I'm from Hawaii and have been in the construction industry my whole life, 3rd generation.
The playbook for what will happen in Maui next is not new, surprising or even close to ethical. Here's what to watch for as events continue to unfold:
First, for context understand that this information is not something I came up with -- in fact, it's quite the opposite. Among large scale developers, home builders, commercial and industrial construction companies, this is all common knowledge. It just isn't something most people care to recognize.
1 - By immediately declaring a disaster zone, the Governor and State will suspend any traditional practices of rebuilding. No one really thinks this bad. We all agree that needs to happen because of the staggering loss of life, damage, and flat-out danger the area poses until it's properly managed. What happens next is where it gets dark.
2 - Rezoning. The Governor and State of Hawaii will make seemingly "good" decisions that will in fact, be very, very bad. The next few points may not be fun or interesting but they're critically important.
3 - This will include things like: extending the rebuild zone back from the water line due to flood risk - in Hawaii this is a floodplain. In doing so, many heritage and legacy homes owned by local families will no longer be allowed to rebuild. Their property value being deemed a loss, the State may/may not force insurance to pay it's rightful value to property owners.
4 - Enforce current commercial building zone standards on all rebuilds. Did you own a regular family-style home? Now you need to build a far more expensive home in order to hit baseline standards that your home never had, sorry. Sometimes what the State will do is "grant" a certain amount of relief funds to offset those increased costs but they are nearly never even close to the true increased cost.
5 - Increase standards on all "new" builds, which includes rebuilds. Did you have a small store that sat on one of the streets in the commercial district of Lahaina? Now you need a $100k fire suppression system for your 1,100 sf building. You'll also need hurricane-rated doors, windows, siding and and all kinds of other new-build zoned requirements. I'm sorry, you're going to sell that property now because there's no way the bank will loan you that amount of money -- you never did enough volume to cover that level of overhead. But you did have a good solid business before. Just not anymore.
6 - Rezone residential for commercial. In deeming an area unfit for residential, the Governor and State can say "this is no longer safe for a home because it will need too much site infrastructure repair for you to afford a regular house. We'll save everyone the headache and make it available to sell for commercial development since they can afford all these new retroactive repairs." This will be things like: a new water main and service lines (that would have been mostly undamaged from fire) with greater capacity, more manholes for easier access, underground electrical where overhead lines used to be, larger force main lines for sewer, etc. Home owners absolutely cannot carry those types of large scale investments.
Which leads me to the last point. Now this is highly controversial for most Hawaiians, so please take it in the context of what it actually means, not as my opinion.
7 - The Governor and State will halt all investment abilities from developers outside the State of Hawaii, to include foreign investors. This is a death blow. Here's why: many foreign and continental U.S. residential and commercial developers have no interest in gaining permanent footholds in the Islands. They are there for profit. They're also some of the only organizations who can afford to do all site infrastructure repairs then build single-family homes in the same area. Why? Because they don't need to make a 40 to 60% profit margin on those homes like smaller developers do. They have scale on their side. They can do 140 single-family homes and walk away because they do this everywhere all the time. They have no vested interested in being stuck in a small place like Maui.
Who then does have a desire to come in to those places?
It's really only two types of organizations. And these are in order of likelihood to plant their talons into Lahaina and compound the tragedy of lives lost and property gone by forever polluting that shoreline.
1 - Multi-family skyrise units. The most valuable property on Earth, everywhere, is shoreline. Typically this is done by foreign or US investors, so it seems backwards to block them out now. Not necessarily. What happens is they must now partner with local companies (boosting the Hawaii economy more directly) and because the State of Hawaii is legendarily corrupt (see: The Rail Project), pay to play, which they will.
2 - Commercial/industrial buildings. Who doesn't want to stay at a gorgeous brand new hotel that brought so many jobs back to Lahaina, truly boosting the local economy and helping the region get back on it's feet? Along with this, a stunning set of restaurants, shopping area... where people go when they stay there. So much life is back where there wasn't much before!
The answer to this cruel joke is anyone who lived in Lahaina before. The multiple generations of families who had small plantation-style homes, where both parents worked hard to never lose that house to the State or overseas developers. The ones that turned down a million dollar offer for their property to be razed because they care more about their way of life and well being of their community than getting rich quick.
My heart breaks for my home State, the people who lost loved ones in a tragedy that should never have become this severe, and the losses that will continue to stack up for an already burdened undeserving people because the chance to snatch power is too great for our weak government "leadership."
@WallStreetSilv @KanekoaTheGreat @nicksortor
As a final parting point, just in case someone out there thinks this disaster wasn't the direct result of a colossal failure in leadership, I would like to direct you to the following facts:
It wasn't just that the helicopters couldn't take off in 80+ mph winds. That's a partial truth. The rest of the truth is publicly available (but lesser-known) information:
There was a water rights dispute. Emergency fire department responders began requesting at 9am for water dedicated to a specific area of the island to be rerouted to Lahaina (fire trucks cannot pump ocean water) because there wasn't enough available, and they were denied access until TWO O'CLOCK PM THAT AFTERNOON.