Thousands of vacation rentals on Maui will likely stay in business thanks to a bill the Maui County Council gave final approval to last week, significantly reducing the number of apartment-zoned units that are being phased out over the next five years to create desperately needed long-term housing.

The council’s 7-2 vote on Bill 88 went against the advice of all three of the county’s planning commissions but could stave off anticipated lawsuits. The measure was based on recommendations from the council’s Temporary Investigative Group for Bill 9, the legislation that laid out Mayor Richard Bissen’s plan to create more housing for local residents by ending the exemptions which have long allowed roughly 7,000 apartment-zoned units across the county to operate as short-term rentals. 

Bill 88, backed by Bissen, establishes two new hotel zoning districts so the owners of roughly 4,500 of those units can seek a designation that would allow them to continue operating as vacation rentals. The measure had been pending for months, with increasing uncertainty over whether it would be approved before this fall’s elections bring in new members to the council.

During meetings in February and March, the overwhelming majority of planning commissioners on Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi voted to recommend the council reject Bill 88, arguing that community members had for years voiced concerns about the large number of transient vacation rentals and insufficient long-term housing options for residents.

“This commission voted and the County Council voted in favor of Bill 9. We decided we wanted to phase those uses out,” Planning Commissioner Mark Deakos said in February, adding that this separate bill serves as “a way to undermine Bill 9.”

Still, all but two of the council’s nine members — Keani Rawlins-Fernandez of Molokaʻi and Gabe Johnson of Lānaʻi — voted in favor of an amended version of the rezoning legislation.

During a meeting of the council’s housing and land use committee in May, council member Nohelani U‘u-Hodgins said that while she respected the commissions’ recommendations, the council had many more factors to consider before deciding whether to approve the new hotel zones.

“I do not at all disregard their opinion. This is a very difficult space for all of us to be in,” said U‘u-Hodgins, who chairs the committee. “They get to view this bill and Bill 9 independently, just as it relates to planning. Our job is to do what we do here, to incorporate what we do in the budget, to incorporate what we do in all the other committees that we have. So we have to blend fiscal responsibility with continual apartment uses in apartment districts and hotel uses in hotel districts.”

Bill 9 divided the community for more than a year before it was signed into law this past December, in many cases pitting survivors of the devastating 2023 wildfires and others who have struggled to afford the cost of living against some property and business owners who argued that the local economy was reliant on the money spent by tourists staying in short-term rentals. 

Prior to Friday’s vote, Rawlins-Fernandez said many community members fought long and hard in support of Bill 9 because they wanted to reclaim housing for residents, but many of the people who testified in favor of creating the new hotel zones were lobbyists and rental property owners. 

“It’s an election year, and candidates are receiving questionnaires… commenting on the eroding trust that residents have in government, and asking each candidate to please explain how you plan to build trust again,” Rawlins-Fernandez said. 

She added that many people who supported Bill 9 were opposed to the rezoning bill, and the fact that so many of them decided not to testify at Friday’s meeting indicated that they felt that “no matter what they say, it’s probably not worth the time to take off from work” because council members had likely already made up their minds.

“We’ll continue to fight alongside our residents that are fighting for housing, to provide shelter for our residents, and making this place our home, not just somewhere to exploit and make business profits off of,” she said.

Council member Tom Cook of South Maui, who served on the investigative group, introduced the bill earlier this year. He said it is partly intended to protect the county from lawsuits filed by affected property owners, including some that have already been filed.

Bill 9 requires apartment-zoned short-term rental units to be phased out by Jan. 1, 2029 in West Maui and Jan. 1, 2031, in the rest of the county — most of which are in South Maui.