After hearing more than four hours of sometimes emotional testimony from supporters and detractors of vacation rentals, the City Council Zoning and Housing Committee on Thursday voted to advance four proposals aimed at addressing the complicated issue.
Some of the proposals seek better enforcement and additional safeguards against bed-and-breakfast establishments and other short-term vacation businesses while others try to set up a process to allow for more such establishments. At least one calls for a little of both.
Supporters of B&Bs and transient vacation units say the rentals provide an alternative type of accommodation for visitors, give operators added income and bolster their communities. Opponents say they create problems for residential neighborhoods including traffic, parking and noise; take away from badly needed affordable units for Oahu residents during a housing crunch; and, in many cases, are operating illegally.
Council Zoning Chairwoman Kymberly Pine recommended to committee members that they forward all four resolutions to the full Council for a final vote because all nine members should be able to “vote their conscience.”
Pine noted that all four proposals are in preliminary stages. Even if the Council passes the resolutions, they simply instruct the Department of Planning and Permitting to draft and submit bills that would then separately have to receive approval from the Council.
She said she was moved most by those who testified they might lose their homes if they couldn’t augment their income with a B&B or vacation rental, and those who testified that vacation rentals are driving up monthly rental prices to the point where they are being priced out of the market.
“We’ve never had a situation like this in Hawaii ever,” Pine said. “And so while we have an industry that is thriving and helping some of our people, at what cost are we going to let that continue to happen?”
Acting city Planning Director Kathy Sokugawa said DPP is close to finalizing its own proposal regarding policy for B&B and transient vacation rentals and will incorporate ideas from the resolutions into it.
“We appreciate all of the ideas coming out of City Council,” she said. “Some of them are very creative, and we’d like to take a little longer to consider them.”
At the heart of the current draft is a plan to increase the fines for those who violate vacation rental rules to a minimum of $10,000 for a second violation and $50,000 for a third, Sokugawa said. By law a first occurrence requires no more than a notice of violation to be issued, she said.
Asked whether additional inspectors would help deal with complaints, Sokugawa said even more important are “better tools” such as stricter laws and improved software that would help inspectors to better monitor for potential violations.
Mayor Kirk Caldwell is also about to convene a task force of stakeholders from all sides of the issue to help come up with recommendations, she said.
At least two of the proposals call for regulations on Airbnb and other online marketplace sites that advertise vacation rentals, requiring them to report information about operators to the city and/or provide more information on the ads themselves.
David Louie, an attorney for Airbnb, said federal court rulings make it clear requiring Airbnb or other internet sites to provide information on the entities running ads on their websites cannot be done without due process such as search warrants.
“When you ask for the hosting platform to provide these reports that say, ‘You gotta provide all this information,’ that’s a direct violation” of a federal law, said Louie, a former state attorney general.
Resolution 17-52 seemed to generate the most public discussion from both vacation rental fans and detractors.
The proposal calls for regulations on online marketplace sites, allows neighbors of vacation rentals to compel the city to enforce violations and allows neighbors to take legal action against violators directly.
Homeowner Kimberly Owen said she and her husband started doing a vacation rental at their house to make ends meet after they were forced to close their business of 25 years. “We needed to do something to continue paying our mortgage,” she said.
She and her husband follow the law and are respectful of neighbors, making sure there is enough space in their driveway for visitors’ vehicles.
Karen Herman, a retired schoolteacher, said she is a onetime homeowner who lost her home to foreclosure due to unforeseen circumstances.
She has the money to rent at a market rate, but most of the units she’s found in ads are for high-priced vacation rentals. “They have saturated the market and taken it out of my reach,” she said. “I can’t find a rental here.”
The other resolutions that advance Thursday:
Resolution 17-163, establishing a process for allowing an unspecified but “limited number” of new B&B and transient vacation unit, or TVU, permits to be issued.
Resolution 17-164, allowing the city to issue a lien against a property whose owner violates TVU or B&B law, requires advertisements of vacation rentals to include the addresses and certificate numbers, and allows for advertisements to be used as evidence against an operator. It also bars a TVU or B&B permit from being transferred via sale of a property.
Resolution 17-301, establishing a process allowing for a limited number of bed-and-breakfast permits, specifically no more than 0.5 percent of all Oahu residential properties, and for each of the nine Council districts no more than one-third of the citywide total allowed.
