Maui locals worry wealthy outsiders will buy out their destroyed town after wildfires

A tattoo with the words “Lahaina Grown” is inked on Richy Palalay’s forearms — a marking he has had since he was 16, emblematic of his love for his Maui hometown.

In the last decade, with a persistent housing shortage, many residents like Palalay have been displaced as wealthy transplants and second-home buyers buy up the island.

Then, on Aug. 8, wildfires swept throughout Lahaina in an instant, burning the entire area to a crisp, with a death toll now up to 99 people and only 25% of the burn area searched.

The catastrophic event, combined with the previous struggles of Native Hawaiian and local-born residents, have left a huge question mark on their future.

“I’m more concerned of big land developers coming in and seeing this charred land as an opportunity to rebuild,” Palalay told local Los Angeles station KTLA on Saturday at a shelter for evacuees.

Hotels and condos “that we can’t afford, that we can’t afford to live in — that’s what we’re afraid of,” he explained.

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Palalay, 25, was born and raised in Lahaina and began working at an oceanfront seafood restaurant in town at 16, eventually working his way up to be kitchen supervisor and most recently training to be a sous chef, he told the outlet.

His life came to a halt when what is now known as the deadliest wildfire the United States has seen in a century took place.

Maui County estimates more than 80% of the more than 2,700 structures in the town were damaged or destroyed with some 4,500 residents now in need of shelter.

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Palalay told KTLA the restaurant where he worked, his neighborhood, his friends’ homes and possibly his four-bedroom house where he pays $1,000 per month in rent for a room were torched in the blaze.

“Lahaina is my home. Lahaina is my pride. My life. My joy,” he said, adding that the town, which was once the capital of the former Hawaiian kingdom in the 1800s, gave him “lessons of love, struggle, discrimination, passion, division and unity you could not fathom.”

Home prices in the last two decades have skyrocketed in Maui, averaging $1.2 million today and putting the typical wage-earner out of reach for a home. Even a condo holds a median price of $850,000.

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Sterling Higa, the executive director of Housing Hawaii’s Future, a nonprofit organization that advocates for more housing in Hawaii, said the town is home to many properties that have been in the hands of local families for generations.

“So a lot of more recent arrivals — typically from the American mainland who have more money and can buy homes at a higher price — were to some extent displacing local families in Lahaina,” Higa told KTLA.

There are options for residents with government aid or insurance who may have access to funds to rebuild, but they might not see those payouts for years, leaving many in a stalemate in the interim.

“As they deal with this — the frustration of fighting insurance companies or fighting [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] — many of them may well leave because there are no other options,” Higa said.

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Palalay, however, vows to stay.

“I don’t have any money to help rebuild. I’ll put on a construction hat and help get this ship going. I’m not going to leave this place,” he said. “Where am I going to go?”

During a FEMA visit to Lahaina, Gov. Josh Green told journalists that he won’t let Lahaina get too expensive for locals after rebuilding.

“We want Lahaina to be a part of Hawaii forever,” Green said. “We don’t want it to be another example of people being priced out of paradise.”