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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBoru, Brian TESTIMONY ON BILL 147, DRAFT 2 UNRESOLVED LEGAL, PLANNING, AND IMPLEMENTATION RISKS October 21, 2026 Hawaiʻi County Council – First Reading – Kailua-Kona RE: Bill 147, Draft 2 (Comm. 806.15) – Transient Accommodations / Chapter 25 SUBMITTED BY: Hawaiʻi County resident, in a personal capacity Aloha Chair and Council Members: Bill 147 is not suffering from a lack of amendments. It is suffering from a lack of a settled legal theory, a complete planning record, a coherent implementation sequence, and a demonstrated understanding of the program it would create. Those are different problems. The Council is being asked to place a sweeping Chapter 25 framework on top of a Chapter 6 registration system that was launched before the zoning questions were finished, while the County is still trying to determine who is lawful, what evidence is reliable, how State Agricultural District law applies, how many properties may become eligible, what the cumulative infrastructure effects are, and how much the program actually costs to run. That is backwards planning. The normal professional sequence is straightforward: define the problem; establish a defensible factual baseline; identify the legal constraints; develop alternatives; evaluate fiscal, housing, infrastructure, environmental, neighborhood, equity, and staffing effects; conduct meaningful public and interagency review; then draft the ordinance and implementation rules. Here, the County has repeatedly drafted first and answered foundational questions later. The October 6 committee vote should be understood in that context. Bill 147, Draft 2 comes to Council with an unfavorable 4-5 recommendation. Communication 806.15 confirms that the committee first amended Bill 147 with Communication 806.14, creating Draft 2, and then still forwarded the resulting bill with an unfavorable recommendation. This is not an early concept needing minor cleanup. This is the current operative draft, and the current operative draft still raises questions that should have been resolved before first reading. Five members—James Hustace, Matt Kānealiʻi-Kleinfelder, Ashley Kierkiewicz, Dennis “Fresh” Onishi, and Chair Holeka Goro Inaba—voted against advancement. Their concerns have not been identical, which is precisely the point: enforcement, Agricultural District legality, administrative readiness, evidence, and sequencing are independently unsettled. A five-member no vote on a bill this mature is not a drafting nuisance; it is a warning light. 1. THE COUNTY IS TRYING TO TURN AN ENFORCEMENT PROBLEM INTO A LAND-USE ANSWER. The strongest argument for urgency appears to be that transient uses have already spread into places where the County does not have a clean enforcement path. But that is not a reason to broaden the law. It is evidence that the County allowed a difficult enforcement problem to grow. HRS §205-12 is not new. It directs the appropriate County zoning authority to enforce the State Land Use Commission's district classifications and the Agricultural District restrictions in HRS §205-4.5, and to report violations to the LUC. If transient uses on State Agricultural land grew while enforcement was incomplete, inconsistent, delayed, or legally uncertain, the resulting backlog does not amend Chapter 205. Administrative urgency is not a source of land-use authority. A backlog does not repeal HRS §205-6. A staffing problem does not transform an unenumerated use into a permitted use. And a large number of existing operators does not convert uncertainty into legality by sheer volume. The County should be particularly careful not to create a self-fulfilling emergency: first allow a regulatory gray area to persist, then point to the number of people in that gray area as the reason to adopt the most permissive interpretation available. That is not a sound legal principle. It rewards the absence of prior enforcement by weakening the very review process that existing law provides. The County already has substantial tools. HCC Chapter 6, Article 6 now requires TVR registration, annual renewal, tax documentation, ownership and contact information, bedroom information, a site drawing, and other compliance material. HCC §6-46 provides enforcement for failure to register. HCC §6-48 authorizes cancellation where the TVR, its structure, or related activity violates applicable law. HCC §6-49 then makes the point explicit: registration does not grant a land-use right and does not dispense with obligations imposed by other applicable law. The obvious question is therefore not, 'How quickly can Council legalize or classify more activity?' It is: 'What has the County learned from the registration system it just launched, and what problem remains that requires this much additional land-use legislation right now?' Council Member Onishi has repeatedly brought the discussion back to enforcement. That focus points toward the obvious staged alternative: enforce the law already on the books, validate the Chapter 6 registry, measure actual compliance, workload, appeals, and revenue, and then decide what additional zoning legislation is truly necessary. The County does not have to solve every transient-rental question in one ordinance. 2. DRAFT 2'S AGRICULTURAL DISTRICT THEORY IS THE BILL'S MOST SERIOUS LEGAL RISK. Proposed HCC §25-4-B deserves to be read slowly. On its face, it would permit a hosted TVR in a County agricultural district, other than IA, when the building site is wholly within the State Urban or Rural District, or within the State Agricultural District subject to a new distinction. Inside the State Agricultural District, Draft 2 says a hosted TVR may be permitted where: (1) “there is no farm dwelling on the building site”; or (2) if there is a farm dwelling, that farm dwelling is also the principal home of the host, in which case an HRS §205-6 Special Permit is required. Bill 147, Draft 2, proposed §25- 4-B(2)(B). That is an extraordinary dividing line. The parcel with the dwelling type expressly tied to agriculture receives individualized State Special Permit review. The parcel with no farm dwelling is placed on a pathway that does not expressly require §205-6 review. There is another problem: the operative text of §25-4-B does not itself say that the “no farm dwelling” branch is limited to lots existing before June 4, 1976. If the County’s legal justification is the pre-June 4, 1976 single-family-dwelling exception in HRS §205-4.5(b), that limitation is being supplied by interpretation rather than by the operative text. Planning’s Communication 806.9 reinforces that interpretation through a simplified scenario chart, but a graphic cannot