As Lahaina commercial property owners navigate a daunting post-fire road to rebuilding, some are finding it so challenging that they’re not sure if they’ll be able to reconstruct at all.
“The process, for us, has been crippling,” said Meri-Jo Abrams Manuel, describing her Front Street commercial building after the fire.
At 77 years old, Abrams Manuel is the trustee of her mother’s estate — what used to be the waterfront building between Kimo’s and the Yacht Club.
Most recently before the fires, it was an art gallery, but when she was young, it was a restaurant on the first floor and she grew up living upstairs.
Now, she doesn’t think she’s going to be able to rebuild.
“It's too overwhelming,” she told HPR. “With the erosion causing the land to diminish, and they're not blocking the sea wall from the water that's coming in, it just keeps taking from it, and so I don't think that we're going to.”
This week, Abrams Manuel and other commercial property owners from Lahaina attended a county workshop to help them navigate various options.
County officials walked attendees through a maze of shoreline setback rules, historic district delineations, special management area regulations and protocols from multiple agencies.
County Planning Director Jacky Takakura said the closer to the shoreline the parcel is, the more complicated the permitting.
“Generally speaking, the further mauka you go, the less requirements you have,” she told attendees, as she explained a series of slides with permit requirements in escalating complexity.
“As we go in the makai direction, then the Special Management Area and the shoreline rules kick in, and then also within the NHLD [National Historic Landmark District] and historic districts, there can be impacts on the requirements. So the pathway is going to depend on the location of the property.”
She said county planning and recovery staff have worked on streamlining.
“We've done a lot of things to try to expedite the process, to make it a little simpler and quicker for you, so that you can get your permits and get back into your business,” she said.
But while a handful of commercial owners have made it through the process, many have not yet begun.
To date, nine non-residential buildings have been completed in Lahaina, 25 permits have been issued by the county, and 163 non-residential permits are in process, according to Maui County. The “non-residential” category can mean commercial, business or multi-family buildings.
Kimo Falconer, whose great-grandparents built Lahaina’s iconic Pioneer Inn, said his family does intend to rebuild, but it’s been slower going than he hoped.
“Now we are two and a half years after the fire. Nobody on Front Street has built anything,” he said. “And I get it, there's a lot of work that still needs to be [done], the roadways and things like that, but, you know, you got to get going.”
Peter Niess, owner of Maui Architectural Group, has been working with some commercial owners to rebuild. He said those above the highway are more straightforward and making good progress, with the county’s assistance. But on the makai side, he confirmed it’s more complicated.
“We're running into a lot more of the issues that we were afraid we would, with like new FEMA flood development maps, and they're telling us we have to raise the finished floor of our building, at the same time we're trying to meet accessibility and mobility requirements," he said. "So we're working through that, and it's more convoluted."
To complicate matters further, shoreline properties like Abram Manuel’s required leases with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources for buildings over the water. The fire voided those leases, and Abrams Manuel said there’s not much of her 4,000-square-foot property left.
“The erosion and the lack of the DLNR lease on the oceanfront has caused our property to become about 1,600 [or] 1,700 square feet,” she said.
The process to rebuild on these properties may be so difficult that the county is offering a buyout program.
“We do understand that there's several [parcels] that are extremely narrow,” said Maui County Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade. “The DLNR has not reinstated those lease agreements, so that makes a handful of those — five or six of those — even more narrow and more challenging to develop, which is why we're offering the buyout program. If folks do choose to participate in the buyout program, the intention is for those properties to be purchased by the county and turned into public open space.”
Money for the program will come from federal disaster recovery funding.
County Office of Recovery Administrator John Smith said buyout is fully voluntary, and those property owners are still welcome to pursue a rebuilding route.
“As it gets more and more complex and folks run out of options sometimes, we wanted to make sure that we did have an option, and that's what we heard from all the community input,” he explained. “This is not an eminent domain thing. This is just another option for folks that may decide on, you know, ‘I'd like to try to sell this property.’”
The buyout program hasn’t opened up yet and will be accepting public comments next month.
Another informational county meeting for commercial owners will be held on April 7. County officials said they will invite DLNR to attend, and property owners said they hope they can get more answers.
For more information, visit mauirecovers.org/lahaina.
Hawaiʻi Public Radio exists to serve all of Hawai’i, and it’s the people of Hawai’i who keep us independent and strong. Donate today. Mahalo for your support.
