Hawaii County, HI Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

3 sets the mandatory landscaping and screening standards for parking lots and loading spaces, and subsection (d), 'Xeriscape and native Hawaiian plant species shall be encouraged,' is the only place in the zoning code that speaks directly to native planting choices. It is worded as encouragement rather than a requirement, unlike the numeric standards around it: subsection (a) requires one canopy-form tree with at least a two-inch caliper for every twelve parking stalls in lots with more than twelve stalls, planted in a tree well of at least thirty square feet, sited to spread shade evenly across the lot; subsection (b) requires parking lots of five or more spaces to be screened from adjoining residential-district lots (RS, RD, RM, RCX, or RA) by walls, continuous hedges, or earth berms at least forty-two inches high; and subsection (c) requires loading spaces adjoining those same residential districts to be screened by a six-foot wall.

Because the code does not define 'encouraged' or attach any enforcement mechanism to subsection (d), a property owner satisfying the canopy-tree and screening requirements with non-native ornamental species is not in violation for skipping native planting: the wording gives the planning director grounds to favor native species during plan review, not to condition approval on using them. Subsection (e) does carry a real obligation, requiring the property owner to maintain all landscaping once installed, native or not, so a xeriscape or native planting choice still has to be kept alive and presentable rather than left to die back.

Outside this parking-lot and loading-area context, the zoning code has no separate native-plant mandate or allowance for residential yards; the closest analogous concept in the County Code, native forest dedication under the real property tax chapter, applies only to large forested parcels seeking a tax classification and has nothing to do with ordinary yard or parking-lot landscaping.