The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled July 22 that the Maui Planning Commission violated the state's Coastal Zone Management Act when it adopted rules that exempted broad categories of shoreline projects from environmental assessment and left that review to the developers seeking approval. The court affirmed a Second Circuit Court order that invalidated the rules and restored the mandatory review process the commission had dismantled.
Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Todd W. Eddins framed the case as a conflict between administrative efficiency and a duty that cannot be traded away. The commission, he wrote, "placed administrative convenience ahead of the public trust" when it promulgated the amended Special Management Area rules in August 2024. The obligation to guard Hawaii's shoreline, he added, "is non-delegable, grounded in statute and the Hawaiʻi Constitution."
The Coastal Zone Management Act, codified at Hawaii Revised Statutes chapter 205A, established Special Management Areas along every county's coastline and bars any "development" within those zones without a permit. Under the court's 2006 decision in Leslie v. Board of Appeals, a three-step assessment determines whether a proposed activity counts as development, with the final step evaluating environmental impact. Counties may streamline how permits are processed, but the court held they may not skip the assessment that decides whether a permit is required at all.
Maui County's rules cut across that line in three ways, according to the opinion. The first section created 15 activities categorically exempt from the definition of development, declaring them to have no significant environmental effect and, in several cases, tying the exemption to dollar thresholds the statute never contained. The court found that 14 of the 15 exemptions covered activities that plainly fall within the statute's broad definition of development, such as agricultural grading, utility installation, and structural alterations. "MPC cannot rewrite the environmental protections the legislature built into the CZMA," Eddins wrote.
The commission had argued that requiring assessment of every SMA activity would produce absurd results, forcing it to screen beachgoers and "a child's sandcastle." The court rejected that reasoning as a conflation of assessment with permitting. A sandcastle, Eddins noted, does not involve grading or extraction and fails the first step of the Leslie framework on its face, while a developer grading a coastal parcel does not. "These activities fail Step 1 on their face," he wrote. "The inquiry ends there."
The 15th exemption, covering traditional Native Hawaiian cultural practices, kept the correct environmental standard but still failed because it let private practitioners, rather than the commission, decide whether an activity caused harm. "A standard nobody checks is an honor system applied to environmental regulation," the opinion states. "The CZMA requires more."
Beyond the statutory conflict, the court held that the rules violated Maui County's constitutional duty under the public trust doctrine. Citing Ka Paʻakai O Ka ʻAina v. Land Use Commission and Kelly v. 1250 Oceanside Partners, Eddins wrote that the county, as a political subdivision of the state, must take the initiative to protect coastal resources at every stage and cannot hand that role to interested applicants. "The trustee cannot hand the keys to the regulated," he wrote. Drawing on the 1985 decision in Hui Alaloa v. Planning Commission, the court reiterated that the act permits delegation to state or county agencies but not to the regulated parties themselves, who have a financial stake and lack public accountability.
The second challenged section allowed previously exempted activities to be continued, renovated, or repaired within the "same scope" of a prior approval, with no agency reassessment. The court found that provision froze environmental review in place and contradicted the statute's command that the authority reassess cumulative impacts as they emerge. "Environmental conditions change," Eddins wrote. "What was safe a decade ago may not be safe today."
The third change replaced the required final environmental assessment with a draft version the applicant could alter at any time. Because final assessments trigger public comment and agency oversight while drafts do not, the court concluded the substitution eroded procedural safeguards at the heart of Hawaii's environmental review laws. Analyzing impact on a document the applicant can redo, Eddins wrote, "is not assessment. That is hope and guesswork."
The ruling restores the prior review regime for landowners and developers operating within Maui County's Special Management Area, reinstating the categorical exemptions' invalidation and the final assessment requirement. Circuit Court of the Second Circuit Judge Kirstin Hamman had narrowed her original order to strike the exemptions and revise the environmental assessment provision after the commission sought clarification, and the Supreme Court affirmed that disposition in full. The commission and county had appealed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals before the high court granted transfer.
The opinion was joined by Chief Justice Vladimir P. Devens and Justices Sabrina S. McKenna and Lisa M. Ginoza, along with Circuit Judge Paul B.K. Wong, who sat by reason of vacancy. "Once a shoreline is gone, it's gone," Eddins wrote. Lance D. Collins argued for Maui Tomorrow Foundation, the nonprofit that brought the challenge; Brian A. Bilberry represented the county and commission.