MAUI REAL ESTATE ADVISOR
A companion explainer to The Town That Waits · July 2026
On A List Is Not Rezoned
Your building was named in Resolution 26-110 or 26-111. Here is exactly what that does, what it does not do, and the seven steps still ahead.
By Lahaina Lee · Aloha Group Maui
On July 24, 2026, the Maui County Council voted 7 to 1, twice, to advance two resolutions that could move roughly 2,056 apartment-district vacation rental units into the county’s new hotel zoning. If you own in one of the named buildings, your phone probably started ringing that afternoon, and the message was some version of the same thing: your building is getting rezoned.
It is not. Not yet. You still have a way to go.
I want to walk through what actually happened, because the gap between what people think happened and what really happened is wide, and decisions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars are being made inside that gap. I am a real estate broker, not an attorney, and nothing here is legal advice. What follows is the process, drawn from the County Charter, the Maui County Code, and the resolutions themselves, with the primary documents linked so you can read them yourself.
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The one sentence to take away Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111 are procedural referrals, not rezoning approvals. They start a formal review process. They do not change the zoning of a single property. Your existing zoning stays in effect until an entirely separate ordinance is passed, months from now at the earliest. |
First, what these two resolutions actually are
The two resolutions divide the first wave of properties into two groups, based on the way the County thinks they qualify for hotel zoning.
Resolution 26-110 covers apartment-district properties with timeshare, leasehold, single-ownership, or variance status. It is the broader, more mixed category.
Resolution 26-111 covers properties the County says already function like hotels: 24-hour front desks, property-wide housekeeping, multiple and often unionized staff. This is the narrower, and legally simpler, category, because the argument is essentially “rezone it to match what it already is.”
You can and should read them. These are the amended CD1 versions the Council advanced in late July:
• Resolution 26-110 CD1 (timeshare, leasehold, single-ownership, variance)
• Resolution 26-111 CD1 (properties that operate like hotels)
Both links go to the County’s own Legistar system. If your building is named, it is named there. If a neighbor or a Facebook post says your building is on the list, verify it against these documents, because the lists have already been amended more than once.
The road from resolution to rezoning
Here is the full path a Council-initiated rezoning has to travel. As of late July 2026, this process is at the start of Step 3.
STEP 1 Bill 88 created the H-3 and H-4 districts. DONE.
Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026, created two hotel zoning classifications that did not exist before: H-3 and H-4. This step built the containers. It rezoned nothing. That distinction is the whole reason the rest of this process exists.
STEP 2 The Council selected the first properties and referred them. DONE.
Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111 identify the first group of properties and formally refer them to the Maui Planning Commission as proposed change-in-zoning ordinances. Referral is required because the Charter does not let the Council adopt a Council-initiated land use change without Planning Commission review first. That vote completed this step.
STEP 3 Maui Planning Commission review. THIS IS WHERE WE ARE NOW.
The Commission now holds public hearings, takes testimony, reviews the proposed zoning changes, evaluates consistency with the General Plan and the relevant community plans, makes findings, and sends recommendations back to the Council. As of late July, no firm Commission hearing date had been published. This is the step to watch.
STEP 4 The Commission makes recommendations. NOT YET.
The Commission does not enact zoning. It recommends. Its recommendation can be approval, approval with modifications, denial, removal of individual properties, or additional conditions and findings. On Council-initiated land use ordinances, the Commission is advisory. Which means a building named today can still be recommended out.
STEP 5 The Council considers the recommendations. NOT YET.
The matter returns to the full Council, which decides whether to adopt, amend, reject, or defer the community plan amendments and the change-in-zoning ordinances. The Council is the body that actually passes zoning ordinances. The Commission only advises.
STEP 6 The Mayor. NOT YET.
Once the Council adopts the ordinances, they follow the normal path: to the Mayor for signature or veto, or to become law by the lapse of the period for mayoral action under the Charter.
STEP 7 Effective date. NOT YET.
Only when those ordinances take effect does a property’s zoning actually change to H-3 or H-4. Until that day, the existing apartment-district zoning remains in force, and so does everything that comes with it, including Bill 9’s phase-out clock.
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So where does that leave you today? If your building is named in 26-110 or 26-111, you have completed Steps 1 and 2. You are at the front door of Step 3, with five steps still ahead of you. Nothing about your zoning has changed. Nothing about your zoning will change for months. The Commission’s own rough estimate for the zoning process, once it gets going, has been about four to six months. |
How long could this take, and one thing owners keep getting wrong
Two questions come up more than any others: how long is this going to take, and is it all or nothing. Here is what the record actually says about each.
1. The timeline, as the Commission itself described it.
When the Planning Commission discussed the H-3 and H-4 framework in early 2026, commissioners indicated the zoning process could be completed in roughly four to six months once initiated, and characterized it as relatively straightforward. Treat that as an expectation, not a promise. It assumes the applications are complete, the hearings stay on schedule, and nothing sends a property back for more work. But it is the closest thing to an official timeline estimate on the record, and it points to months, not years. As of late July 2026, no firm Commission hearing date had yet been published, so the clock on that four-to-six-month window had not visibly started.
