Mayor Kirk Caldwell believes the current draft of the omnibus vacation­-rental bill up for a final vote by the City Council today doesn’t allow for enough permits to be issued.

Still, he said it’s urgent that the Council pass something soon. “At the end of the day, we need to get something passed … if this fails, I think it’s over for a while and all you’d have is all these illegal vacation rentals out there and maybe the state will be collecting the taxes on them.”

The short-term vacation rental bill is on the agenda for the City Council meeting that begins 10 a.m. in the Council’s third-floor chambers in Honolulu Hale. The public will be allowed to testify before the vote.

Last week all five Council members who attended a Planning Committee meeting voted to move the bill on to the full Council. The nine-member Council could take the final vote on the bill today or decide to delay a vote.

Councilwoman Kymberly Pine, whose West Oahu neighborhoods have been seeing a surge in vacation rentals, voted for the bill in committee with reservations. She said more time is needed to study recent changes to the bill.

“We’re this close to getting a bill passed,” Caldwell told reporters last week.

The estimated number of vacation rentals on the island range from 6,000 to 25,000.

“I think it’s a lot,” the mayor said. “They’re all over the place … the evidence is clear just because you have an increase in visitors but a drop in spending. It’s because they’re not spending in the more high-end, traditional hotel area. They’re spending, and saving money, by being in our neighborhoods.”

The current Council draft of Bill 89 (2019) allows for an estimated 1,715 new vacation rental permits to be issued across Oahu, calculated by determining 0.5% of the available residential units in each of the city’s eight development plan districts. All would need to be hosted vacation units, also known as bed-and-breakfast establishments, where the owner and operator lives on site.

Caldwell said more than 1,715 can be allowed.

Through the Department of Planning and Permitting, Caldwell had earlier proposed that 1% of available residential units be allowed for vacation rentals, essentially double what the Council is now proposing. And unlike the latest Council version, the Caldwell plan called for allowing some of those vacation units to be whole-home units.

Those who have been testifying on behalf of the vacation rental industry have warned that a majority of their clients conduct whole-home vacation rentals and not allowing a path to legalization for them would devastate not just their industry, but the overall Oahu economy.

Caldwell said he is “open to a balance” in which both hosted and whole-home vacation rentals would be allowed “in a way that doesn’t have an impact on community.”

He noted that interim Council Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi introduced a draft of the bill that would allow for some whole-home vacation rentals, provided the owner/ operator can show proof of having a homeowner exemption on a second Oahu property. That proposal failed to muster enough support at the Planning Committee meeting.

That proposal “seemed like a step in the right direction to find some balance and I’d still be open to something like that,” Caldwell said.

However, he said, whether or not whole-home vacation rentals are included would not be a deal-breaker for him. “It’s about the art of the possible, it’s not the perfect, it’s the good.”

Several proposed amendments to the bill are expected to be introduced today.

SHORT-TERM RENTAL BILL

>> On the agenda for the City Council meeting today.

>> Meeting begins at 10 a.m.

>> Short-term rental bill is mid-way through the agenda.

>> Meeting will be held in the third floor Council chambers in Honolulu Hale.

>> The public will be allowed to testify before the vote.