HomeMy WebLinkAboutPeterson, Carola
Tsuneda, Kaci
From:Araceley, Relley
Sent:Monday, September 14, 2026 10:44 AM
To:carola; Council Testimony
Subject:RE: Bill 147 – Clarification of “Host” for Hosted B&Bs - Testimony September 15
Aloha,
Thank you for your testimony. I have copied our written testimony lead on this email so that your
testimony can be processed and filed correctly.
Mahalo,
Mr. Relley Araceley
Office of the County Clerk
County of Hawaii
25 Aupuni Street, Suite 1402
Hilo, HI 96720
(808) 961-8429
From: carola <carola@learn4life.se>
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2026 10:16 AM
To: Council Remote Testimony <councilremotetestimony@hawaiicounty.gov>
Subject: Bill 147 – Clarification of “Host” for Hosted B&Bs - Testimony September 15
Aloha Chair Kierkiewicz and Members of the Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use, and Economic
Development,
I am submitting additional testimony regarding Bill 147, specifically concerning the definition of a “host”
for a hosted B&B.
I appreciate the wording in the current draft. Bill 147 defines a host as “a reachable person who resides
on the same building site as a TVR while it is rented.” Importantly, the definition does not require the
host to be the property owner.
This distinction is very important for my property and, I believe, for other Hawai ʻ i Island properties with a
genuine permanent resident caretaker.
1
I own a home in the State Land Use Agricultural District. A permanent resident caretaker resides in the
home year-round as his principal home and remains on-site during rental operations. I intend to rent
individual bedrooms within that same dwelling as a hosted B&B.
This is genuinely a hosted accommodation. The host actually lives in the same dwelling as the guests as
his principal home and remains on-site during rental operations. It is fundamentally different from an
unhosted vacation rental where no host resides on the property.
The current draft appears to recognize this distinction. It defines a B&B as a TVR that is “incidental and
subordinate to use as the principal home of a host,” rather than the principal home of the owner. For
B&Bs in the State Land Use Agricultural District, the draft similarly requires that, where the B&B is
located in a farm dwelling, the dwelling is “the principal home of the host.”
I respectfully ask the Council to confirm and preserve the intent of the current language: that a host
is not required to be the property owner, and that a genuine permanent resident caretaker whose
principal home is the dwelling and who resides there during rental operations may qualify as the
host of a B&B.
I also respectfully ask that the final bill preserve the ability of a hosted B&B to rent individual guest
bedrooms within the host’s principal dwelling. The current draft appropriately distinguishes this from an
unhosted STVR.
The important distinction should be whether the host genuinely resides in the dwelling as his or her
principal home and is present during rental operations—not whether that person holds title to the
property.
This clarification would provide a clear and predictable pathway for genuine hosted B&Bs to comply
while preserving Bill 147’s important distinction between hosted accommodations and unhosted
vacation rentals.
Mahalo for your consideration.
Carola Peterson
2
Property Owner, South Kona
Hawai ʻ i Island
3