2. It is not all or nothing. The Commission reviews properties individually.
There is a persistent worry among owners that this is an all-or-nothing vote: that if the Planning Commission has doubts about any one property in a resolution, it has to reject the entire resolution, taking every building down with it. At the July 24 Council session, a testifier made exactly that argument, that it was all or nothing. Council members corrected him directly. That is not how it works, several of them said. The Commission is not forced to swallow or reject a resolution whole.
Why this matters to you: the Commission can recommend approval for one building and removal or modification for another, on the specific facts of each. One vulnerable property in a resolution does not doom the strong ones alongside it, and one strong property is not automatically carried across the finish line by the resolution it happens to share. Each building rises or falls substantially on its own merits. So the practical question for any single owner is not “will the whole resolution pass,” but “how does my specific building look on its own,” which is exactly the question to take to your AOAO board and a land use attorney.
What this means for you, with my broker hat on
None of this is legal advice, and your specific building needs your AOAO board and a land use attorney, not a blog post. With that said, here is how I read it.
Being named is not a verdict. It is an invitation to a process that has five more steps still ahead of it. If your building is in Resolution 26-111, the one for properties that already operate like hotels, you are standing on firmer ground than a building in 26-110, because the argument is simpler and harder to contest. If you are in neither resolution, you have not necessarily been forgotten; you may be in a later wave, and the criteria being signaled for those waves are affordability and sea-level-rise exposure.
And through all of it, the Bill 9 clock keeps running. West Maui phases out on January 1, 2029. The rest of the county, January 1, 2031. The rezoning is the exception some owners are trying to qualify for before that deadline arrives. The process I just described is how you find out whether you make it.
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Three things worth doing while this moves Read the actual resolution your building is named in, at the Legistar links above. Not a summary. The document. Ask your AOAO board two written questions: is our building in the current version of the resolution, and what, if anything, have we budgeted for the studies a rezoning application requires? Assemble your documentation of transient vacation rental use prior to September 24, 2020. That verification requirement does not change no matter which wave you are in. |
The bottom line
On a list is not rezoned. It is the first two steps of a seven-step process, with real hearings, real testimony, and real chances for the outcome to change still ahead. That is not a reason to relax, and it is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to read the primary documents, ask your board the right questions, and watch the Planning Commission calendar.
I will keep tracking this wave by wave, and I will keep pointing you back to the record instead of asking you to take my word for it. If I have any of this wrong, tell me, and I will publish the correction.
From the greatest island on earth, this is Lahaina Lee, saying aloha.
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
Sources
This explainer relies on primary County documents and on reporting of the late July 2026 Council session. Readers should verify current status directly, since the process and the property lists are both still moving.
1. Late July 2026 Council action. At its late July 2026 session (July 24), the Maui County Council voted 7-1 twice to advance Resolutions 26-110 CD1 and 26-111 CD1 to the Maui Planning Commission, affecting roughly 2,056 units; Council Member Rawlins-Fernandez and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs opposed. An amendment to strip Luana Kai and Mahina Surf from 26-111 failed 2-6. Reported by Maui Now, July 28, 2026. (The meeting date and the reporting date differ; verify the meeting date against the County agenda.)
2. The two resolutions. Resolution 26-110 CD1 and Resolution 26-111 CD1, Maui County Legistar (linked in the body of this post). The recital text of each confirms that Ordinance 6008, effective June 22, 2026, established the H-3 and H-4 Hotel Districts, and that each resolution refers a community plan amendment and a change-in-zoning bill to the Maui Planning Commission.
3. The referral and review process. County Charter and Maui County Code Chapter 19.510, which govern Council-initiated changes in zoning, including the requirement of Planning Commission review and recommendation before Council adoption.
4. On the all-or-nothing question. At the July 24, 2026 Council session, a member of the public testified that the rezoning was effectively all or nothing, arguing that if the Planning Commission were unsure about a single property it would have to reject the entire resolution. Council members responded on the record that this is not the case. The author is describing this exchange as heard from the meeting; readers wishing to quote it precisely should confirm the wording against the County’s official meeting video before relying on it.
5. Commission timeline estimate. In its February 24, 2026 discussion of the proposed H-3/H-4 framework, and in related 2025 sessions, Maui Planning Commission members indicated the hotel-zoning process could be completed in roughly four to six months once initiated and described it as relatively straightforward. Reported in contemporaneous coverage of the Commission proceedings. Presented here as an on-the-record expectation, not a guarantee.
6. Bill 9 phase-out dates and verification. Ordinance 5909 (Bill 9): West Maui phase-out January 1, 2029; remainder of the county January 1, 2031. Bill 88 requires Planning Department confirmation of transient vacation rental use prior to September 24, 2020.
7. A note on method. I am a licensed real estate broker, not an attorney. This post explains a public process and does not constitute legal advice. For any decision about a specific property, consult your AOAO board and a qualified land use attorney. Corrections are welcome and will be published.
