline; a substantial share is housing. The figure specific to Lahaina town’s commercial core, five permits issued, one under construction, comes from the County’s July 2, 2026 news release, not from that column.
5. Timeline sources. Aug. 8, 2023 casualty, structure and displacement figures: Associated Press. USACE site preparation beginning Oct. 28, 2023 on a 34-acre state-owned site off Fleming Road: FEMA press release, Feb. 4, 2025. Debris removal start dates, lot counts and completion dates: County of Maui Rebuild Dashboard; the County separately reported a combined total of 1,538 residential and commercial properties cleared. Recovery Permit Center opening Apr. 29, 2024 and first permit issued in May 2024: County of Maui news releases; Maui Now. Ka Laʻi Ola: Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 2026. Kilohana: FEMA, Feb. 2025. Sewer restoration: County of Maui Department of Environmental Management, April 2025. 100th completed structure, Dec. 2, 2025: County of Maui; The Maui News; Hawaii News Now. FEMA housing extension through February 2027: Office of the Governor and FEMA, January 2026.
6. Commercial permit count for Lahaina town, as of July 2, 2026. County of Maui news release, “Mayor Bissen and Hawaiian Council welcome major milestone in Lahaina’s economic recovery,” July 2, 2026: five commercial permits issued for Lahaina town (one under construction), two commercial properties in process, more than 12 in pre-application consultation. The same figures were reported independently by Maui Now, The Maui News and Hawaii News Now, July 2–3, 2026. Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade identified the five permitted properties as 612, 632, 714, 724 and 744 Front Street, all mauka side, and said each is being rebuilt identically or closely resembling its pre-fire appearance; she described 744 Front Street (Fleetwood’s) as the most complicated permit currently in the queue (The Maui News, July 2026). This figure is a snapshot and is dated throughout this report for that reason. Verify the current count before relying on it.
7. Voices from the wait. These are real, published accounts, not composites. The Lahaina business owner is Courtney Lazo, owner of Henōhea Hawaiʻi, quoted by The Maui News, July 2026. The Ka Laʻi Ola resident is Michele Haia, interviewed by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 2026. The 75-year-old survivor is Sanford Hill, interviewed by Hawaii News Now, June 18, 2026. The Upcountry homeowner is Mark Ross, interviewed by Hawaii News Now, August 2025. No quotation in this report has been invented, paraphrased into a quotation, or attributed to an unnamed source.
8. Makai-side commercial properties. Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade, July 2, 2026, reported by Maui Now and Hawaii News Now: ten commercial properties on the makai side of Front Street face more complicated paths to reconstruction, in part because over-water leases from the State of Hawaiʻi were discontinued after the wildfires, leaving a reduced land footprint. The County has offered a buyout under which acquired properties would be dedicated to open space and public access.
9. The 500-homes statement. At the July 2, 2026 press conference, Mayor Bissen said more than 500 homes have been built in Lahaina, with about 700 residential permits issued and another 700-plus pending approval (Maui Now, July 2, 2026). The County of Maui Rebuild Dashboard, updated July 6, 2026, reports 220 completed residential permits in Lahaina and 315 homes under construction countywide. Completed plus under construction (220 + 315 = 535) is the most plausible reconciliation of “more than 500,” but the County’s own dashboard treats “under construction” and “completed” as distinct categories, and defines a completed permit as one that has passed final inspection and is ready for habitation. This report does not allege bad faith. It asks the County to reconcile the figures publicly.
10. Scale of the disaster. Approximately 2,200 structures destroyed across roughly 2,170 acres; 102 deaths; more than 12,000 residents displaced, roughly 89 percent of them renters at the time of the fires. Associated Press / NBC News, Jan. 14, 2026; Honolulu Civil Beat, Jan. 2026.
