HomeMy WebLinkAboutReinke-Walter, Todd
Tsuneda, Kaci
From:Todd Reinke-Walter <todd.reinke.walter@gmail.com>
Sent:Sunday, August 30, 2026 10:33 PM
To:Council Testimony; Hustace, James
Subject:Bill 147
Aloha Council Members,
My name is Todd Reinke-Walter. I’ve called North Kohala home for the past 4 years, and I’m a constituent
of Council Member James Hustace.
I’m writing to oppose Bill 147 in its current form. I don’t have a problem with the parts of the bill that ask
hosted rentals to register, pay their taxes, and be decent neighbors — that’s fair. What worries me is the
part of the bill that would shut down existing hosted rentals and take away the jobs, housing, and
community benefits that come with them.
I want to be upfront about why this matters to me personally: I’m only able to afford to live on a farm here
because part of the mortgage is covered by Airbnb income. Without that revenue, staying on this land
simply wouldn’t be financially possible for me. This bill isn’t an abstract policy question for me — it’s the
difference between being able to stay in North Kohala and having to leave.
North Kohala doesn’t have many places for visitors to stay. Family reunions, the Kohala Reunions, King
Kamehameha Day, the 100-year anniversary of Kohala High School — these are the kinds of events
where friends and family need somewhere to stay, and right now they can do that within ten minutes of
home instead of driving nearly an hour to a hotel they may not even be able to afford.
THIS BILL HARMS GOOD, LONG-TIME NEIGHBORS
Bill 147 would prohibit existing hosted vacation rentals with more than five bedrooms from continuing to
operate — and it doesn’t even grandfather in the people who built these properties under the old rules,
paid their taxes, provided jobs, and have been solid neighbors the whole time.
These properties were built when there was no bedroom cap on hosted rentals, based on the rules in
place at the time. And now, not long after Hurricane Lala hit our island hard, this Council isn’t meeting
about hurricane relief — it’s meeting about a bill that would push more existing hosted rentals out of
business over an arbitrary bedroom count.
THE NUMBERS BACK THIS UP
The County paid nearly $100,000 for an Economic Impact Study from Hunden Partners in 2025, and it’s
worth listening to what that study actually found. On page 33, it states that hosted vacation rentals “are
vital to the livelihood of thousands of families on Hawaii Island. Many Kama ʻ āina rely on \[this\] market for
employment or assistance in affording their homes.” Page 10 puts the economic impact at close to $1
billion a year, and that same page estimates regulation like Bill 147 could cost the island over 12,000 full-
time jobs and more than 30,000 part-time jobs.
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And what would that accomplish? Not housing relief. People need jobs before they can afford housing.
Plenty of residents — myself included — depend on income from hosted rentals to make living here
possible at all. And the study itself, on page 60, found that only 4% of vacation rental owners said they’d
actually convert their property to long-term housing if forced to stop hosting — meaning this bill is
unlikely to add meaningful long-term housing stock.
There’s also a real ambiguity in the bill about where a host has to live relative to the rental. Right now, a
host can live on the property without living in the same building as guests — and the study shows 93% of
vacation rentals on the island operate exactly that way, including mine. Bill 147 muddies this by referring
to a host living on the “same building site” as the rental, without defining what that means. It should be
changed to Tax Map Key, so it’s clear that living anywhere on the same TMK counts.
A REASONABLE FIX EXISTS
Grandfather in everyone currently operating a hosted vacation rental where the host lives on the TMK,
regardless of bedroom count. That lets people like me keep the income that makes it possible to stay on
our land, while still letting the County set stricter limits for new hosted rentals going forward. That’s
exactly how the County handled it when un-hosted short-term rentals were first regulated, and hosted
rentals — most of which are run by people who actually live here — deserve the same treatment.
To sum up: everyone running a hosted short-term rental should register, pay their taxes, and be a good
neighbor. We can get there without costing people their jobs or their ability to stay on their land, simply
by grandfathering in rentals that are already operating under the rules that existed when they were built.
Mahalo,
Todd Reinke-Walter
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