As Maui continues to recover from the devastating wildfires, HPR spoke with Mayor Richard Bissen about his 2026 State of the County address.
In the speech, Bissen spoke of affordable housing and a historic water deal: Talks have been underway to bring more of Maui’s water resources under public control. HPR sat down with Bissen to talk more about the county’s progress toward these goals.
Interview Highlights
On Maui's housing hopes
RICHARD BISSEN: People want hope that things are moving, right? Momentum, and things are happening for their community. I think that's what everybody wants. You know, we've built over 2,000 homes, 2,016 to be exact, over the last three years, and that's an average of more than 670 homes a year. So I mean, that's huge for our county. And you know, we're looking at delivering more than 5,000 homes over the next five years, and that's going to average about 1,000 homes a year. And that's our commitment. We're also committing almost $1.3 billion in housing infrastructure and another quarter billion dollars in county investments, just towards affordable and workforce housing as well. So we're putting in the work, we're putting in the effort, we're putting in the funding, and, of course, the commitment to do this.
On affordable housing
BISSEN: Keeping our people home means making it more affordable for them to live here, to stay here, to thrive here, to raise their families here. And, you know, that starts with having affordable housing, workforce housing, being able to pay their mortgage, pay their rent, and then, of course, having livable wages that allows for that. So the economy is always going to be important. Their well-being, right, their mental health, their physical health, that all comes into play as well. And I think having a place to live and having a home helps with all of those.
On reclaiming West Maui water
BISSEN: You know, we're basically reclaiming our water systems for our public good, public stewardship. It's been for years that on the west side. Let's just talk about West Maui for a second, where the ownership of all public water was about 25% of the systems that were publicly owned. ... And if we're able to do that, that would shift public ownership to 65%, which is, again, not been witnessed in any of our lifetimes, or certainly not in the history of our county. But more importantly … the public stewardship of drinking water is currently 45% on the west side. And again, if we acquire these water assets, that will increase to 93% of all drinking water being publicly owned as well, or maintained and controlled. So that's the work we're putting in, because we obviously think that the water stewardship belongs in the hands of our people.
More coverage of Bissen’s 2026 State of the County address can be found here.
This story aired on The Conversation on March 10, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
