Capping off nearly a month of emotional testimony related to Mayor Richard Bissen’s plan to phase out thousands of Maui’s short-term rentals, the County Council’s Housing and Land Use Committee began deliberations on the measure Wednesday but recessed after several hours without a vote.

The committee will reconvene on July 23 for further discussions and, if still unable to take a vote, will reconvene on July 24. The bill would still need to be approved by the full council, but the committee includes all nine council members so its vote is seen as indicative.

Council members spent most of the daylong meeting behind closed doors in executive session, but they spent the final hour publicly questioning county officials about the legislation’s intended impact, how to mitigate potential negative consequences of such a drastic policy change and the possibility of allowing certain apartment-zoned units to continue operating as vacation rentals.

During the executive session, council members spoke to legal counsel about Bill 9’s “scope and legal issues relating to the proposed phase out,” Carla Nakata, a committee staff member, said when the meeting was reopened to the public.

The decision to delay a vote was met with some shouting and groans of disapproval from the audience, which included a few dozen locals who had spent much of the day waiting outside the council chambers.

Bissen unveiled his plan, which is laid out in Bill 9, in May 2024, partially in response to the deadly 2023 wildfires that displaced more than 12,000 Maui residents and exacerbated the island’s longstanding housing crisis. 

If passed, the legislation would end the exemptions that allow about 7,000 apartment-zoned units to operate as vacation rentals in hopes that it would increase housing options for locals.

Bissen originally proposed implementing the phase-out starting Tuesday in West Maui and Jan. 1 in South Maui, but he has since proposed amending the legislation to allow for a transition period of up to three years.

Like in other communities across Hawaiʻi and throughout the United States, the debate over how to regulate short-term rentals has divided people on the Valley Isle.

While those opposed to Bill 9 have pointed to potential economic repercussions and legal challenges from property owners, supporters say it’s an opportunity to free up some much-needed housing for local families and identify ways to diversify the county’s tourism-dependent economy.

The affected properties are known as the Minatoya list, named after the former county attorney whose 2001 legal opinion established the exemption, and they constitute roughly half of Maui’s short-term rentals. While most of the units operate as vacation rentals, about 12% of the properties on the Minatoya list are long-term rentals or owner-occupied.

During Wednesday’s meeting, committee members asked about the possibility of allowing certain affected properties to change their zoning designation so that they could be allowed to continue operating as vacation rentals.

Ana Lillis, the deputy director of the planning department, acknowledged this was a possibility and said it could be achieved amending Bill 9.

“But essentially, we feel as though the best directive for this bill is to fully phase out vacation rentals in the apartment district and to make it long-term use only, and then take a finer look at the properties that should be reviewed on an individual basis,” she said.

Laksmi Abraham, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told council members that the administration has no plans to propose any additional amendments to Bill 9, but she said that there would likely be proposed tax amendments to offset revenue loss.

Responding to a question from council member Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, Abraham confirmed that Bill 9 is also intended to address the increased amount of water used by transient vacation rentals and restore community in neighborhoods that have a lot of short-term rentals.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.