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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0675.278 2022-2024P / PUL(Al) .dill Ill COM, 675 Kuleana Mortgage LLG 4 Kamehameha Avenue Hllo, Hawall %720 Info.kuleana garnall.com Tel: 808-1135.9350 TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO HAWAII COUNTY COUNCIL BILL 121 <-i Hearing Date & Time: July 8, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. Location: Hawaii County Council Chambers TO; Hawaii County Council Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use & Development (PCPLUD) This testimony is submitted in opposition to Hawaii County Council Bill # 121. `O First and foremost, I call upon each Member of the PCPLUD and each Councilmember to vote in a manner that is consistent with the majority of Hawaii Island consitutents. Without equivocation, the testimony at each and every hearing which pertains to vacation rentals has been, and continues to be, overwhelmingly in opposition to further restrictions, limitations and governmental interference with the availability of vacation rentals that provides visitors to Hawaii Island an opportunity that is an alternative to extraordinarily costly, insulated hotels and resorts, and instead provides to visitors to our Island a unique experience of living, even for just a short time, within our community. Moreover, attempting to restrict vacation rentals in any measure whatsoever would further eviscerate the employment opportunites for Hawaii Island residents that make their livings, and supplement other incomes in housekeeping, landscaping, and maintenance for these properties and for the travelers who come to our Island. For all of these reasons, this Bill 121- any bill which would impose additional requirements and restrictions on vacation rentals - must be voted down. Later on, and to the contrary, we can then all work on developing frameworks that can foster and assist the vacation rental industry, as an important contributor to our economy. If the voting record of Councilmembers is any metric — which it is — it would appear that many sitting in the Council seats have either- forgotten or have chosen to ignore the fact that we are — whether one likes to admit it or not - a visitor -dependent economy. We do not have substantial manufacturing exports and our agricultural output is but a tiny fragment fraction of once -dominant, but now nearly three decades passed into history, sugar industry. I present this testimony to express increasing concern with County enactments and regulations which are irrefutably not representative of either the wishes of the majority of our population, nor conducive to the best interests of our community. As to STVRs, we have witnessed in the past several years, increasing restrictions on the abilities of property owners to be able to make their properties available to visitors, visitors to our islands who governmental agencies have espoused an increasing proclivity to relabel as "transients", a terra that is undeniably intentionally alienating. We, as the majority members of the public, did not request the imposition of regulations that threaten to essentially eradicate the cottage industry of making rooms, ohanas, yurts, farm dwellings and homes available to visitors, and those who wish to come here to experience life in Hawaii — an experience that is not available in a posh expensive hotel room. Instead, the imposition of those rules happened internally, at the county govermmnent level, and now potentially at the state legislative level Public input has been ostensibly invited, yet abjectly Comm. No. K 2 1 a �-Q Ref. To: Ref. lute m 2 disregarded. At one of the early STVR heaings (Bill 108), conducted in the Aupuni Center, 30 members of the public testified; I was one of them. Exactly 100% testified in opposition, yet those voices were compltely ignored by the County Council, and regulations were imposed shortly thereafter, without the benefit of a public vote. Look at the testimony on these bills that occurred on January 23, 2024: the overwhelming and very nearly unanimous testimony on these bills 121, 122 & 123: IT IS IN OPPOSITION. However, and notwithstanding this overwhelming opposition to Bill 121, by members of our community, from business trade associations, from small farm owners and managers, from indviduals whose livlihoods depend on these vacation rentals for their incomes as housekeepers and maintenance staff, the County Council members abjectly ignored this, and incredulously, voted in favor of these bills, This intentional ignoring of the plainly expressed wishes of the Hawaii County constituents can no longer be abided. There are those who contend that vacation rentals reduce the availability of long-term housing, or make it more expensive due to scarcity, yet there are no statistical reports which support such a notion. On the contrary, rendering these vacation and Hawaii experience rentals as "illegal" causes drastic loss of property caretaker and rental preparation jobs. It also takes GET, TAT and other tax revenue streams off the table, and would reduce our county and state tax resources. Hawaii County is essentially the last place in the entire state of Hawaii where there remain afforable places to live. But this teeters on the precipice of dissappearing. Lack of economical dwellings is NOT caused by housing units being utilized -- or even partially utilized (as in the cases of room rental, or rural ag dwelling experience farms) — as short-term vacation rentals. The dearth of available economical housing is directly caused by a) increasingly (and absurdly innapropriate for our locale) onerous building codes that may be relevant for California, but not here; b) construction material costs; c) construction labor costs, and d) sharply increasing land costs. While no governmental action is going to reduce b,c & d, rational governmental action could further the objective of providing economical dwellings by way of a building code which allows simple frame and single - wall structures (the same as homes that most of us have lived at some time in our lives here, many of which still stand and provide shelter for island families), metal roof on rafters, pier blocks and simple plumbing and electrical service. Yet building codes do not allow us to build economical homes any more. This can change. This being the case, my lone voice is not what matters. Nor should these many new and onerous rules regarding vacation and farm experience rentals, or increasingly costly building code requirements be enacted by a county council or administrative staff. These must be placed for public vote, if we are to preserve any notion that we are a democratic society, and that our laws and rules are the preference of the majority of persons, rather than a few in governmental positions that pretend to know what is best for, and desired by, the people of the County and State of Hawaii. Indeed, it is nothing short of an egregious dereliction of the duties of council members to ignore the clearly expressed positions of their constituents. I therefore recommend that Bill 121 be rejected, and instead placed for public vote, pertaining to both STVR and farm experience operations, as well as review of recent building code requirements that are causing economical homes to have become impossible to construct. Council members, you are commissioned with a kuleana to act in accord with the wishes of the statisical majority of constituents. We have communicated overwhelmingly that you are to reject Bill 121. Therefore, please do so, and reject this attempt to impose detrimental restrictions on short-term vacation rentals. Submitted by, Chuck Barker Principal, Kuleana Mortgage LLC