Recent Amendments to Maui County’s Residential Workforce Housing Policy Adds Incentives for Landowners and Clarifies Requirements…More or Less

Ordinance 3512, signed into law on December 27, 2007, amends Maui County’s Residential Workforce Housing Policy as follows:

• Residential developments where 100 percent of the units qualify as residential workforce housing units (as defined under the Policy) are exempt from certain development fees including grubbing and grading permit fees.
• In projects planned for less than 100 percent residential workforce housing units, each residential workforce housing unit will be charged only 50 percent of certain development fees including grubbing and grading permit fees.
• The county’s park land dedication requirement is cut in half for residential workforce housing units to 250 square feet per unit.
• Subdivisions where 100 percent of the units qualify as residential workforce housing units are exempt from county park dedication requirements.

Previously, Ordinance 3438, signed into law on March 2, 2007, amended the Policy as follows:

• By clarifying that prior to subdivision approval or issuance of a building permit, 40 percent of new or converted units must be sold at affordable prices in either of the following circumstances: when (i) 3 or more new lodging, dwelling, or time share units in a hotel are created, (ii) conversion of one or more hotel units to dwelling units or time share units, (iii) lodging or dwelling units in a hotel are increased, or (iv) 5 or more new dwelling units are created for rental purposes.
• In lieu fees will be computed by two methods: (i) for sale units or ownership units will be charged at 30 percent of the market price of the dwelling unit or each lot; or (ii) for hotel, time share, converted, or rental units, the fee charged will be the difference between 100 percent and 160 percent of the median income for a family of four pursuant to HUD Income Limits.

FYI, under the Maui County Code § 19.04.040, the following definitions may be helpful:

• “Dwelling unit” means a room or group of rooms connected together constituting an independent housekeeping unit for family and containing a single kitchen.
• “Hotel” or “motel” means a transient vacation rental, other than a bed and breakfast home containing lodging or dwelling units. “Transient vacation rentals or use” means occupancy of a dwelling or lodging unit by transients for any period of less than one hundred and eighty days.
• “Lodging unit” means a room or group of rooms connected together, constituting an independent living unit which does not contain any kitchen.
• “Time share unit” means the actual and promised accommodations, and related facilities, which are the subject of a time share plan. “Time share plan” means any plan or program in which the use, occupancy, or possession of one or more time share units circulates among various persons for less than a sixty-day period in any year, for any occupant.