Where can you build homes in Hawaiʻi?

How to read the map

Each shape on the map is a zoning district, and its color says what the district is mainly for:

• Primarily Residential: housing is the main use.
• Mixed with Residential: housing alongside shops, offices, or other businesses.
• Nonresidential: housing isn't an independent use there, as in farm, industrial, and conservation districts.

Pick a kind of housing under the filters, and the map keeps color only where it's allowed. Everywhere else turns gray.

Click or tap a district to see what share of its county's zoned land allows what you picked. You'll also see the county's median household income, the share of households spending 30% or more of their income on housing, and the share of residents who are Native Hawaiian.

Overlays add context: waterways, federal and state land (which counties can't zone), Hawaiian Home Lands, rail stations, and State House and Senate districts. On a phone, the filters and overlays live in the bar along the bottom of the map.

The four counties at a glance

When you click a district, the map shows these Census figures for its county. Here they are side by side.

Try it on Oʻahu

• Small lots: where can you build a house on less than half an acre?

  The colored areas are where a single-family home is allowed on a small lot. Most of the rest of the island needs a much bigger lot, or doesn't allow homes at all.

  Open this view →

• Backyard homes: where can you add an ADU or ʻohana unit?

  An accessory dwelling unit lets one lot hold a second, smaller home. Click a district to read its rules. Some ʻohana units require family members to live in both homes.

  Open this view →

About the data

Our research team read the complete zoning codes of all four counties and recorded what each district allows, following the National Zoning Atlas's method. Federal and state land is left out of the acreage, because counties can't zone it. Every week, the map checks the team's research spreadsheet and updates when it has changed. County statistics come from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey.

How current the research is

The research team read each county's zoning code in 2022 and 2023, and Kauaʻi's by early 2024. Counties have changed some of their rules since. Here is the code each county's research is based on, and the changes we know of since then.

• Hawaiʻi County

  Hawaiʻi County Code, Chapter 25 (Zoning), in the edition published April 4, 2022.

  • Not on the map yet Bill 123, approved by the County Council in September 2024: up to three accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on a lot where ʻohana units are allowed.

• Honolulu

  Revised Ordinances of Honolulu 2021, Chapter 21 (the Land Use Ordinance), as it read in 2022 and 2023.

  • On the map Ordinance 25-2, in effect January 3, 2025: buildings with 3 or more homes are allowed in the B-1 and B-2 business districts, above ground-floor businesses or with some commercial space on the lot.
  • Not on the map yet The same ordinance, from September 30, 2025: an ADU and an ʻohana unit can share a lot, and ADUs can be larger.

• Maui

  Maui County Code, Title 19 (Zoning), as it read in 2022 and 2023. A full rewrite of Title 19 is underway.

  • Not on the map yet Ordinance 6013, in effect July 8, 2026: up to two accessory dwellings on qualifying residential lots on Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi.

• Kauaʻi

  Kauaʻi County Code, Chapter 8 (the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance), as it read by early 2024.

  • Not on the map yet Ordinance 1166, adopted October 2024: guest houses of up to 800 square feet, rentable long-term, in more districts.

• Statewide

  • Not on the map yet Act 39 (2024): every county must allow at least two ADUs on residential lots by December 31, 2026. The map's ADU rules will be updated after that deadline.

Each change on the map is listed cell by cell, with its source, in law-updates.csv. The research team's spreadsheet itself stays as they wrote it.