Regardless of how Hawaii’s counties have dealt with regulation of short-term rentals, it appears lawmakers still see a role for them to play. In one case, it’s simply to make it clearer in the Hawaii Revised Statutes that the counties have authority to rescind permission to operate a short-term rental in a residential area.

House Bill 84 would amend language in a law, HRS 46-4, which describes the counties’ authority to eliminate a nonconforming use permit. The changes would make it clear that this authority also would apply to nonconforming use permits for short-term rentals — such as those the city issued to Oahu residential properties before they were banned in 1989.

This is important because a relatively small number of vacation rentals were given permits for their nonconforming use.

The Department of Planning and Permitting is rightly supporting this change to underscore the city’s mandate of keeping land use cohesive. Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, DPP director, said in written testimony that vacation rentals “have disrupted the orderly scheme of development within the city.”

That proved especially to be true with the advent of online platforms such as Airbnb as well as social media. Years of community and visitor-industry pressure ultimately led to their regulation in various schemes statewide — on Oahu with Bill 41, which Mayor Rick Blangiardi signed last year.

There hasn’t been enough time to gauge the effects of the radical change in the vacation rental industry by the ordinance, which largely limits rentals to resort areas. So it’s too soon to know when, if ever, permitting for short-term rentals would resume.

The minimum rental term is set at 90 days, but a court challenge has, for now, barred enforcing that. Some owners had struck an earlier agreement with the city to enable a 30-day rental term.

Counties should have the clear authority to implement consistent land-use restrictions in all zones, so HB 84 has a strong rationale and should pass. In other jurisdictions, New Jersey being one, courts have upheld that right.

But in Hawaii the nonconforming use permit brings in more money than in most places, so legal challenges can be expected. Honolulu should not be in any rush to shut them down. Only if the limited number of these grandfathered rentals causes a problem would such a campaign be justified. So far, it hasn’t.