vacation rental bill postponed (again, still)

[kalakoa]

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2018...testimony/

The usual Council Churn ... but:

Puna Councilwoman Eileen O'Hara tried to sweeten the deal by adding language that would allow the planning director to accept applications for new short-term vacation rentals to replace those lost during an emergency. She estimated as many as 400 vacation rentals, almost half of the inventory in her district, were destroyed by lava flows.
...
Other officials were unsure about allowing vacation rentals to be rebuilt when the point of the bill is to move them out of inappropriate zones.
...
The measure is an attempt to prohibit unhosted short-term rentals in residential and agricultural zones, while allowing them in hotel and resort zones as well as commercial districts.

As usual, I'm left with a dumb question: where, exactly, are the "appropriate zones" in Puna? Meeting the stated intent would require County to upzone substantial acreage in order to meet their own requirements.

Meanwhile, we have this "$5M shortfall" in the budget -- just on real estate taxes, nobody has yet calculated the tourism decline due to the loss of "400 short-term vacation rentals".

Can we get some real governance, please?

[Punatic007]

Eileen Ohara is attempting to add insurmountable criterion for Puna vacation rentals such as all surrounding neighbors must approve. What the h3ll is her problem? The vast majority of vacation rental people run productive businesses that do not bother the neighbors. Mine are much lower impact that the neighbors, no week-end projects, gone all day and out to dinner at night, back to sleep, rinse and repeat. We bring so much money to the island and to Puna businesses. We give, give and give not to mention collecting the anti-aloha 14.4% taxes on the bill including cleaning fee. I've had to keep my costs lower to offset the ridiculously high taxes. Nothing says aloha like we charge you triple taxes. What's the deal? Are they taking pay-offs from the hotel industry?

[geochem]

quote:

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Originally posted by Punatic007

Eileen Ohara is attempting to add insurmountable criterion for Puna vacation rentals .... What's the deal? Are they taking pay-offs from the hotel industry?

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More likely the unions... If your house cleaners were unionized, maybe you would have a chance....

[leilanidude]

I lived in Vacationland a number of years back and thoroughly enjoyed the large mix of vacation rentals that area had. The reasons?

They went to bed early.
They didn't yell and scream at each other.
Rental cars are quiet - no loud diesel trucks or wannabe racers.
They didn't have dogs and roosters.
They were always polite.
The homes were always very well maintained with no garbage piled up.
The places were also routinely empty (vacant) unlike real residents who are always home.

[Punatic007]

My point is there is something very fishy about this bill, it's not even detoured by a giant river of lava!

Perhaps the ethics board needs to be involved, wait...never mind.

Perhaps we need to keep in mind who is screwing over our economy when we go to vote next time.

[kalakoa]

keep in mind who is screwing over our economy when we go to vote

As long as we're getting screwed, we might as well have a nice dinner first, and maybe some lube... but I don't even expect that much, no matter who we "vote" for.

[Punatic007]

We've got international attention, perhaps with that in mind, all will play fair?

[BillyB]

Originally posted by Punatic007

Eileen Ohara is attempting to add insurmountable criterion for Puna vacation rentals .... What's the deal? Are they taking pay-offs from the hotel industry?

Maybe the Ferocious Fowl lobby has gotten to her. Noisy tourists can disturb those little peckers trying to get some sleep.