Council to consider regulating vacation rentals

[Chunkster]

quote:

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Originally posted by My 2 cents

I guess I do have a question though. If she thought it was all on the up and up, why did she lie about it?

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Because there is no real ethics enforcement, she didn't think anyone would notice, and she thinks it doesn't matter because her case is "special." But mainly it's because she's a Hawaii politician and that's just what they routinely do . . . and get away with.

[kalakoa]

that's just what they routinely do . . . and get away with

...and we pay for it.

[robguz]

West Hawaii Today is calling on Eoff to pull the bill and recuse herself from similar legislation in the future. http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2018/02/1...ntal-bill/

[Chunkster]

The editor of WHT must be highly aggravated about this because they rarely publish editorials critical of local politicians. FWIW, the HTH seems even less likely to do it.

[kalakoa]

Bill 108 "on hold" while the Ethics Board decides how best to not sanction Eoff:

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2018...e-on-hold/

Funny thing, County can't seem to enforce any of the existing "nuisance" rules already on the books -- but vacation rentals are somehow different enough to justify a $25K fine for noncompliance.

Here is my simple constructive suggestion: expand the existing "ag tourism" rules to include vacation rentals. One of these rules states that the property must be reachable via public road, which would make it impossible to have a vacation rental in any of the "private agricultural" subdivisions.

[PaulW]

The letter-to-the-editor in the HTH today was basically a rant against tourism in general and vacation rentals in particular.
People still seem to be in denial about how the economy of Hawaii works. The more tourists the better, they pay our taxes.

[leilanidude]

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2018...e-on-hold/

"There were 4,500 Big Island listings on the Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway websites Wednesday, according to Leleiwi resident Stefan Buchta, who’s compiling data for a presentation to the County Council."

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I doubt that very much. Many owners utilize more than one site.
Were all the duplicates removed? How would you even know?

[PaulW]

VRBO and HomeAway are the same company, I think all of them would be duplicates.

[kalakoa]

People still seem to be in denial about how the economy of Hawaii works.

Perhaps we should study it. Seriously. One good question: are we actually generating more or less revenue than the 4% share of TAT that State so generously shares with us?

[PaulW]

Each island should get its fair share of the generated tax, definitely. But threatening to shut the industry down if they don't is going too far.