If you saw headlines saying Maui had found a way to save thousands of vacation rentals, you probably came away with one easy conclusion: the condo you book is safe. It probably isn’t.
Bill 88 gives many affected properties a chance to escape Bill 9’s phase-out. But one owner told the Maui County Council that the cost of using that escape route could run from $200,000 to $500,000 per property. The rental you love to return to in Kihei, Wailea, or Kaanapali may still be in limbo, and the answer will depend on your specific property.
That leaves travelers in a very different place than the news headlines suggest. Your favorite Maui vacation rental may still disappear. The difference is that now there’s one more hurdle to cross before it does.
The phase-out never entirely went away.
Bill 9 remains Maui County’s plan to phase out roughly 4,500 grandfathered vacation rental units in apartment-zoned districts, including many of the condominium complexes visitors know best in West Maui and South Maui. Those rentals are already facing a phase-out, which we covered in our earlier article, “Thousands Of Maui Vacation Rentals Looked Doomed. Now They May Be Saved.”
The deadlines remain January 1, 2029, in West Maui and January 1, 2031, elsewhere in Maui County, including Kihei and Wailea. Bill 88 did not change that. What it did was create two new hotel zoning districts, H-3 and H-4, for which qualifying properties may apply instead. The keyword is “apply.”
Bill 88 only opens a door. Getting through it will be the hard part.
Nothing is rezoned automatically. Each condominium property must file its own application, complete its own studies, go through hearings, and survive its own public review. Some will succeed. Others may never even apply.
The county’s candidate list includes 104 Minatoya-list properties with 4,500 units. To qualify, the Planning Department will confirm that vacation-rental use existed before September 24, 2020.
That cutoff exists because the county did not want roughly 1,700 other non-Minatoya properties to use Bill 88 as a backdoor into the Maui vacation-rental market. Molokai is exempt from the new zoning districts altogether. For travelers, that means condo eligibility and survival are not the same thing.
The rescue may not reach the rentals it was intended to save.
Bill 88 was designed to give affected properties a path around Bill 9. Whether they can afford to take that path is another question.
TJ Victorine, whose 26-unit condominium association unanimously supports Bill 88, told the council that land-use planners had estimated the required studies would cost between $200,000 and $500,000 per property.
If those estimates prove correct, some associations may decide that the rezoning process simply costs too much. Smaller or financially strained associations may have to weigh reserves, insurance costs, shoreline risk, and fire-recovery costs on top of a rezoning bill that could reach half a million dollars before approval is even guaranteed.
Others may spend years attempting to reach the new finish line. Either outcome could leave visitors with fewer assumptions about the rentals they have used for decades and hope to continue using. Victorine told council members that those costs were prohibitively expensive and effectively nullified the bill’s intent. And should it all work out for a property, there’s a further question worth asking: will those expenses eventually be passed on to visitors through higher vacation rental rates?
Some of the rentals visitors want most may face yet another hurdle.
Council Member Tamara Paltin voted for Bill 88 but said she intends to revisit whether shoreline-adjacent properties should qualify for the new hotel zoning districts. She pointed to recent ocean swells and king tides that pushed debris onto Honoapiilani Highway and forced officials to evacuate a stage during a canoe regatta at Hanakaoo Beach Park.
Many of these legacy condominiums visitors like most sit close to the shoreline. If those properties face additional restrictions in the future, it could add another layer of uncertainty on top of everything Bill 9 and Bill 88 have already created. So with the discussion not yet over, the shoreline question will now sit alongside the zoning issues Maui vacation rentals are facing.
Why the debate remains so divided.
Supporters, including the Maui Vacation Rental Association, the Realtors Association of Maui, and bill sponsor Tom Cook, say Bill 88 corrects a zoning mismatch without adding new vacation rentals. The ILWU supported the measure with conditions, including that qualifying properties should operate more like hotels, with housekeeping, security, front-desk services, and sustainable wages.
Opponents, including Council Members Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Gabe Johnson, Lahaina Strong, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, argue that the county should move more cautiously because of housing, infrastructure, shoreline exposure, and the question of whether many of these properties can function as hotels at all.
OHA recommended deferral until parcel-specific findings could be made on housing suitability, shoreline risk, and other infrastructure impacts. UHERO has also said that most affected units are owned outside Maui County, with only a relatively small share owned by Maui residents, another reason the debate has remained so politically charged.
Unfortunately, this is not the end yet.
Because all three planning commissions recommended denial, Bill 88 required six council votes instead of a simple majority. It passed 7-2, with Keani Rawlins-Fernandez and Gabe Johnson opposed, and moved to Mayor Richard Bissen, whose signature is still pending as of today.
Whether the bill is awaiting signature or has already been signed, that doesn’t necessarily change what happens next. Every qualifying property still has to decide whether pursuing hotel zoning is realistic, even if it is technically possible.
Bill 9 is also being challenged in court by owners of luxury Kaanapali condominiums, adding yet another layer of uncertainty. The future of these rentals is now being shaped by all of these things, including rezoning applications, possible shoreline policy changes, ongoing litigation, and whatever might come next from Maui County.
What this means for your next Maui trip.
The biggest misconception after Bill 88 is that Maui solved its vacation-rental problem. It has not. The county created a path that may save some properties. Whether that path reaches many of them remains unknown.
If you regularly stay in the same condo in Kihei, Wailea, or West Maui, it’s a good time to learn whether it is on the Minatoya list and whether the association intends to seek hotel zoning. The answer may decide how many more Maui trips are possible.
Lead Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at Wailea, Maui.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
Some of the most meaningful parts of Hawaii are the ones visitors walk right past without knowing they are there. We’ve spent nearly 20 years finding them firsthand for BOH as full-time Hawaii residents reporting on travel, culture, and island life, and telling you what they mean for your trip. Join us →
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I find it very unfortunate that the Maui Island Plan and subsequent officials and administrators tasked with upholding it, did nothing to abate the excess tourism that has occurred since the 2012 passage. Had the people we entrusted to carry out a common sense plan, followed it. We would not be embroiled in this conundrum. Just goes to show, even when you can predict the future, humans can screw it up.
People can still book for 2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030 (South Maui). This should be emphasized more. People are reading (skimming) these articles and assume that this phase out is immediate.