Council to consider regulating vacation rentals

[MarkD]

from geochem: There have been times when insufficient accommodations were available for the tourists

I grant I have been mistaken regarding the shortage of rooms at times. And I concede your point about the difficulty of changing TVR rules down the road.

But IMO there is underestimation of the adverse impacts of the TVR trend:

1. In the absence of regulation, there is virtually no limit to the number of homeowners who can offer lodging to tourists nationwide, affecting our country's hotel industry. (Hawaii's visitor industry is robust, so both models will likely prosper here for a long time. Might not be the case in some mainland cities.)

My understanding is that Kona hotels pay a pretty good employee wage. How much do you think a homeowner will pay some guy to come in and clean his B&B?

I doubt those cleaners will get long-term employment. Or benefits. e.g., freelance cleaner Joe works for 6-8 different property owners, 3-5 hours per week for each. We can probably call that a transfer from hotel employment to Craigslist employment.

2. East Hawaii island excluded, Hawaii's affordable housing stock is steadily losing size because of conversion of rentals to TVRs.