11. Front Street Railing and Walkway Project, scope and blessing. County of Maui news release and CivicAlerts item, June–July 2026; The Maui News, “Blessing of new Front Street infrastructure marks step in Lahaina recovery,” July 2026; Maui Now, July 2, 2026. Approximately 1,450 feet of sidewalk repaired, 700 feet of railing replaced, 12 light poles, 15 benches, 5 bike racks, 8 planters, 13 milo trees.
12. Front Street project origins and contract value. County of Maui, Front Street Railing, Sidewalk and Seawall Repairs, Project No. 19-28: contractor Goodfellow Bros. LLC; project cost $5,042,795; notice to proceed June 2, 2025. County statements note the Front Street improvement plan “began in 2015 with public input and consultation.”
13. County acknowledgment of historic-district permitting burden. County of Maui news release, July 2, 2026: permitting and approvals in the Lahaina Historic Districts are “among the most heavily regulated processes in the state,” involving national, state and local rules.
14. ʻUlu o Lele, scope, funding and timing. County of Maui news release, July 2, 2026; Maui Now, July 2, 2026; The Maui News, July 2026; Hawaiʻi Public Radio, July 6, 2026; Hawaii News Now, July 2, 2026. Approximately $8 million over two years; $4 million grant from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund; roughly 3-acre site under a two-year lease; 17 retail units and 8 food trucks; an estimated 90 jobs; rents of $800–$1,500 per month; opening anticipated September 2026.
15. Makai-side buyout program. Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade, quoted by Hawaii News Now, July 2, 2026, describing a County buyout program under which acquired makai properties would be dedicated to open space and public access.
16. Bill 88, passage and effect. Maui Now, “New hotel zoning for vacation rentals passes Maui Council on final vote, 7-2,” June 22, 2026 (committee 6–1 on May 26; first reading 7–2 on June 5; final reading 7–2 on June 19; dissents by Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Gabe Johnson). The ordinance number and effective date are established by the County’s own legislative record: the text of Resolution 26-111, on file with the Maui County Council, states that “By Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026, the Council established the H-3 and H-4 Hotel Districts.”
17. On the absence of a signing announcement. As of publication the author has located no County of Maui news release, and no reporting in Maui Now, The Maui News, Honolulu Civil Beat or the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, announcing that Bill 88 had been signed or had otherwise become law. Under the Maui County Charter a bill may become law by mayoral approval or by the lapse of the period for mayoral action. This report deliberately does not assert which occurred, because the distinction is immaterial to its argument: under either route the ordinance is in effect, and under either route no public announcement was made. What is documented is the Council’s own legislative text, which recites that the H-3 and H-4 Hotel Districts were established “by Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026.” By contrast, Bill 9 (Ordinance 5909) was signed on Dec. 15, 2025, the same day it passed final reading, and the signing was announced by the Mayor and widely reported. If the County did announce Bill 88’s enactment and this report has missed it, the author invites the correction and will publish it.
18. Uʻu-Hodgins on what Bill 88 does. Housing and Land Use Committee Chair Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins, quoted by Maui Now, June 22, 2026.
19. Supermajority requirement. All three county planning commissions, Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi, recommended denial, raising the Council threshold to six votes. Maui Now, May 27 and June 22, 2026.
20. Rezoning cost testimony. Property owner TJ Victorine, testimony on final reading, reported by Maui Now, June 22, 2026, and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, July 5, 2026: land-use planners quoted $200,000 to $500,000 per property for required studies.
21. Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111. Maui Now, “Maui Council committee advances bills rezoning dozens of Kīhei, West Maui apartment complexes as hotels,” July 9, 2026. Committee testimony opened July 1 and the resolutions were advanced; if adopted by the full Council they proceed to the Maui Planning Commission, expected in September 2026.
22. Sea-level-rise exposure. Planning Department memorandum cited in testimony by Kai Nishiki, former chair of the West Maui Community Plan Advisory Committee: 43 Minatoya List properties, approximately 2,440 units, primarily in West Maui, within a 3.2-foot sea-level-rise exposure zone. Maui Now, July 9, 2026.
