Tammy Kaililaau’s home of 20 years burned to the ground. People she knows burned in the fire, too. Less than a week later, she said, she got a Facebook message from someone in real estate. Residents have been warning one another on social media that developers may try to buy their land, so Kaililaau ignored it.
“Why are they doing that? You know, people burned in the fire,” she said Monday. “It’s hard. It’s rough, really rough.” Many Maui residents are mourning the loss of their homes and pledging to stay put after the deadliest wildfires in the U.S. in more than a century destroyed neighborhoods across the island.
They said they are worried that if insurance payouts and government assistance don’t come fast enough, survivors may lose hope and sell to people who will drastically change their beloved but rapidly gentrifying community.
In the days since the fires struck, developers have reached out about acquiring the land islanders and their families have lived on for years, if not generations.
John Dimuro, who has lived on the island for more than 40 years and works for Marriott in West Maui, said locals don’t want big companies or wealthy people buying up land and developing it. “The government should just say ‘No, you’re not allowed to develop,'” he said. “Say no, just flat-out no.”
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said he has reached out to the state’s attorney general to explore the possibility of imposing a moratorium on sales of damaged or destroyed properties. Green said the fires destroyed more than 2,200 structures, 86% of which are residential.
“Moreover, I would caution people that it’s going to be a very long time before any growth or housing will be built,” he said. “You will be pretty poorly informed if you try to steal land from our people and then build here.”
The governor’s words don’t seem to have deterred developers, locals say.
Mark Stefl, 67, said he, too, has been approached by developers, and the offer felt like being kicked while he was down. On Monday, Stefl had just tried and failed to get a document from the county that would let him pass the roadblocks and return to Lahaina, the centuries-old former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
The town of about 13,000 people was largely destroyed by flames last week. “I don’t know what the h*ll’s going on. Our government is so inept right now,” he said. “I’m so pissed off.”
He and his wife have lost their jobs, and he worries that he’ll still have to make mortgage payments on the destroyed property and that he won’t get federal assistance because he has insurance. Still, he said, he has to rebuild. In the 24 years he has lived in the area, he has had two other homes burn, including once during a hurricane. Each time he has rebuilt.
