2018-09-20 Leeward Exh B (Bill 108 re Short-term Vacation Rentals)

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And I have this whole list, but I’m just going to throw it along the wayside and think, and after I’ve heard everything today, the biggest problem here is the vacation rentals in the neighborhoods, I believe. I have a vacation rental in a neighborhood. And it’s a very successful vacation rental because I’m there, I monitor it, I make sure that our guests are complying to the rules of our neighborhood, I make sure that they are quiet, I make sure that they just abide by all the rules. I think it’s very important that if you are going to have a vacation rental on this island, that you have to be the responsible vacation rental owner, and make sure these rules are implemented because the neighbors in so many areas are suffering so much that they don’t have a neighborhood any longer. So I don’t know how you are going to do that, and I don’t know how we are going to do that, but I do have a few suggestions on how to do that. The 9 o’clock quiet, I think, is a little early. I live up from town and I hear music until 10 o’clock at night coming from the town and at 10 o’clock the music stops, and I think 10 o’clock is a fair time to say to the vacation renters, take it inside, keep it quiet. In four years I’ve had one complaint and it was rightly so, and I went over there and I said, “What are you doing? Get inside the house or leave.” And that’s how I think it needs to be. Be available 24/7. Somebody has to be available when something like that happens because they are not going to wait till morning. The neighbors didn’t get to sleep, if I hadn’t been there. I think the fines for people who are not compliant to the rules, the new rules that are happening, they need to be greater. Like they said, 100 dollars isn’t going to do anything for anybody when they are making 10,000 dollars a month; they are not going to care. So the fines have to be higher. I think that for the existing vacation rentals, that when we have to, when we need to register, if we’ve abided by all the rules, then I think that we should definitely get a permit. It should not be subjective to the person looking at it. And Airbnb has offered to pay taxes, to collect the taxes. I think that is so wonderful. They need to. There are too many people out there having their vacation rentals and they are not paying the taxes, and that’s wrong. It’s just so, it’s just so wrong. I use HomeAway a lot because they do collect the taxes. Makes it easier for me, it’s nice, it’s clean. And I think Airbnb would be helpful, if they also collected the taxes. So I think that’s something you can work on. And also, you can collect the data on who is running a vacation rental and they are not in the state, you know, who says that it’s their primary residence and it’s not their primary residence. There is data out there. It’s easy to get. So I stand behind you. I hope you all, I know, will do your job, and hopefully, we will come to a conclusion and all will be well. Thank you. UNGER: Thank you. DONOHO: Aloha, Chair Unger, Mayor Kim, Members of the Commission. Thank you for your time. I first want to commend and echo what Planning Director Yee said. My name is Stephanie Donoho. I’m from the Hāmākua District. I am representing the Kohala Coast Resort 23 EXHIBIT B