23. Council Member Paltin on shoreline eligibility. Maui Now, June 22, 2026.
24. Minatoya List scope. Roughly 4,500 grandfathered vacation rentals across 104 properties; the bill’s Exhibit 1 lists 104 apartment-district properties totaling 7,167 units. Maui Now, May 27 and June 22, 2026.
25. Bill 9 deadlines and verification date. Bill 9 (Ordinance 5909), signed Dec. 15, 2025: phase-out effective Jan. 1, 2029 in West Maui and Jan. 1, 2031 for the rest of the county. Bill 88 requires Planning Department confirmation of transient vacation rental use prior to Sept. 24, 2020.
26. Global settlement, announcement and legal path. Gov. Josh Green announced a $4.037 billion global settlement in principle on Aug. 2, 2024 (Office of the Governor news release). Two Hawaiʻi Supreme Court decisions cleared the way: on Feb. 10, 2025, the Court unanimously held that property and casualty insurers could not bring independent subrogation actions against the settling defendants (Associated Press; Office of the Governor; formal opinion issued March 17, 2025); and in February 2026 the Court held that insurers could not intervene in the settlement, affirming Judge Peter Cahill’s June 2025 denial of their motion to join as independent parties (Maui Now, Feb. 13, 2026). The final insurer appeal was withdrawn in April 2026 (Hawaii News Now, Apr. 13, 2026). More than $1.1 billion is held in trust as the first of four annual distributions (Honolulu Star-Advertiser / Hawaii Tribune-Herald, June 8, 2026).
27. Award determination notices, status as of publication. BrownGreer PLC, the court-appointed claims processor, issued the first award determination notices on or about June 17, 2026. These were an initial batch, not a mailing to all claimants. Per an April 2026 report from the special masters, BrownGreer anticipates approximately six months to render initial findings on all filed claims; liaison counsel Cynthia Wong has said she expects initial awards to begin being paid in July or August 2026 and to continue for roughly six months thereafter. A determination notice is an offer to settle, not a payment; claimants have 30 days to accept or contest. Hawaii News Now, June 18, 2026; Honolulu Star-Advertiser / Hawaii Tribune-Herald, June 8, 2026. Readers who have not received a notice should not infer that they have been excluded.
28. Apo on determination notices. Attorney Jan Apo, quoted by Hawaii News Now, June 18, 2026.
29. Judge Cahill on the delay. Second Circuit Judge Peter Cahill, hearing of March 27, 2026, quoted by Honolulu Civil Beat, April 2026.
30. Settlement economics (projection, not actuals). University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization (UHERO), reported by Maui Now, May 15, 2026: approximately $550 million reaching Maui households in 2026; cumulative $2.8 billion through 2029 after roughly $1 billion in attorneys’ fees and approximately $200 million in insurance liens; county real personal income up roughly 5.4 percent in 2026. Per-victim averages from Honolulu Civil Beat, June 2026.
31. Market data. REALTORS® Association of Maui, as reported in Q1 2026 market summaries: Q1 2026 year-to-date condo median $699,000, down 12.1 percent year over year; March 2026 single-family median down 7.3 percent year over year. Days on market and inventory trends per RAM and Locations Hawaiʻi, April 2026.
32. Condo owner price-cut testimony. Condominium owner Julisa Adams, testimony to the Housing and Land Use Committee, reported by Maui Now, May 27, 2026: asking price reduced from $875,000 to $650,000 over two years without a local-buyer offer.
33. Infrastructure milestones. Sewer restoration: County of Maui Department of Environmental Management, April 2025, all 3,526 sewered lots in West Maui active as of April 16, 2025. Ka Laʻi Ola (432 units, 57 acres, approximately $194 million) and Kilohana (167 FEMA modular units): Honolulu Star-Advertiser, April 2026; FEMA, February 2025. Lahaina Bypass Phase 1C environmental scoping meetings: FEMA Monthly Maui Wildfires Recovery Fact Sheet, July 2026.
