Urging The County Of Maui To Adopt Ordinances That Establish Wildland-urban Interface Safety Standards For Plantation Towns And Other High-risk Communities, Taking Into Account The County Of Kauai's Ordinance No. Pm-2025-425, Relating To The Plantation Camp District Wildfire And Wildland Urban Interface, And Other State And National Wildland-urban Interface Best Practices.
SCR181 is a Senate Concurrent Resolution urging the County of Maui to adopt local ordinances establishing wildland-urban interface (WUI) safety standards for plantation towns and other high-risk communities. The resolution points to the County of Kauai’s Ordinance No. PM-2025-425 as a model and cites national examples from states such as California, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona that have adopted WUI-related construction and vegetation-management standards.
The resolution specifically encourages Maui to consider ember-resistant and ignition-resistant construction, noncombustible zones around structures, defensible space, vegetation management, wildfire risk mapping, and the integration of wildfire mitigation into zoning, permitting, redevelopment, and community design review. It frames these measures as especially important for historic plantation-era and country towns such as Lahaina, Paia, and Makawao, where community layout, vegetation, topography, and wind-driven fire exposure can increase wildfire risk.
SCR181 does not directly amend Hawaii statutes or impose binding statewide requirements; instead, it is a nonbinding legislative request directed to Maui County officials. Its practical impact would be to encourage county-level ordinance development and local land-use and building-code changes for plantation towns and other high-risk areas, with possible effects on new construction, substantial remodels, permitting, zoning, redevelopment review, and wildfire mitigation planning. The resolution also reinforces the use of Kauai’s ordinance and other WUI best practices as policy models for county action.
The available voting history suggests strong support and little opposition. Both committee votes were unanimous and the measure passed unamended in the Senate Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs Committee and the Senate Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. The bill’s findings and framing are also strongly pro-safety, emphasizing the urgency created by the 2023 Maui wildfires and the need to modernize local planning and building practices.
There is no recorded committee testimony or floor debate in the provided materials, so no explicit opposition is documented. The main policy issue implied by the resolution is how Maui should balance wildfire safety requirements with preservation of historic plantation-town character, local land-use flexibility, and redevelopment considerations. The resolution also suggests a potential policy distinction between county adoption of tailored WUI standards and broader statewide mandates, but the bill itself only urges county action rather than requiring it.