After months of negotiations, Maui County is expected to settle a nearly two-year legal battle with the owner of property it had once hoped to use as the final dump site of ash and debris from the 2023 Lahaina wildfire.

The county gave up on plans to seize the property near the Central Maui Landfill through eminent domain after finding another site. But the landowner, Komar Maui Properties, sued to recoup the legal fees it incurred fending off the county in federal court.

While an agreement has been reached, the settlement has not been finalized, according to Andy Naden, executive vice president and general counsel for parent company Komar Investments. County officials have so far declined to disclose its cost to taxpayers.

The county is legally required to compensate the limited liability company, Naden said.

“We were not reimbursed for what they forced us to spend,” Naden said. “We paid hefty legal fees every month fighting this.”

The total cost was not disclosed when the Maui County Council unanimously voted Dec. 19 to authorize the settlement of the case with Komar, and county lawyers said in a statement last week that they were unable to comment while the case remained “in active litigation.”

Even though there was still some final paperwork to be filed, lawyers for Komar and the county have agreed on the terms of a settlement, Naden said last week. He declined to share the settlement amount, but said it was enough to cover Komar’s legal expenses and that he expected the case to be wrapped up in early January. 

“It’s all been said, but it’s not quite done,” he said. “We worked it out. They’re reimbursing us for the cost of the litigation. They’re doing the honorable thing.”

The county ended its efforts to take possession of Komar’s property in late 2024, when the Maui County Council authorized officials to pay $4 million to a subsidiary of the Honolulu-based construction company Nan, Inc. for nearly 80 acres of nearby land to expand the Central Maui Landfill and dispose of wildfire debris. 

County workers have since built a permanent wildfire debris dump site on that property — 49 acres of a former quarry plus 30 acres still being quarried — and contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers transported thousands of truckloads of debris from a temporary holding pit in Olowalu to the new location in Central Maui. The Army Corps finished that job in October.

A Decade-Old Plan To Build A New Landfill

Komar first purchased 19.6 acres of vacant land on Pūlehu Road from Alexander & Baldwin for $700,000 in 2015, intending to develop the former cement quarry into a commercial and demolition debris landfill. Then-Mayor Alan Arakawa even gave Komar his blessing to build a landfill, Naden said.

The county later showed an interest in purchasing or negotiating a land swap to acquire the property. For years now, Naden said the county has been stonewalling the project and let a special use permit lapse that would have allowed the property to be used as a landfill.

After the fires, a community survey indicated that Komar’s property was the public’s top choice for where to dispose of the more than 400,000 tons of toxic ash and debris from the 2023 Lahaina wildfire, so the county attempted to buy the land. 

At the time, county officials said they presented Komar with an offer exceeding a recent $830,000 appraisal by ACM Consultants. The appraised value was based on an on-site inspection of the property, its “highest and best use,” a review of the current real estate market conditions and other criteria, ACM Consultants Executive Vice President Ted Yamamura wrote in a letter to the county’s finance director.

Naden said the appraisal was obscenely low, and failed to take into account the money Komar would make operating a commercial landfill on the property. He estimated that amount to be roughly $400 million dollars over the course of the landfill’s lifetime.

Shortly after the county’s failed attempt to purchase the property from Komar, the Maui County Council unanimously voted to authorize officials to begin the process of taking the land by eminent domain.  

Komar offered to donate a 5-acre section of the property, Naden said, which would have been large enough to handle all of the fire debris.

“When the fires took place in Lahaina, at that moment, I knew two things: the county was going to need our property, and I also knew they were going to try to take it through eminent domain,” Naden said. “We said, ‘Let’s not fight over this. We believe in the county. We believe in Hawai‘i. We believe in Lahaina. So here, take this five acres.’”

County officials quickly rejected the proposal. Department of Environmental Management Director Shayne Agawa said in an April 2024 statement that while the county appreciated Komar’s offer, the county planned to use eight to 10 acres of land for wildfire debris disposal.

“Our plan requires more acreage to ensure that the height of the ash remains lower than the elevation of Pulehu Road,” Agawa said. “If we placed all the debris in five acres, it would create a mountain that would expose the ash to the elements, and pose a potential risk to public safety.”

County lawyers argued in court documents that the local government needed 14 acres of the land for fire debris, drainage, access and infrastructure, and it would need the rest of the property for future municipal solid waste needs. The county withdrew its claims for eminent domain in November 2024.

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