Yayoi, caretaker of the Lahaina Jodo Mission, in front of a pagoda destroyed by the August 2023 wildfire in Lahaina. She said her family was still trying to determine how to proceed after several buildings of their Buddhist mission, the Lahaina Jodo Mission, were destroyed. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
ACROSS nine generations, Archie Kalepa’s family has seen the waterfront in Lahaina, a Hawaiian town on the island of Maui, undergo repeated transformation.
Once the home of the Hawaiian kingdom’s royalty, Lahaina’s shores over the centuries became a stop for whalers plundering the seas, for missionaries spreading the gospel, and for plantation owners who opened canneries to prepare their bounty of pineapples for export.
More recently, tourists packed high-end galleries and shoreline restaurants.
Relics of each of those layers of history were turned to ash a year ago, when an Aug 8 inferno roared through Lahaina, killing at least 102 people.
Banyan Trees that were damaged by the August 2023 wildfire show signs of new growth, in Lahaina. Many support keeping the city’s famed banyan tree, which was charred by the fire, as a symbol of the community’s resilience and hope. But one resident said it is also a remnant of the island’s colonial past. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
Now, as the task of rebuilding begins, Kalepa, a community leader who has organised fire-recovery efforts, is siding with many of those who see a chance to prioritise the town’s deeper history over the economic interests that have dominated for decades.
That would mean doing what for many has seemed unthinkable until now: transforming the famous waterfront by peeling back history, removing some of the gift shops, restaurants and beachwear boutiques that, before the fire, perched above the shoreline.
“All this has got to go,” Kalepa said as he looked over the building foundations, still jutting up from the beach and ocean.
Development of new residential homes taking shape in Lahaina. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
Faced with a breadth of devastation and a depth of history unlike any other modern American community razed by wildfire, officials over the past year have strained to rehouse thousands of people, stabilise livelihoods and remove hundreds of millions of kilograms of debris so that many lots sit like blank slates, topped with layers of fresh gravel.
Now, they are turning to the thornier question of what rebuilding should look like.
On the table are proposals to revamp neighbourhoods, move thousands of people to new areas, pull properties along the shoreline back from rising sea levels and restore former wetlands.
At the heart of the debate is a fundamental question: in a community shaped by so many different eras of history, which history should guide the future?
The rubble of the Lahaina Jodo Mission in Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Aug. 2, 2024. Much of the fire-ravaged community on the island of Maui has been cleared of debris. But for a town steeped in history, there are thorny questions about what the future should look like. (Philip Cheung/The New York Times)
Perhaps nowhere is the discussion more fraught than along the city’s famed Front Street.
Long ago, it was where King Kamehameha I built a palace and established a capital, an area more recently populated by shops and restaurants.
In rebuilding, some are calling for a greater emphasis on the indigenous past by restoring Hawaiian street names and turning the heart of Front Street into a walking boulevard. Famed seafood restaurant Kimo’s, a modern landmark, would be gone or relocated.
But in other corners, there is deep wariness to a rollback from the waterfront.
A commercial building that was destroyed by the August 2023 wildfire, on Front Street in Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Aug. 1, 2024. Front Street is where King Kamehameha I built a palace and established a capital. The area was more recently populated by shops and restaurants. (Philip Cheung/The New York Times)
Kaleo Schneider and her family own a Front Street building along the water that before the fire housed several businesses, including Honolulu Cookie Co and a pineapple-themed gift shop. The property has been in the family for more than 110 years.
Schneider, a native Hawaiian who lives on the island of Oahu, said her family’s ownership of the building dated back to her great-grandparents.
Many of the property owners along Front Street have similar ties to the area, she said, and she is adamant that they are an integral part of the community’s history.
“I’ve heard discussion about moving Lahaina. But then it’s not Lahaina, is it?” Schneider said. “Lahaina is on the water. The charm is on the water.”
