If you're touring Makena this fall and a listing agent mentions the 652-home project the county just approved as a reason to wait for prices to soften, ask a follow-up question before you believe it: where, exactly, are those homes going, and who is actually allowed to buy them.
The Maui Planning Commission gave its approval this month to Mākena Mauka, a master-planned community that will eventually bring 652 residences to roughly 1,044 acres above Mākena Alanui Road. Maui Now reported August 29 that the project cleared its Special Management Area Use Permit hearing after developers cut the unit count by 27 percent from the original 900-home proposal, in response to community pushback that had been building since 2024. Days earlier, the state accepted the project's Final Environmental Impact Statement, a required step before the county could move it forward.
That is a real number, and it is easy to read it the wrong way. Six hundred fifty-two new homes sounds like a supply story for a neighborhood where, as of this summer, only seven single-family properties were listed for sale, priced between $9 million and $29.9 million. But the supply story falls apart as soon as you look at where the homes sit, who can rent them, and how long the project actually takes to build.
What got approved, and what didn't
The project is a joint venture led by AREG AC Makena Propco LLC, with Munekiyo Hiraga serving as lead planning consultant. Of the 652 total units, 543 will be market-rate and 109 will be onsite residential workforce housing. Mark Roy, the project's lead planner and a vice president at Munekiyo Hiraga, told the Planning Commission that the reduction from 900 to 652 units came directly from community feedback gathered over the past two years. The plan also folds in the existing Mākena North Golf Course and the currently closed Mākena South Course, which the developer says will be renovated, along with about 135,000 square feet of golf operations and support buildings.
The Planning Commission's approval covers the Special Management Area permit. It does not finish the entitlement process. The developer still needs additional state and Maui County approvals before ground breaks, and Roy's own timeline puts construction starting in 2028, unfolding across three roughly 10-year phases. Even the workforce units, which will be built first, sit inside a build-out that stretches into the 2050s.
Why "mauka" is the word that matters most
Everything in this project sits mauka, meaning upland, of Mākena Alanui Road. That single geographic fact separates it from the market you are actually shopping in if you are looking at Makena's beachfront and near-shore inventory. Makena's luxury resale market is built around roughly 80 homes that front more than four miles of coastline, plus a small handful of gated condominium communities along the water. None of the new 652 units occupy that ground. They sit on the hillside above Mākena State Park, on land that has never been part of the oceanfront comp set that drives pricing at properties like those along Maluaka Beach or Poolenalena.
Here's how the two markets actually compare:
| Makena's existing coastal luxury market | Mākena Mauka | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Oceanfront and near-shore parcels along the coastline | Entirely upland of Mākena Alanui Road |
| Inventory | About 80 homes front the coastline; 7 active single-family listings this summer, $9M to $29.9M | 652 total units: 543 market-rate, 109 workforce |
| Short-term rental use | Common where HOA and county rules allow | Prohibited under project covenants |
| Expected occupancy | Full-time and part-time luxury residences | About 90 percent projected to be part-time homes, per developer estimates |
| Timeline | Available now | Construction begins 2028, phased over three decades |
The clause that removes it from the investor conversation entirely
If you're the kind of buyer weighing Makena against Wailea for a short-term rental play, there is a detail in the approval that should end that comparison quickly. Vacation rentals will not be allowed anywhere inside the Mākena Mauka project area. That single covenant takes the entire development out of the conversation for anyone buying with rental income in mind, which is a meaningful share of the buyers currently active in South Maui.
It also complicates the idea that this project solves Maui's housing supply problem in any straightforward way. Based on similar communities the developer has built elsewhere, project documents estimate that about 90 percent of the development's residential units will function as part-time homes rather than primary residences. The 109 workforce units, about 17 percent of the total, are the clearest carve-out for local, primary-residence buyers. The remaining 543 market-rate units are the ones expected to behave like second homes, which means the project adds meaningfully to Makena's housing count on paper while adding far less to primary-residence supply in practice.
That same tension surfaced in testimony at the August 11 hearing. Heidi Guth, founder of the consulting firm Kai Ho'oulu, surveyed Mākena residents as part of a social impact assessment and told commissioners that residents had
strong concerns that the development would not be good for local people, the land or other resources of Maui
Guth said water and traffic topped the list of resident concerns. Those concerns fed into 50 separate mitigation commitments the developer adopted, the most significant being the 248-unit cut itself, along with a 50 percent reduction in project parking and the relocation of 16 wiliwili trees this year alone, with 1,200 seedlings propagated in an onsite greenhouse.
The infrastructure questions that outlast the approval
Two practical details are worth knowing if you're evaluating property anywhere near this corridor over the next several years. First, water. The project site has no domestic county water service outside of the golf course buildings. Drinking water for the market-rate homes will come from a private system built around three existing brackish wells, with a portion treated through reverse osmosis. Kay Anderson of Wailea808 raised questions at the hearing about where the energy to run that desalination system will come from, a question that has not yet been fully answered in public documents.
Second, traffic. Attorney Cal Chipchase confirmed the project is contributing to the widening of Piʻilani Highway, though its share of that cost has not changed through the redesign. Traffic engineer Mike Packard of SSFM International told the commission that onsite retail, extended bus routes, and beach shuttles are meant to offset added trips, and that the development team does not expect a meaningful traffic impact on the surrounding area. Whether that holds up once construction begins in 2028 is something buyers with a longer time horizon should keep an eye on, particularly if you're weighing a Makena purchase against a comparable one in Wailea, where road access to the resort core is more direct.
What this means if you're actually comparing Wailea and Makena right now
The combined Wailea and Makena single-family median has sat close to $2.8 million for most of 2026, well above the island-wide median of roughly $1.23 million through July, according to Realtors Association of Maui figures. That gap exists because inventory in the resort core, especially Makena's oceanfront tier, has stayed structurally thin. Nothing in the Mākena Mauka approval changes that tier. The project adds homes to a different market entirely, sitting on different land, sold under different rules, delivered on a different clock.
If you're comparing neighborhoods for a purchase in the next one to three years, the approval is worth knowing about for context, particularly if you plan to hold the property for decades and care about long-term traffic and water infrastructure in the area. But it is not a reason to expect softer pricing on the coastal properties that define Makena's luxury market today, and it is not a workaround if short-term rental income is part of your plan.
FAQ
Will the 652 new homes in Mākena Mauka lower prices for Makena's beachfront estates? There is no structural reason to expect that. The new project sits entirely mauka of the coastline, targets a different buyer profile, and won't begin construction until 2028 at the earliest.
Can I use a home in Mākena Mauka as a vacation rental? No. Short-term rentals are prohibited under the project's covenants, which removes it from consideration for investors focused on rental income.
When will homes in Mākena Mauka actually be available? Construction is planned to start in 2028 and unfold in three roughly 10-year phases. The project still needs additional state and Maui County approvals beyond the Planning Commission's Special Management Area permit before that timeline can be considered firm.
If you're weighing Makena against Wailea, or trying to read what a project years from delivery actually means for a purchase you're making today, that's the kind of question worth a direct conversation rather than a guess. Mark Budaska works exclusively in South Maui's resort and luxury market and can walk you through what's active, what's pending, and what's still years away. Let's Connect — Schedule a private consultation.
