"Strong concerns that the development would not be good for local people, the land or other resources of Maui." That's how Heidi Guth, who surveyed Mākena residents for a social impact assessment on the project, summarized what she heard when she brought the findings to the Maui Planning Commission on August 11. Traffic, water, cultural access. Those are the worries that filled the meeting room, and they're legitimate ones for a coastline that's already dense with resorts.
But the detail in the approved plan that actually reshapes how a buyer should think about Wailea and Makena right now isn't the traffic count. It's a single line in the project documents: no vacation rentals will be allowed anywhere inside Mākena Mauka. That clause, combined with a rental-rights clock that's already running on existing South Maui inventory, is quietly splitting the neighborhood's income-producing real estate into two very different pools. If you're comparing these two neighborhoods with an eye toward rental potential, that split matters more than the headline number of new homes coming.
What Actually Passed
Mākena Mauka is a 1,044-acre master-planned community on the hillsides above Mākena State Park, proposed by AREG AC Mākena Propco. The version that cleared the Planning Commission this month is smaller than what the developer originally floated in 2024. That earlier plan called for roughly 900 units. The approved version cuts that to 652, a 27 percent reduction that lead planner Mark Roy attributed directly to community feedback. Of those 652 homes, 543 will be market rate and 109 will be on-site workforce housing, built during the initial construction phase rather than tacked on at the end. The residential footprint covers 473 of the project's 1,044 acres.
The project is expected to cost about $4 billion and unfold over 30 years in three roughly 10-year construction phases, with groundbreaking targeted for 2028. It will also fold in the existing 18-hole Mākena North Golf Course and bring back the Mākena South Golf Course, which has sat closed since 2007. Along with about 135,000 square feet of golf maintenance buildings, staff offices, and restaurants, the plan includes hiking trails, public beach parking, and conservation and open space areas.
Developers still need state and county sign-off beyond this Planning Commission approval, so the 2028 groundbreaking target is the start of a longer permitting road, not a done deal.
The Clause That Changes the Math
Here's the part that gets buried under the density debate. Based on similar communities the developer has built, project documents project that about 90 percent of Mākena Mauka's residences will function as part-time homes. And vacation rentals won't be permitted inside the project at all.
That's a notable departure from how South Maui resort-adjacent development has typically worked. The playbook next door at Mākena Golf & Beach Club, run by Discovery Land Company since 2014, built its identity around private club membership tied to real estate, not short-term rental income, but plenty of other resort-zone product on this coastline has been built with an eye toward vacation rental cash flow as a selling point. Mākena Mauka is explicitly not that. It's positioning itself as second-home and part-time-resident inventory from day one, with a meaningful chunk of workforce housing built alongside it.
For a buyer scanning the Wailea and Makena market for something with rental upside, that means one of the largest blocks of new supply coming to this stretch of coastline in the next generation simply won't be eligible to compete with existing rental inventory. Whatever income-producing real estate exists in Makena right now is likely to stay a fixed, and shrinking, pool.
A Second Clock Is Already Running
That fixed pool is shrinking for a separate reason that has nothing to do with Mākena Mauka. Maui County's Bill 9, signed into law in December 2025, phases out transient vacation rental use in apartment-zoned buildings on a set schedule.
| Zone | TVR sunset date | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| West Maui | December 31, 2028 | Apartment-zoned units |
| Rest of Maui County (including Kīhei-Mākena) | December 31, 2030 | Apartment-zoned units |
On top of that sunset, the county's separate Short-Term Rental Home permit category is hard-capped in this district: 46 STRH permits total for the Kīhei-Mākena region, no more than five of those inside Maui Meadows, and a 100-permit ceiling for bed-and-breakfast operations. Hotel-zoned and already-permitted homes are unaffected by the sunset, but the apartment-zoned condos that make up a large share of South Maui's vacation rental stock are on a countdown that ends in 2030 at the latest.
That countdown isn't entirely settled. Reporting from December 2025 noted that Maui County was weighing secondary legislation that could exempt roughly 4,500 existing vacation rental units from the phase-out, and homeowner groups have filed lawsuits that could push the timeline further. So the exact number of units that make it to 2030 with rental rights intact is still moving.
What isn't moving is the direction. New supply in Makena is being built without rental rights baked in, and old supply is losing rental rights on a legal clock, exemptions or no exemptions. Put those two facts next to each other and you get a market where the ability to rent short-term is becoming rarer, not more common, even as 652 new homes get added to the neighborhood.
Three Phases, Thirty Years
The build-out itself unfolds slowly enough that it won't reshape the market overnight:
- Phase one (starting 2028): The 109 workforce housing units are built as part of this initial phase, alongside the first tranche of market-rate homes, lead planner Mark Roy told the Planning Commission.
- Phase two (roughly a decade later): Additional market-rate residential construction continues across the 473-acre residential footprint.
- Phase three (final decade): The project completes buildout toward its full 652-unit count, with conservation areas, trails, and public beach parking finished alongside it.
That pacing matters for anyone weighing a purchase today against a hypothetical future glut. Even in a fast-permitting scenario, meaningful new inventory from Mākena Mauka won't hit closing tables for years, and the full 652 units won't exist until sometime near the 2050s.
What This Means If You're Weighing Wailea Against Makena
Mākena Mauka sits mauka, uphill from the coast, above Mākena State Park's three beaches, Oneloa, Oneuli, and Puʻu Ōlaʻi. It doesn't touch the beachfront pockets that make Makena's oceanfront market what it is: Palauea, Poolena, and the Black Sand Beach corridor, or the stretch near historic Keawalaʻi Church and Maluaka Beach. Nothing about this approval adds oceanfront competition to those addresses.
What it does add is context for a buyer's rental math. If income potential is part of your decision, the properties that already hold hotel zoning or an existing STRH permit are the scarce asset here, not the newest listing. If a property's rental rights depend on apartment zoning inside the Bill 9 sunset window, that clock is a real part of its future value, not a footnote. And if lifestyle and privacy matter more than income, Mākena Mauka's workforce housing component and its slow, decades-long build-out mean it's unlikely to change the daily feel of Makena's beachfront enclaves within the ownership horizon most buyers are planning around.
None of this is legal or financial advice, and permitting timelines and litigation outcomes can shift the specifics. But the property-by-property review this moment calls for, checking zoning, STRH status, and where a given address sits relative to both the Bill 9 sunset and the Mauka footprint, is exactly the kind of local due diligence that separates a confident purchase from a guess.
A Few Questions We're Hearing
Does this affect homes that already have short-term rental income? Not directly. Existing hotel-zoned and already-permitted STRH properties are unaffected by Bill 9's sunset. Apartment-zoned units are the ones on the 2028 to 2030 clock, and even that clock has pending litigation and possible exemption legislation attached to it.
Will the public be able to golf at Mākena Mauka? The plan folds in the existing Mākena North Course and the renovation of the long-closed South Course, but Discovery Land Company's adjacent Mākena Golf & Beach Club has operated as a private, members-only facility since 2014, and nothing in the Mauka approval signals a shift back to public access.
When will construction actually start? The developer is targeting 2028 for groundbreaking, but state and county approvals beyond this Planning Commission vote are still pending, and the full build-out is planned across three 10-year phases.
If you're trying to sort out how a specific Wailea or Makena property's zoning, rental status, or proximity to this project affects its long-term value, that's a conversation worth having before you write an offer. Kate and Wendy Peterson have spent years tracking exactly this kind of entitlement and regulatory detail across South Maui. Reach out to schedule a showing or browse current listings on the Wailea and Makena neighborhood page.
