Hawaii Visitors Losing Beaches To Save Beachfront Condos

Three related bills moving through the legislature could reshape the assumption that Hawaii beaches will always be there. Lawmakers are considering reopening the door to prevent shoreline hardening (seawalls) placed on private property in erosion hotspots from Maui to Oahu. The state’s coastal administrator says doing that on sandy beaches can result in permanent loss.

Property owners say the alternative is watching buildings collapse into the ocean. Visitors were not in the hearing rooms, but the beaches they fly thousands of miles to see definitely are. Two House measures, HB 1846 and HB 2205, were heard together this week, while a companion proposal is already advancing in the Senate. The language sounds procedural while the outcome is anything but.

The shift from ban to regulated hardening.

For years, Hawaii has operated under a general prohibition on new private shoreline hardening on sandy beaches. Seawalls, revetments, and groins have largely been off the table for oceanfront condos and homes unless they qualified under previous exemptions. The policy was clear, albeit not always popular. Once you armor a beach, you usually sacrifice sand in front of it over time because the ocean keeps moving while the wall does not.

HB 1846 would establish regional shoreline mitigation districts. Those are intended to streamline review and permitting for protective projects in erosion zones. HB 2205 would replace the broad ban with a policy allowing limited, regulated shoreline hardening under defined conditions. Both were deferred in committee, but leadership signaled they could return this session quickly after revisions. A companion bill in the Senate keeps the issue alive regardless of what happens in the House.

Supporters argue the current framework is simply stuck and leaves property owners in limbo while erosion accelerates. Opponents argue that once hardening is normalized, even under regulation, it becomes difficult to stop its spread. That is the fault line.

Kahana Beach on Maui is the test case.

If you have walked the shoreline in Kahana on Maui’s west side anytime in the past decade, you have seen the future of this debate. Nine condominium associations and one residential parcel have been battling severe erosion there for twenty years. The sand has become narrow, the dunes have collapsed, and emergency sandbags have been stacked along the shoreline to buy time. Now even those sandbags are deteriorating. They are not attractive, nor are they intended to be permanent. They are also what stands between buildings and the open ocean.

The property owners formed a steering committee in 2017, hired coastal engineers, and published a draft environmental impact statement in 2021 proposing sand nourishment paired with a groin field to hold the sand in place. That plan stalled when Maui County declined to accept liability for owning the proposed groins. Permits for temporary measures have since expired. The stopgap protections are wearing out while the shoreline simply continues to retreat.

Visitors who stay nearby or walk that stretch of beach are already seeing unmanaged erosion that will not stop. The shoreline access has become awkward. Sand has given way to exposed rock, debris, and bags. The view is still Maui, but there’s no doubt the experience is changing.

We have covered erosion tension before in Kahana and along other vulnerable Hawaii coastlines, and readers split into familiar camps. Some argue that managed retreat is the only sustainable answer. Others point out that retreat sounds simple until it is your building, your retirement, and your insurance coverage that’s at risk. What rarely gets figured out is what happens to the public beach based on either outcome.

The North Shore warning.

On Oahu’s North Shore, testimony came from a homeowner who said his family has lost nearly 40 feet of sand dune over the past decade. His home now sits only feet from the ocean. Even if funding and permits materialized immediately, he said, the house might not survive long enough to finish construction. He has already spent years navigating the process. He estimates another decade before any permanent solution could be built.

Michael Cain, administrator of the Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, testified against both House bills. When you harden sandy beaches, he told lawmakers, you risk losing them permanently. Hawaii has already lost too many. If we harden the North Shore, he said, we lose the North Shore.

That position is grounded in long-established coastal science. When a wall holds the shoreline in place, wave energy often strips sand in front of it over time. The public beach narrows. In some cases, it disappears at high tide.

Waikiki is the example everyone knows.

Cain pointed to Waikiki as the cautionary example. Waikiki was built directly on its beach. Over decades, erosion and shoreline modification left it dependent on continuous, expensive sand nourishment to maintain a recreational shoreline. The beach that millions photograph each year is managed and replenished. Without that effort, significant sections would not resemble what visitors expect.

We have written before about Waikiki’s nourishment cycle and the long-term maintenance obligation that comes with building too close to the ocean. Once you commit to stabilization, you often commit to paying for it indefinitely. That may be workable in the state’s primary visitor hub. It is far less certain in smaller communities with fewer resources.

The hearing also exposed an uncomfortable distinction. The state has approved hardening to protect public highways and infrastructure, including projects that officials acknowledge can cause nearby beach loss. Lawmakers pressed Cain on that point. Why can the state harden shorelines for roads while private property owners face a near categorical ban?

Cain acknowledged the tension and argued that the state acts in a broader public interest. Supporters of the bills counter that private owners in places like Kahana are already spending heavily to manage erosion affecting not just their buildings but the public shoreline in front of them. They argue that the current system leaves them bearing the risk the state avoids in its own projects.

For visitors, the implications are straightforward even if the policy is not.

If hardening expands, more shorelines may become fixed in place, leading to long-term narrowing or loss of the sandy beach in front of them. If hardening remains restricted, more oceanfront structures may face demolition, emergency measures, or prolonged legal fights that leave shorelines in limbo.

Beaches in Hawaii are not static backdrops. Some are nourished. Some are retreating. Some are held in place temporarily while larger decisions stall. The idea that every beach will always look the same is not guaranteed.

The House bills were deferred, not dismissed. Lawmakers signaled revisions are coming. The Senate companion measure keeps the issue in the spotlight. Sea level rise projections and intensifying winter surf seasons are not trending in a direction that eases the conflict.

At its core, this is a choice about which loss the state is willing to formalize. Is it the loss of private structures built too close to a shifting shoreline, or is it the gradual loss of public sandy beaches in front of hardened coastlines?

Visitors may not vote on that choice, but they will experience its outcome. If the beach in front of your favorite Hawaii stay was shrinking, would you accept a seawall to save the building if it meant the sand could eventually vanish, or would you choose retreat and risk losing the structure instead?

Lead Photo: Kahana Beach on West Maui.