Three Hawaiʻi state laws passed in 2025 change how housing permits and historic-preservation review work in Maui County. Two of them — Act 295 and Act 306 — take effect July 1, 2026. The third, Act 293, is already in effect. We published this page because the laws are being talked about in ways that are not quite right, and a careful reading matters for anyone trying to plan a project.
This is a summary for working design professionals, homeowners, and contractors. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace a conversation with an attorney or with the county.
Act 295 adds a new section to Chapter 46 of the Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes. Starting July 1, 2026, permit applications for single-family and multi-family housing projects that have been sitting complete at the county for more than sixty business days without full approval become eligible for an expedited pathway. The law sunsets June 30, 2031.
Three things about this law are routinely reported incorrectly:
For an application to be considered complete for this expedited route, the statute requires all of the following:
The most important thing for design professionals to understand about Act 295 is that it is not simply a faster permit — it is a model that transfers approval and oversight responsibility onto the licensed professionals of record. The licensed professional must carry insurance naming the State and county as additional insureds, sign a hold-harmless and indemnity statement, execute a formal agreement with the county, and ultimately certify the project for certificate of occupancy. Inspectors retain access and enforcement authority throughout. The licensed professional and the contractor both carry responsibility for code compliance. Before deciding to use this pathway, a firm should understand exactly what it is taking on.
Act 293 took effect on July 3, 2025. It amended two sections of Chapter 6E of the Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes — the historic preservation chapter — and narrowed when Chapter 6E review has to happen for certain existing residential properties.
Under the amended Section 6E-42.2, a proposed project on an existing residential property is subject to Section 6E-42 only if the property is over fifty years old and is registered on the Hawaiʻi Register of Historic Places. For an existing privately owned single-family detached dwelling or townhouse specifically, Chapter 6E review applies only if the structure is over fifty years old and is listed or nominated for listing on the Hawaiʻi or national register, or is located in a historic district.
Act 293 also excludes projects in a "nominally sensitive area" from Section 6E-42 review. The statute defines that term as an area with a low density of historic, cultural, or archaeological resources, or one that has been substantially disturbed by previous excavation and where no significant historic properties have previously been identified.
In plain English: many ordinary existing homes that are not over fifty years old and not register-listed, nominated, or in a historic district are now outside the Chapter 6E trigger for permit review. But Act 293 is not a blanket exemption. It does not wipe out review for nonresidential projects, for projects with archaeological or burial potential, or for projects that otherwise fall outside the residential exclusions. If your site has any indicators of cultural or archaeological significance, Chapter 6E still matters — and the statute continues to recognize the importance of traditional beliefs, events, and oral accounts tied to place.
Act 306 is a separate reform that is often conflated with Act 295 but does something different. Its operative consultant provisions take effect July 1, 2026 and sunset June 30, 2030. It authorizes the State Historic Preservation Division to retain qualified third-party consultants on certain state or permit-review projects involving residential units or majority-residential mixed-use development, when SHPD determines it cannot provide its concurrence or review within sixty days.
The consultant must be qualified, must follow ethics rules, cannot review a project they previously worked on, and must provide a recommendation within thirty days of being retained. The project proponent pays the consultant's reasonable fees.
In practice, this is a capacity release valve for a known SHPD bottleneck. It will not speed up projects where SHPD can meet its sixty-day window on its own. But for projects that would otherwise wait on a backlogged archaeological review, it opens a defined alternative path.
It does not. It is limited to single-family and multi-family housing projects, and it expressly excludes projects on shoreline parcels or parcels impacted by waves, high tide, or erosion, as well as projects over thirty feet in height. On Maui, where so much residential work happens on or near the coast, a large share of delayed permits are going to sit outside the expedited pathway by design.
It does not. The statutory exclusions are tied to existing residential property, age, register or district status, and nominally sensitive areas. Projects with archaeological, burial, shoreline, or other sensitive conditions can still require Chapter 6E review. And under Act 295's completeness criteria, the expedited pathway itself requires either a qualified no-effect determination or a completed Chapter 6E process — so neither reform removes historic review entirely from the picture.
If you are planning an inland, code-compliant housing project with clean historic and flood status, it is worth understanding the Act 295 pathway well in advance of July 1, 2026 — both because it could be useful and because its completeness requirements shape what a "ready-to-expedite" application looks like from the start.
If you are planning a shoreline project, Act 295 does not apply, and the SMA process is still the path. But Act 293 and Act 306 can still materially affect your historic-review timing, and it is worth knowing which of them touches your site.
If you are not sure which of these laws matter for your specific project, we are a short email away at studio@oenmaui.com. We will not bill you for a quick read of your situation.