34. Statutory exemptions. Hawaiʻi Legislature: prior-session law exempting most Lahaina residential and commercial reconstruction from Special Management Area permits; HB1823 (2026) extending a comparable exemption to federal, state and county infrastructure projects in Maui County. Reported by Maui Now, May 24, 2026.
35. Lahaina Small Boat Harbor status. The harbor partially reopened to commercial operations on Dec. 15, 2025, after 28 months, with an initial group of operators returning. Access has remained restricted, limited daily hours, controlled and escorted entry, reduced speed limits and substantial fenced-off areas. Hawaii News Now, Dec. 2, 2025; County and community briefings, January 2026.
36. Assistance programs. Hoʻokumu Hou Single-Family Homeowner Reconstruction Program (up to $1.2 million) and Single-Family Homeowner Reimbursement Program (up to $400,000); application deadlines extended through August 2026. FEMA Monthly Maui Wildfires Recovery Fact Sheet, July 2026. Hoʻokumu Hou encompasses County recovery programs funded by $1.6 billion in federal CDBG-DR appropriations.
A note on method: this report relies on primary County of Maui documents, dashboards and legislative records wherever possible, with news reporting used to source testimony and statements made at public hearings. Direct quotations are attributed to the speaker and to the outlet that reported them. Where the author has calculated a figure rather than cited one, the arithmetic is shown in the endnotes along with its limitations. Where a claim could not be verified against a primary or wire-service source, it has been omitted or explicitly qualified rather than asserted. Corrections are welcome and will be published.
, Photo & Production Sheet
For the editor and designer. Not for publication.
HERO, opens Section I
The new Front Street railing photographed from the makai side, shot low and wide so the finished ipe-topped railing runs across the foreground and the empty lots read behind it. This single frame is the thesis of the piece.
Caption: The 700 block of Front Street, July 2026. The sidewalk is finished. The town is not.
SECOND, Section I
The July 1 blessing itself: crowd, mayor, ceremony. Available via County of Maui / Office of the Mayor and from Maui Now and The Maui News coverage of the event.
Caption: About 150 residents and officials gathered on July 1 to bless the completed railing and walkway project.
DATA SPREAD, Section II
Not a photograph. Design the four tables in Section II as a single full-page data spread, with “5 COMMERCIAL PERMITS · 1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION” set as the dominant display figure.
No caption.
TIMELINE, Section III
A horizontal timeline graphic running the width of the spread, Aug. 8, 2023 to July 2026. Consider marking the settlement track and the rebuild track as two parallel lines to show how long the money took.
No caption.
SECTION IV
Before / after pairing of the same Front Street vantage point: pre-fire streetscape and the same view today. Sourcing note: use only images you have rights to, County releases, your own photography, or licensed archive. Do not lift news-outlet photos.
Caption: The plan for this streetscape dates to 2015, eight years before the fire.
SECTION V
ʻUlu o Lele renderings and the site model, released by Hawaiian Council at the July 2 press conference and distributed with County materials. Request permission from Hawaiian Council directly.
Caption: ʻUlu o Lele, an $8 million interim marketplace, is expected to open in September 2026 at the former Outlets of Maui site.
SECTION VI
Council chamber during the June 19 final reading, or the July HLU committee hearing. County of Maui / YouTube stills are widely used by local outlets; confirm usage terms.
Caption: The Council passed Bill 88 by 7–2, one vote above the supermajority it needed.
SECTION VII
A rebuild in progress: framing and roofing in Wahikuli, where construction density is highest. Human, hopeful, and factually accurate to where the recovery is actually working.
Caption: Residential completions roughly doubled in the first half of 2026.
CLOSER, Section X
The banyan tree, or a single completed home with a family in front of it. End on people, not policy.
Caption: The question is how long the walk takes, and who is still here to take it.
Rights reminder: do not republish photographs from news outlets without a license. County of Maui and FEMA imagery is generally reusable with credit; Hawaiian Council renderings require permission. Your own photography of Front Street is the strongest and safest option for the hero image.
