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67. Testimony from Pattie Freeman (Planning Department Exhibit 19 — March <br />27, 2024) <br />68. Testimony from Hokulani Porter (Planning Department Exhibit 20 — March <br />27, 2024 Email) <br />PLANNING ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACTS OF BILL 121 <br />Since 2018 the Planning Department has been instrumental in implementing and <br />regulating short-term vacation rentals, which are dwelling units of which the owner or <br />operator does not reside on the building site, that has no more than five bedrooms for <br />rent on the building site and is rented for thirty consecutive days or less. After Bill 108 <br />(STVR law) came into effect, it became clear that some modifications were needed to the <br />Hawaii County Code in order to address all types of vacation rentals. Such <br />modifications, would be up to the County Council and/or Planning Department to take <br />the first initiative. <br />With the operational standards in place, the County Council started their initiative <br />over two years ago and held multiple webinars as well as numerous constituent and <br />departmental meetings. An initial draft was released over a year ago that took the <br />information from the 2018 Hawaii Appleseed Reporti which provided an overview of <br />the impacts of TARs on Hawai`i's housing market, and combined it with information <br />published by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, which found <br />that approximately thirty thousand homes, or five percent of local housing units in the <br />State, operate as short-term vacation rentals, and thus Bill 121 was created to ensure that <br />all TARs are operating safely and legally. <br />Bill 121, expands and makes clearer the registration process and standards for <br />operation. Bill 121 goes further to identify higher fines for violations of the standards and <br />the possibility of having a registration revoked for repeat offenders, which is in alignment <br />with other counties that have substantial fines to discourage violations of the law. In <br />2018, the Planning Department made recommendations on Bill 108 to increase fines as <br />Maui County and Kauai County planning departments at the time had recommended that <br />the fines be high enough to discourage violations of the law. Bill 121, as proposed, has <br />' https://hiappleseed.org/publications/hawaii-vacation-rental-impact-study <br />2 https://uhero.hawaii.edu/short-term-vacation-rentals-and-housing-costs-in-hawai'i <br />-15- <br />