A long-debated plan to build 170 homes, a medical clinic, and a public parking lot on the edge of Pāʻia cleared a major hurdle this week when the Maui Planning Commission voted 5-3 to recommend rezoning approval for the EC Pāʻia Town project. But the vote didn't settle the fight over how the development will get its water — the developer wants to skip the county system entirely and drill private wells into an aquifer that state data shows is already being pumped well past sustainable levels.
The project, proposed by developer Sam Hirbod through his company EC Paia, would rise on roughly 40 acres west of Baldwin Avenue, mauka of Hāna Highway and makai of the former Pāʻia sugar mill, according to Maui Now. The site — currently used for cattle grazing — sits within the Maui Island Plan's designated small town growth area, and Hirbod's company acquired the underlying 339-acre parcel from Alexander & Baldwin in December 2016 for $9.9 million, setting aside 40 acres for development while keeping roughly 300 acres in agriculture, according to the Maui News. That purchase came just as commercial sugarcane production in the area ended, when Alexander & Baldwin closed the Puʻunēnē Mill and laid off about 675 workers, closing the book on 145 years of plantation agriculture across 36,000 acres, as Honolulu Civil Beat reported at the time.
As proposed, the project includes 120 single-family units, 50 multifamily units, neighborhood commercial space, a relocated Pāʻia bypass, and a 200-stall public parking lot meant to ease downtown Pāʻia's notorious parking crunch. Sixty of the 170 total homes — 34 workforce units and a mix of gap-income homes recently increased from 16 to 20 single-family units, plus six gap-income units within the multifamily component — would be income-restricted, per the same report. That roughly meets, but the commission did not require exceeding, the 25% affordable-housing threshold set by Chapter 2.96 of the Maui County Code, the county's Residential Workforce Housing Policy adopted to keep working families from being priced off the island.
Wells vs. an Already-Strained Aquifer
The most contentious piece of the project is water. Rather than connect to the county system, EC Pāʻia Town plans to install two private wells at roughly the 300-foot elevation and build a private wastewater treatment plant, using recycled R-1 water for on-site irrigation. Harold Edwards said the county system is basically at capacity, and the project would draw on private sources instead, with the development expected to need 75,738 gallons per day of potable water and 52,235 gallons per day of non-potable water, alongside an estimated 57,000 gallons per day of wastewater generation.
That strategy runs into a hard fact: the Department of Water Supply reported the Central Maui system was already running at 98% to 100% of maximum reliable capacity as of mid-August, with no additional source capacity available for new or expanded service. County records also show four well pumps in the Central Maui-Pāʻia region were out of service in August, cutting regional capacity by up to 6 million gallons per day against average daily demand of 24 million gallons, forcing the county to lean on alternative plants to keep up, according to the County of Maui Department of Water Supply.
State figures paint an even starker picture of the aquifer itself: as of late May, the Pāʻia aquifer was being pumped at about 217% of its sustainable yield of 7 million gallons per day, drawing 15.175 million gallons per day. The nearby Kahului aquifer fared worse still, pumping roughly 776% of its 1 million-gallon sustainable yield at 7.760 million gallons per day. The Commission on Water Resource Management is conducting ongoing analysis of Central Maui groundwater conditions and plans to site deep monitor wells — currently in the pre-construction stage — in the Pāʻia and Kamaʻole aquifer systems.
Developer Points to Drought, Critics Aren't So Sure
Attorney Cal Chipchase, representing the project, attributed the aquifer overdraft to East Maui drought conditions reducing irrigation-water deliveries to Mahi Pono, the agricultural venture that farms 41,000 acres of former A&B sugar land using groundwater wells in the Pāʻia aquifer alongside East Maui stream diversions. Mahi Pono purchased that land for $262 million in December 2018, according to Honolulu Civil Beat. Chipchase said conditions were expected to normalize well before the project actually needs water, which he estimated at 10 to 12 years out, and separately said permitting alone would take five to eight years.
Not everyone agrees the shortfall is temporary. Ciara Kahahane said the relationship between East Maui surface water, irrigation return flow, and aquifer recharge cannot be reduced to a simple one-to-one relationship. That caution lines up with a broader scientific wrinkle: official sustainable-yield calculations for the Pāʻia aquifer measure basal groundwater capacity but don't account for recharge from imported East Maui surface water and agricultural irrigation return flow, meaning historical plantation-era irrigation artificially boosted shallow groundwater recharge in ways the formal numbers don't capture, per County of Maui water planning documents.
A State Approval Still Looms
Even with the Planning Commission's blessing, the rezoning can't legally take effect without action from the Hawaii State Land Use Commission. Because the underlying property exceeds 15 acres, Hawaii Revised Statutes Chapter 205 requires a District Boundary Amendment from the state commission rather than county approval alone. The county Department of Planning has recommended that the County Council delay its own rezoning action until that state process concludes, and there's currently no deadline forcing the council to act either way.
The council's Housing and Land Use Committee already signaled support, voting 7-0 on May 20 to forward Resolution 26-84 — introduced by committee chair Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins — advancing the project's entitlement process. That resolution attaches three rezoning conditions, including a requirement that workforce units remain affordable in perpetuity, a ban on separate parking fees for affordable-unit residents, and a mandate for laundry facilities. If the council ultimately rejects the Planning Commission's recommendation, it would need a two-thirds vote to do so.
The Planning Commission added its own conditions beyond the council's resolution, including a commitment to meaningful community engagement, free parking for Maui residents at the new public lot, and an order requiring infrastructure to be built before the public parking lot and workforce or gap-income housing come online. Notably, the commission did not require additional affordable units beyond what county code already mandates. An archaeological survey by ʻĀina Archaeology found no above-ground archaeological sites on the property, which falls under the Pāʻia-Haʻikū Community Plan — a document that has not been updated since 1995.
Traffic Relief Still Years Away
Beyond housing and water, the project's promised infrastructure fixes speak to some of Pāʻia's oldest complaints. Community and state discussions over a Pāʻia bypass to relieve chokepoints at Baldwin Avenue and Hāna Highway date back to 1968, eventually leading to a temporary mini-bypass opened in May 2011, according to the Maui News. The relocated bypass proposed under this project is projected to divert roughly 40% of makai-bound left-turn vehicles off Baldwin Avenue, easing congestion at that intersection.
The Department of Planning received the project's final draft traffic impact report on August 24, after the state Department of Transportation requested a completed report before granting preliminary subdivision approval. But residents hoping for quick relief from downtown gridlock or parking shortages shouldn't expect it soon — developer attorneys estimate actual construction remains 7 to 10 years away given the multi-agency state and county approvals still required, according to DennisCarhart.com. Separately, the Wailuku-Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility currently operates near 7.9 million gallons per day of capacity, and a planned Central Maui wastewater facility is expected to come online around 2030 — timelines that will shape how, and when, the broader region's infrastructure catches up to its growth.
