As a follow-up to the petition we launched in 2021 with over 2000 signatures, here’s what Maui Causes just wrote RE agent, Tyler Coons about Brown’s $13 Million listing:
Hi Tyler,
Thanks for our conversation today about your recent for-sale listing of Greg Brown’s Napili “Hotel”. https://www.napilibeachhouse.com/
The county’s multiple failures to properly administer Brown’s permit applications through illegal payoffs, or just plain poor management, does not absolve him from the fraud he perpetrated in his SMA applications in order to subvert community input.
That was one of the lessons learned at Montana Beach where the developer turned around and sued the County for allowing him to build with violations baked into his plans: “You f’d up when you let me build it”. To stop that from happening ever again, the County Council added to the rules language that says County approval of any permit does not protect a developer from being forced to fix their project if it is later determined to be deficient.
Based on what Brown built, his SMA permit exemption application was clearly fraudulent: more than 2 stories, more than 7,500 sq ft, not a single-family home.
However he accomplished it, Brown’s violations were also allowed to be baked into his plans when the County let him build using hotel standards for height and setbacks after submitting an SMA exemption application stating he was building a single-family home.
If you read his building plans (see attached detail), the height and setbacks clearly reference Title 19.14.050 which are Hotel H1 specs, not single-family home specs.
https://library.municode.com/hi/county_of_maui/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT19ZO_ARTIICOZOPR_CH19.14HODI_19.14.050DEST
Nowhere on Maui is a single-family home allowed to be taller than 30ft from original grade, this place towers at 49.5ft above original grade.
Technically, the layout is clearly a two-unit duplex with a common entry and elevator, which is also not a single-family home.
As per SMA rules under the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act, Brown’s “Hotel” could only have been legally built for use as a single-family home if the planning commission agreed to allow it after receiving community input.
Brown’s fraudulent applications subverted that required community input and just because he got away with it at the time does not mean he’s in the clear.
The lessons learned at Kahoma Villages, where many years after the fact the state supreme court agreed that community input was also wrongfully subverted, is that we need to block any sale of the property now so that no third-party is injured later by court decisions that we are sure to win eventually.
So, now that it is listed for sale, you can expect the community to protect its future interests, and the interests of any would-be buyer, by filing an injunction to block the sale.
Chris Salem’s current wrongful termination case also ties into Brown’s Hotel, because early on in the construction, as a County employee specifically tasked by the Mayor to identify and write legislation to close abused loopholes in the County’s permitting process, Salem blew the whistle with internal County reports of Brown’s permit fraud and departmental mismanagement and was wrongfully terminated when he responded to community outrage and pursued the matter.
Of course, all of the above needs to go into your listing disclosure or else you become liable.
The upshot is that just as the community stopped Brown from doing short-term rentals when you first listed it for rent, the community will stop him from selling the place now. We haven’t bothered to go down this road until it was listed, and now we will.
Some want to see the place razed. Personally, I think that’s a waste as the community does have needs that the structure can serve. The attached image expresses my thoughts on how it could be repurposed as an elder-care, assisted living, and rehab facility after Brown at least gets a tax write-off for donating it entirely to a local community service organization.
Thanks for listening. I’m sure we’ll talk again.
Sam Small
Director, Maui Causes.
(973) 271-0788
www.MauiCauses.org