Schneider at her commercial property destroyed by the August 2023 wildfire on Front Street in Lahaina. Schneider and her family own a Front Street building along the water that before the fire housed several businesses, including Honolulu Cookie Company and a pineapple-themed gift shop. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
Over the years, there have been other efforts to restore more of Lahaina’s native history, including the buildings from the Hawaiian kingdom, particularly on the former inland island of Moku’ula, where King Kamehameha III had a private residence in the middle of a freshwater fish pond that native Hawaiian tradition considers to be the sacred home of a protective goddess.
After the rise of plantations and their increasing demand for water, the fish pond turned into a stagnant swamp, and in the early 1900s, Lahaina businessmen initiated a project to fill it and turn it into a baseball park, a facility that has since been abandoned.
Such burials of native history have led Lahaina to lose its true identity, said Ke’eaumoku Kapu, who led the neighbouring Na ‘Aikane o Maui Cultural and Research Centre, which was destroyed in the fire.
Gensho Hara, 88, resident minister of the Lahaina Jodo Mission, inspecting the damage at the temple destroyed by the August 2023 wildfire in Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Much of the fire-ravaged community on the island of Maui has been cleared of debris. But for a town steeped in history, there are thorny questions about what the future should look like. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
He said proposals to restore Moku’ula and alter street names, along with further emphasis on the island’s cultural history, could help restore some of that identity.
Stevan Walton, another resident, is looking to rebuild his home next to the Moku’ula property.
He would welcome the historical restoration, he said, if the project was well implemented and maintained. But he worries that it could once again fall into neglect and become a breeding ground for mosquitoes at a time when health officials have been warning about cases of dengue fever.
He also fears that plans to establish the property next door as part of a “cultural corridor” could lead to a broader effort to draw in other properties.
Gensho Hara, 88, resident minister of the Lahaina Jodo Mission, inspecting the damage at the temple destroyed by the August 2023 wildfire in Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Much of the fire-ravaged community on the island of Maui has been cleared of debris. But for a town steeped in history, there are thorny questions about what the future should look like. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
Hawaii Governor Josh Green said most of the restoration would occur on state and county land, but added that he would later look at property trades for possible further expansion.
There is no doubt that Lahaina will undergo change, Green said.
Some of the neighbourhoods burned were too dense, he said, with unpermitted second or third homes added on, and streets that were so crowded with vehicles that it hampered escape efforts.
“There are gigantic rebuilding questions,” he said.
Green said up to one-third of Lahaina residents may have to rebuild somewhere other than where they previously lived.
A roadside memorial for the victims of the August 2023 wildfire in Lahaina. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
State and school district officials are hoping to make an additional 400ha of publicly owned land on the hillside above town available to relocating property owners, he said.
On the contentious question of whether the businesses on the Front Street waterfront will be allowed to return, Green said that will be up to the Lahaina community to decide.
It may be too important for the community’s recovery, psychologically, to do anything other than rebuild the town as it previously was, he said. But he added that he would support at least some changes in the face of rising sea levels.
Maui has worked in recent years to modernise its shoreline management rules to face climate change and to better protect delicate coastal ecosystems. Many old structures would not meet those codes if they were constructed today, especially in places such as Front Street.
Local officials have provided minimal guidance on what the requirements will be for rebuilding along the shoreline. A statement from the county said each parcel “is a special case”.
A house in a rebuilding process is seen through a burned vehicle frame in Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Aug. 2, 2024. In recent months, officials have begun hosting meetings for residents and business owners to talk about their neighborhoods and the rebuilding process. (Philip Cheung/The New York Times)
That uncertainty has left many property owners waiting for answers.
At the Lahaina Jodo Mission, a Buddhist mission founded in 1912 whose key buildings were destroyed in the fire, Yayoi Hara, the daughter of the minister, said her family was still trying to determine how to proceed.
The mission is looking to rebuild not only its burned out temple and three-storey pagoda, but a series of residences that were steps away from the shore.
With part of their property along the beach already confronted with erosion in the past, Hara said, mission leaders are prepared to lead the community by example, and adjust their waterfront to better prepare for the future. — ©2024 The New York Times Company
