11-24-2018, 03:47 AM
`I have been following this bill closely from the start. No new stand alone VRs are allowed under this bill (unless you have one in a resort zone like Councilperson Karen Eoff who authored the bill.) In fact, only ones that have already been paying taxes will be allowed to continue after getting a non-conforming use certificate. These certificates will not transfer with the sale of a property. This means that over time as properties are sold, vacation rentals will disappear. Two proponents of the bill have expressed a desire to also regulate/shut down hosted vacation rentals as well. The council in their infinite wisdom expressly rejected the option of studying the financial impact of this bill on the County. In fact, this will devastate the economy over time while benefiting the hotel industry in the long run. For example, on the Hilo side there are about 1000 hotel rooms available. In 2016, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, there were an average of 6000 visitors staying overnight on Hilo side. Unless there were an average of 6 people in a room per night, most of those visitors stayed in vacation rentals. Without those vacation rentals, there won’t be as many visitors and their dollars. At $200 per day per visitor, that is about $800,000 per day that won’t be trickling down into our economy-on Hilo side alone. But the Council didn’t want to hear it. In fact, in almost a year of hearing and testimonies they took into account almost nothing that was said to them. The bill passed with only slight changes from the original version.