What's New in Planning on Maui - Summer 2020

By Jennifer Maydan, AICP

Lanai Digital Zoning Map

The Maui County Planning Department has an adopted digital zoning map for the island of Lanai. The Maui County Council adopted the Lanai Digital Map and Title 19 Ordinance on August 28, 2020, and Mayor Victorino approved the bill on August 31, 2020.  The digital zoning map for the Island of Maui was adopted in 2018.

Since 2005, staff of the Maui County Planning Department worked on this project, affectionately known as “DSSRT”, an acronym for the Dead Sea Scroll Replacement Team, to replace the County’s official paper zoning maps with digital or electronic versions.  Along with the goal of replacing the County’s prized but very old, tattered and outdated “Dead Sea Scrolls” paper zoning maps with accurate, up-to-date GIS data layers, other goals included researching and verifying zoning for thousands of parcels; correcting inadvertent mapping errors, inconsistencies and alignment issues; updating parcel zoning with zoning districts that have standards; and creating a single zoning map for the islands.  All corrections made to the adopted digital map required consistency with each parcel's Community Plan designation.

Online Shoreline Access Atlas

Exploring and enjoying Maui County’s beaches and shoreline areas has just been made easier. The County has recently launched a new website with a map viewer to provide an online atlas of over 200 public access locations and their features.  The website and map viewer can be accessed at www.mauishorelineaccess.net.  The viewer can be queried to find locations or features of interest, such as sites that are within 15 miles or nearer, or sites that have a sandy beach, or a site’s amenities such as restrooms.  When a site is selected, all of its amenities can be viewed.  For most sites, the viewer also features 360 degree photos of both the access point and the shoreline area, along with a depiction of the access path.  The website also includes links to supporting information, including weather, surf reports, water quality, public access rights, and Aha Moku land management and stewardship principles.

This shoreline access information is provided for all regions of Maui, Molokai and Lanai. The website is also intended to provide a baseline for the management of shoreline access.  The website was developed by the County’s Planning Department, Information Technology Services Division, and the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program, after consulting with members of Maui’s Aha Moku and after the completion of an updated survey and inventory of coastal access locations by Aptim Environmental and Infrastructure Inc. The survey, inventory, and website development was funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through the Hawaii Office of Planning Coastal Zone Management Program.

South Maui Community Plan

Long-range division staff have quietly been building momentum on the South Maui Community Plan update over the last few months. Working closely with our consultant team, led by Belt Collins Hawaiʻi, we are crafting resource papers to bring the public up to speed on subjects like housing, transportation and public facilities, while we build population and employment projections to better understand the future South Maui is facing. We are meeting virtually with community members and starting to gather their initial thoughts on what South Maui needs in 20 years. We are building a whole new website which will be the hub for all community plan update information and public engagement for the foreseeable future. We are constantly learning new techniques to engage the public during these difficult times and will start applying those methods as soon as the website launches this fall with our kick-off online open house. While every community plan has its challenges, with COVID-19 generating endless uncertainty, this update is wholly unique and we are making the best of a very difficult situation.