Maui Vacation Rental Ban: The Six Vote Problem
On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, the Maui County Council voted 5-4 to ask the Maui Planning Commission to consider moving 32 vacation rental condominium complexes in Māʻalaea, Kīhei and West Maui from apartment zoning to hotel zoning, according to Maui Now. Hotel zoning is the only route by which those buildings keep nightly rentals once the county's phase-out arrives. The vote rezoned nothing. It sent Resolution 26-129 to a commission that, one week earlier, had recommended against most of the previous batch.
The count matters more than the outcome. Five votes are enough to refer a resolution. If the Planning Commission recommends against the bills, the same Maui Now report says, the council needs six of its nine members to pass them anyway. The five who voted yes are the same five who carried the proposal out of committee in August, and the four who voted no have not moved.
For an owner in one of those 32 complexes, that leaves two ways through: the commission recommends approval, or one of four council members changes position.
Key facts
- September 29, 2026: the Maui County Council referred Resolution 26-129, CD1, to the Maui Planning Commission on a 5-4 vote, per Maui Now.
- 32 complexes: 19 would move from the A-1 Apartment District to the H-3 Hotel District and 13 from A-2 Apartment to H-4 Hotel.
- Six of nine: the number of council votes needed to pass the bills if the commission recommends against them, one more than the five who voted for the referral.
- 5 of 48: the number of properties in the first batch that the commission recommended for hotel zoning, covering 397 of 3,402 units, per Maui Now's September 29 report.
- January 1, 2029 and January 1, 2031: the dates the phase-out begins in West Maui and in the rest of Maui County, per Maui Now's report on the law's signing.
What Bill 9 ends, and when
Bill 9 became Ordinance 5909 on December 15, 2025, when the council passed it 5-3 and Mayor Richard Bissen signed it the same day. The council's own announcement states that transient vacation rentals in the A-1 and A-2 apartment districts "will be prohibited by the resulting new ordinance starting in 2029 in West Maui and 2031 elsewhere in the county." A transient vacation rental, in county usage, is a dwelling rented to visitors for short stays; the apartment-zoned ones operated legally for years under a grandfather clause known as the Minatoya list.
The law reaches more than 6,000 units, all of them in apartment zoning. That is why the fight since December has been over which apartment-zoned buildings get relabeled as hotels.
One caution on the dates. Maui Now's December 2025 report gives them as January 1, 2029 and January 1, 2031. Its September 29, 2026 report says the ban "takes effect Dec. 31, 2028" in West Maui and December 31, 2030 elsewhere. The two descriptions sit one day apart. Until you have read the ordinance sentence yourself or had counsel read it, treat December 31, 2028 and December 31, 2030 as the last dates you should hold a nightly reservation.
The hotel zoning exit
In June 2026 the council passed Bill 88, creating two new zoning districts. The bill's text reserves H-3 and H-4 "for units or structures that had been in the A-1 and A-2 districts, respectively, and where transient vacation rentals had been permitted uses." Creating the districts moved no property into them. Each building has to be rezoned by a separate bill, and each of those bills goes to the Planning Commission first.
The council has now sent two batches.
Batch one: 48 properties, 5 recommended
On July 28, 2026, the council voted 7-1 to send the first pair of resolutions to the commission, Maui Now reported. By the time the commission voted on September 22, 2026, the proposal covered 3,402 units across 48 properties.
The commission recommended hotel zoning for five: Hale Kāʻanapali (262 units), Kūʻau Plaza (30), Maui Schooner (58), Hono Koa (28) and Hana Kai Maui (19). The first two hold existing variances that allow vacation rental use and the next two are fully timeshare. Among those it recommended against were Kamaʻole Sands (440 units), the Resort at Papakea (364), Maui Sunset (225) and Maui Eldorado (205).
The division is worth doing:
- 5 of 48 properties is 10.4%.
- 262 + 30 + 58 + 28 + 19 = 397 units, and 397 of 3,402 is 11.7%.
- Against a phase-out of more than 6,000 units, 397 is at most 6.6%.
Commissioners said, in Maui Now's account, that leasehold units and mixed timeshare properties "held potential for housing," that they lacked information on kitchens and laundry in single-ownership properties, and that they "wanted more objective standards about what counts as a hotel." Those are objections to categories of buildings, and the second list goes to the same commissioners.
Batch two: 32 shoreline complexes
The second batch uses a different test. A complex qualifies, per Maui Now, because more than 50% of its building footprint lies in the state's Sea Level Rise Exposure Area (the zone the state maps as affected at 3.2 feet of sea level rise), in a special flood hazard area, or in the shoreline setback area. The building also must not have been originally intended for affordable or workforce housing.
Resolution 26-129 carries two bills: one amends the Kīhei-Mākena and West Maui community plans, and the other changes the zoning. Properties discussed in committee in August included Island Sands, Māʻalaea Kai and Kīhei Bay Surf, according to Honolulu Civil Beat; owners should confirm the final list against the resolution itself.
