Two Weeks That Moved the Maui Vacation Rental Rules in Opposite Directions

Two things happened to Maui's vacation rental rules in the last two weeks, and they pulled in opposite directions. If you own an apartment-zoned condo, both are worth five minutes.

The Planning Commission said no to almost everything

On September 23 the Maui Planning Commission voted 6 to 2 to recommend denying the hotel rezoning for all but five of the 48 properties in Resolutions 26-110 and 26-111.

The headlines stopped at "five survived." The detail underneath matters more. Four of those five were already exempt from Bill 9 anyway, either because they are 100 percent timeshare or because they hold an existing county variance: Maui Schooner, Hono Koa, Maui Kaanapali Villas and Kuau Plaza. Only Hana Kai-Maui actually gained something it did not already have.

So the practical score is one building, not five. Kamaole Sands, Papakea, the Wailea properties and Luana Kai were all recommended for denial.

Two things keep this from being the end of the road. It is a recommendation, not a decision, and the County Council can still approve any of these on a six of nine vote. The council cleared that exact bar in early 2026 to pass Bill 88 over denial recommendations from all three planning commissions. And the commissioners' stated reason was that they did not feel they had enough information in front of them, which is a fixable problem rather than a verdict on the buildings.

Then the council sent a much bigger list forward

On September 29 the council voted 5 to 4 to refer Resolution 26-129 to that same Planning Commission. This is the sea level rise track, and it now covers 32 shoreline complexes: 19 moving from A-1 to H-3, and 13 from A-2 to H-4.

To qualify, a building needs more than half its footprint in the state Sea Level Rise Exposure Area at 3.2 feet of rise, or in a flood hazard area, or inside the shoreline setback, and it cannot have been built as affordable or workforce housing.

I think this is the strongest argument in the whole process. It is hard to argue a building should become long-term local housing when the ocean is forecast to be in its ground floor. That case has not been tested yet, and the commission will hear it within the next couple of months.

What this means for you

If you own in one of the 43 rejected properties, nothing changed this week operationally. Your guests still check in. West Maui has more than two years of legal rental income left and the rest of the county has more than four. The council override is live, 26-129 is moving, Resolution 26-130 is still waiting on its own referral, and a further set of resolutions on affordability criteria is expected before the end of the year.

What I would not do is assume any of it resolves itself. If you are buying, the building's zoning and list status decide far more about your outcome than the view does.

I keep a running page on all of this that I revise as the county moves, rather than writing a new post every time something shifts. It has every complex named in all four resolutions, the ones named nowhere, and where the lawsuits sit: Bill 9, Bill 88, and the Minatoya List: where Maui's short-term rental rules stand.

If you want to know where one specific condo sits in all of this, ask me and I will run the check.