NAME: Shane Sinenci

AGE: 57

RESIDENCE: Hana

OCCUPATION: Maui County Council member, East Maui

1. What were the biggest vulnerabilities that the Kula and Lahaina fires exposed, and how would you as a council member work to address those issues? 

The greatest revelation was seeing how many homes were either not insured or not insured to their full capacity with the understanding that many homes were plantation-era structures. The work moving forward will be to help those homeowners rebuild with today’s building costs, ie. electrical tie-in, sewer hookup and water meter installations. Exempting these costs for fire survivors will help them to keep costs down. In the past, homeowners lived in simple structures and only expanded the home when resources were available. Granting families the right to occupy their dwellings at different stages of the building process, once safety and health standards are met, can also help house residents at a faster rate. I hope to revisit our county building codes and look for ways to streamline this process, given the chance.

2. With so many people in temporary housing situations after the fires, how should we as a county pivot to address the need for affordable housing going forward?

I am happy to see the State Legislature fund the Department of Hawaiian Homelands’ affordable housing projects and I hope they continue to do that. Housing for residents was always a condition of statehood and to see so many people on the waiting lists is unacceptable. We have failed to house our own people, who have lost three generations of establishing equity and generational wealth in home ownership–a reality we now see in the exodus of our young families in search of affordable options. I am supportive of more government subsidies of affordable housing projects and in keeping them affordable in perpetuity. This will keep our families home, deter outside investors, and retain a healthy property tax structure for the county. I was supportive of funneling GET tax revenues toward the establishment of important infrastructure for housing, which also helps developers to lower the costs of building homes. 

3. What is your stance on Mayor Richard Bissen’s proposal to phase out short-term rentals in Maui County? If it passes, where could we find the funds to replace vacation rental tax revenues?

I am very excited to have this discussion in our committee meetings. Mayor Bissen’s proposal addresses an age-old zoning issue that has greatly diminished affordable housing availability in our County. I am forced to revisit the historical precedent that has placed us in this predicament. When Maui County was a sugar and pineapple economy, the plantations built housing for their workers–as evident in the many ethnic camps throughout the island. When the tourism economy took its place, that practice of providing worker housing stopped. Visitors also wanted to play golf on their vacations, and soon luxury homes began sprouting up around the hotel areas. This put a great strain on the county permitting process which soon experienced high-end development over affordable homes projects. The advent of the short term rental business soon saw whatever housing inventory on the island being gobbled up by outside investors who wanted to capitalize off of the Hawaii vacation experience. The result is the current situation, where we have exceeded the 1:3 ratio of tourist to resident set by our island plan and that one in three homes in the county is a vacation rental. As a council member, I have visited other tourist-run economies that are experiencing a housing shortage for important workers like nurses, doctors, teachers, and emergency workers mainly due to the short term rental industry. In our discussions, I hope to hear what revenue shortfalls this phaseout will bring, compared to the financial profits that Maui County extracts to off-island investors. 

4. Many local businesses couldn’t survive the decline in tourism during the pandemic and after the fires. What can the county do to make our economy more resilient and foster the growth of other industries in addition to tourism?

I agree that the catastrophic events in the past few years have been unprecedented, and we will need as much help as we can muster. That said, a huge mahalo to all those from near and far who volunteered their time or sent money to help all those affected by the August fires–your kokua is a great blessing. This gratitude also extends to our federal agencies who quickly came to Maui County’s aid including FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA and the Red Cross. I mention them because of the vast amount of resources that were expended for the cleanup and rebuild of Lahaina and Kula. And while we are in a heated election at the federal level, there is clearly only one candidate that advocates for an ‘opportunistic economy’ that will help families combat child poverty, fund down payments for first time home buyers and fund entrepreneurs who want to start a business. At the county and state levels we can invest in local food security and boost our resiliency, but our understanding of how the federal government works and how we vote in November, will greatly determine our recovery efforts in the next four years. 

5. Drought, fires, housing projects and large-scale agriculture remind us that water is in short supply and high demand. How can we make sure the county has enough water resources to go around? 

During my second term as a Council Member, I worked to adopt the County Water Use and Development plan for the next 30 years. In each of the aquifer sections of the plan, we were able to implement strategies that promote water conservation and increase water sources for county use. For example, increasing water reuse infrastructure will enable high water users like hotels to stop injecting gray water into nearshore environments and use reclaimed water to irrigate golf courses, green spaces for fire protections and for agriculture; thereby freeing up more potable water for everyday uses. Also, acquiring private water systems and state water licenses will ensure that existing water sources are managed by county agencies, who are able to use federal funding, fix old dilapidated plantation systems that leak, and bring them into 21st century standards for future purposes.

6. The council recently passed a bill that paused the Managed Retreat Fund. However, sea level rise and erosion are still a problem, including at Baldwin Beach Park where the pavilion was removed last month. How can we address eroding shorelines while still making sure housing and other fire-related issues are funded? 

On October 7, we heard from the County Planning and Parks’ Department, Tetra Tech, and the UH Sea Grant program on their Beach Parks’ Vulnerability and Adaptation Study. In their presentation, they rate all of the county beach parks from Low to High, upon their vulnerability to sea-level rise as noted by the State’s SLR-XA projections. The team seeks to limit any future construction of new facilities that fall within the 3.2 feet sea level rise area, and will determine if any existing structures that are in danger of large sea level events should be removed for public safety purposes. The Departments plan to restore coastal ecosystems for continued beach access for residents and seeks to retain undeveloped park lands outside of hazard areas for future park space. More information can be found at https://www.mauicounty.gov/BPVAStudy 

7. What is your stance on the Maui County charter amendments that will appear on the ballot?

I am supportive of them, they fill the pukas we see in everyday government operations.