Why five votes is not enough
The yes votes on September 29 were Alice Lee, Yuki Lei Sugimura, Kauanoe Batangan, Tom Cook and Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins. The no votes were Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, Gabe Johnson, Shane Sinenci and Tamara Paltin. That is the identical split by which the Housing and Land Use Committee adopted the sea level rise criteria on August 27, 2026.
Five of nine is 55.6%. Six of nine is 66.7%. Maui Now described the same threshold in March 2026, when the commission recommended against the hotel districts themselves: the council would need "a two-thirds supermajority vote of six members out of nine."
The two batches are not in the same position. The first went to the commission with seven votes behind it, so a council override of the commission's 43 denials is arithmetically available if those members hold. The shoreline batch went with five. On current positions, a commission recommendation against it leaves the council one vote short.
Council Chair Lee said of the first batch's reception, "It's like all of our work was for nothing."
The qualifying test is the hazard
Batch two selects buildings because the ocean threatens them. Council Member Uʻu-Hodgins made the case in August that units which "may be no longer viable in a few decades" are better suited to short-term use than to housing, Civil Beat reported. Kai Nishiki, quoted by Maui Now, put the opposing view: "Sea-level rise is indiscriminate. The ocean does not care whether a unit is occupied by a Maui resident or a tourist."
For an owner the practical point is narrower. Hotel zoning would preserve the use. It does not change the flood map, and a rezoning justified on the record by exposure to sea level rise puts that exposure in a public county document attached to the address. Raise it with your insurance agent and, before a sale or refinance, with the lender.
The fiscal argument runs the other way. Sugimura said the phase-out could cost the county $94 million a year in tax revenue, about $60 million of it property tax, or roughly 64% of the total (60 ÷ 94). That is a council member's figure, not an audited one.
What owners should do before the commission hearing
- Find the building on the right list. Batch one and batch two are separate resolutions with separate vote counts behind them. Ask the association which one the property is in, or whether it is in neither.
- Fix the deadline that applies. West Maui properties face the earlier date. Calendar nothing past December 31, 2028 there, or past December 31, 2030 elsewhere, on the strength of a pending rezoning.
- Do not price a sale on five votes. A unit's value with nightly rental rights and without them are different numbers, and a use right that depends on a permit or zoning label rarely transfers the way owners assume. A buyer's lender will read the same vote count.
- Check the tax class question. A hotel label can carry a different property tax treatment, a pattern we covered when an Arizona county began classifying full-time rentals as commercial. Ask the county's real property tax office what H-3 or H-4 would mean for the bill.
- Do not assume a longer minimum stay is an exit. Whether a monthly rental falls outside the phase-out depends on Maui County's own definition of a transient vacation rental. Courts have upheld 30-day minimums as a regulatory tool, and each Hawaii county writes its own line; Hawaii County's registration law is a separate regime with a separate deadline.
- Testify with facts the commission asked for. Commissioners cited missing information on kitchens and laundry and the absence of objective hotel standards. An association that supplies unit specifications answers a stated objection.
What to watch next
The commission has until November 24, 2026 to return the first batch to the council, per Maui Now. That is 119 days after the July 28 referral. No date has been reported for the shoreline batch; if the same window applies, 119 days from September 29 lands on January 26, 2027. That is our arithmetic, not a county announcement.
Two other items bear watching. The council's vote on batch one will show whether seven referral votes translate into six override votes. And multiple lawsuits challenge Bill 9 on constitutional and property rights grounds, RentalScaleUp reported in January 2026; a ruling in any of them could change the timeline. Zoning ordinances and private covenants are separate questions in the published appellate record on short-term rentals.
Whatever the zoning outcome, the guests who have stayed in a unit are the one asset the county cannot rezone. Owners who expect to keep operating are better placed with a guest list of their own than with a listing that exists only on a platform. Haven builds direct booking websites with a guest CRM on the host's own domain and charges no booking commission.
FAQ
Is Maui banning all vacation rentals?
No. Ordinance 5909 phases transient vacation rentals out of the A-1 and A-2 apartment districts, more than 6,000 units. The September 29, 2026 vote changed no zoning; it referred a hotel zoning proposal for 32 of those complexes to the Planning Commission.
When does the Maui vacation rental phase-out take effect?
The Maui County Council's December 15, 2025 announcement says the prohibition starts in 2029 in West Maui and 2031 elsewhere in the county. Maui Now has reported the dates both as January 1, 2029 and 2031 and as December 31, 2028 and 2030. Plan around the earlier of each pair.
Which Maui complexes were recommended for hotel zoning?
On September 22, 2026, the Maui Planning Commission recommended hotel zoning for five of 48 properties: Hale Kāʻanapali, Kūʻau Plaza, Maui Schooner, Hono Koa and Hana Kai Maui, 397 units in total. A recommendation is not a rezoning; the council makes the final decision.
Can the Maui County Council override the Planning Commission?
Yes, with a supermajority. If the commission recommends against a rezoning bill, the council needs six of its nine members to pass it, according to Maui Now. The shoreline batch was referred on September 29, 2026 with five votes.
