Amy Petterson

The cost of rent has been a contentious issue among residents for decades, with many calling for a cap on rent or a plan to stabilize costs. Petterson agrees with these sentiments, and proposes the creation of both a law and a commission to monitor rental rates and cost increases across the island. This law encompasses many different aspects but most notably includes the Maximum Base Rent (MBR) system. Petterson would also like to include this system into law and prices will be decided by the new commission. This commission will hold a series of public meetings and hearings every year. By considering presented research and testimony from tenants, owners, advocacy groups, elected officials, and industry experts, this will allow them to determine fair rent prices and MBR for residents of Maui.

Maui has always struggled between finding a balance between affordable housing and new business infrastructure for local businesses. Petterson proposes construction of more multi-use buildings that can meet both housing and business needs. Instead of having larger company towers mixed with apartment buildings, the focus of this plan would center on the expansion of smaller buildings with apartments above ground-floor businesses, a balance with both home and local business. With this proposal, Petterson wants to embolden the county to bring forth new local businesses and homes that residents will have easy access to.

The sad truth is that over 50% of Maui’s homeless population are Native Hawaiians and locals. The current homeless shelters are not enough to house the growing numbers nor do they provide adequate and humane living conditions for residents in need. Expanding these facilities to work more like apartments gets people off the streets and gives privacy, decency, and the opportunity to truly advance towards a better life. Once residents of these interim apartments make a certain amount of monthly income, Petterson would like to introduce them to other affordable-housing programs to make room for other residents facing homelessness. Effectively creating a stream of help to keep people from returning to the streets.

As we know, food self-sustainability is at an all time low for Maui. As of right now Maui only has one agricultural park. When considering our current population size compared to both Oahu and Hawai’i, who each have four parks of varying sizes, one park is not enough to encourage more locally grown food. Maui needs to create a new agricultural park to make way for more local farmers and locally-grown produce.

In addition to stabilizing rent, Petterson also wishes to stabilize land tax for home owners. As of right now, there is no law to limit how high inflation can rise and nor a law to protect homeowners from losing their property due to exorbitant increases to its value and property tax. Often brought on by neighboring developments and large-scale property purchases. What Maui needs is to limit how high inflation on property value can rise per year, without residents needing to fight the system for appeals or exceptions.

While Maui has already raised taxes on empty vacation homes this year, this is not enough to calm current inflation rates nor make up for lost revenue due to the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ that cut federal taxes on the ultra-wealthy. To bring back this lost revenue, Petterson wishes to put a larger surcharge on empty vacation homes worth over five million dollars. Lifting more of the tax burden off of Maui’s residents.

The process to get a permit in Maui is very slow, with many waiting at least a year before one is granted. To deal with this, Petterson proposes a new teaching program to train more residents on processing permits and getting them into larger permit offices.

For years many invasive species have boomed in population. While the county has set up a smaller program to pay land owners for each deer tail, it does not address the wider ungulate problem. Such as wild boars in addition to the deer. To deal with them, Petterson proposes a new program between licensed hunters and land owners to deal with both invasive deer and wild hogs. This plan intends to allow licensed hunters access large pieces of land, farms, ranches, and county property by implementing a county-run program and contractual agreement with landowners.

Water Bunds (also referred to as Earth Smiles) are shallow, trench-like semi-circles dug into sloped land and are typically 2.5 meters long and 5 meters wide. They are a sustainable, proactive solution to regreening dry, arid-like plains, that can be seen above areas like Kihei and Lahaina, and show results in just six months. This will allow the county to prevent flooding due to hydrophobic soil and prevent fires due to dehydrated foliage. A proactive solution to fight against natural disasters that threaten out cities and hire local workers to replenish our island’s greenery.