substitute for the ordinance. If the 1976 line is doing the legal work, the law should say so expressly. The public, staff, title companies, lenders, attorneys, and future enforcement officers should not have to reconstruct a central eligibility limitation from an explanatory chart and an inference about State law. Communication 806.9 makes the intended interpretation clearer. In its 'B&B Hosting Scenarios in SLU Agricultural District' chart, pre-1976 scenarios involving a single-family dwelling and, in some cases, an ʻohana dwelling are labeled 'Special Permit NOT Required.' The pre-1976 scenario that includes a first farm dwelling is labeled 'Special Permit REQUIRED.' The post-1976 scenarios are likewise shown as requiring a Special Permit. A one-page scenario chart, however, is not the State Land Use Law. A chart can explain an interpretation; it cannot enact one. If the chart is doing substantive legal work that the ordinance does not do, the drafting is not finished. That is not a formatting problem. It is an unresolved legal premise. Draft 2 also creates a separate pathway under proposed §25-4-C(b)(2) for certain historical un-hosted rentals that operated for periods greater than thirty days and less than 180 days. If situated in the State Agricultural District, the provision requires the building site to have been created before June 4, 1976. It does not expressly require an HRS §205-6 Special Permit. Again, a County Use Permit and a State Special Permit are not the same entitlement. The recurring move is the same: the June 4, 1976 date is being used not merely to identify the lawful existence of a residence, but as a bridge to a separate transient use. That bridge is the legal question. Bill 147 assumes the answer. The LUC or the courts may ultimately agree with the County; they may not. The current public record does not contain that answer because no authoritative State ruling has been obtained. Council Member Kānealiʻi-Kleinfelder’s concern about the consequences for Agricultural lands is therefore not collateral to Bill 147. It is the central HRS Chapter 205 question. If the County is going to create an islandwide program around a distinction between a pre-1976 single-family dwelling and a farm dwelling, that distinction should rest on authoritative State law, not on a County scenario chart and institutional confidence. The public Bill 147 record also reproduces a March 30, 2026 follow-up from Council Member Kimball stating that Council and Planning had concluded State law requires a Special Permit for hosted rentals on agricultural land. Draft 2 now contemplates a no-Special-Permit pathway for certain pre-1976 sites with no farm dwelling. If the sponsor’s legal position changed, Council should identify what legal authority changed with it—a statute, LUC declaratory ruling, Attorney General opinion, court decision, or other authoritative State interpretation. 3. A LAWFUL HOUSE IS NOT A BLANK CHECK FOR EVERY USE THAT CAN OCCUR INSIDE IT. The strongest version of the County's apparent theory can be stated fairly. HRS §205-4.5(b) recognizes the construction of single-family dwellings on lots existing before June 4, 1976. A first single-family dwelling on such a lot may therefore lawfully exist without the modern farm-dwelling nexus. From that premise, the County appears to treat hosted rental of that residence as part of the lawful residential use, rather than as a separate non-agricultural use requiring §205-6 review. The problem is the second step. HRS §205-4.5(b) excepts the construction of the qualifying single-family dwelling from the general rule that unenumerated uses are prohibited. It does not expressly say that every later business, visitor, or transient use conducted inside that structure automatically inherits the same exemption. There is an obvious limiting-principle problem. If the lawful existence of a pre-1976 single-family dwelling carries with it a right to conduct hosted transient lodging without §205-6 review, what other unenumerated commercial or quasi-commercial uses can make the same argument? Is the answer that any use physically conducted within the lawful dwelling is permissible? Surely not. If not, where is the line? And where is that line found in HRS Chapter 205? A lawful structure can be put to an unlawful use. Zoning law depends on that elementary distinction. The legality of the building and the legality of the activity occurring inside it are related questions, but they are not the same question. That is why the Special Permit process matters. HRS §205-6 exists for unusual and reasonable USES in the Agricultural and Rural Districts that are not otherwise classified as permitted uses. It provides individualized review, agency circulation, a public hearing, the ability to impose protective conditions, and, for larger acreage or Important Agricultural Lands, LUC review. The Special Permit process is not clerical clutter to be engineered around because Planning expects too many applications. It is the statutory mechanism the Legislature created for precisely the circumstance Bill 147 is trying to resolve. 4. ROSEHILL DOES NOT GIVE THE COUNTY THE ANSWER IT IS ACTING AS THOUGH IT HAS. Rosehill v. Land Use Commission, 155 Hawaiʻi 41, 556 P.3d 387 (2024), is central, but it must be read accurately. Rosehill did not decide whether a hosted transient use in a qualifying pre-1976 single-family dwelling is automatically permitted without §205-6 review. The Rosehill petitioners owned lots created after June 4, 1976. That distinction matters. The Court therefore did not issue the holding Bill 147 now needs. But Rosehill's reasoning is not neutral. The Court held that farm dwellings in the State Agricultural District may not be used as short-term vacation rentals because doing so would 'undermine the purpose of the agricultural district.' The Court expressly framed the purpose of HRS §205-4.5 as restricting land in the Agricultural District to agricultural purposes. Rosehill also rejected a rental-duration argument that sounds very similar to one now hovering over Bill 147. The petitioners argued that because Chapter 205 did not specify a minimum rental period, less-than- 30-day rental was allowed. The Court rejected that logic. It returned to the text of HRS §205-4.5(b): uses not expressly permitted are prohibited. The absence of a duration prohibition was not treated as affirmative authorization. The Court further observed that the Legislature could have authorized transient vacation accommodation among the Agricultural District uses but did not. It looked to the protective purpose of Chapter 205 and concluded that expanding 'farm dwelling' to include STVR use would frustrate the State land-use law's basic objectives. Rosehill also reaffirmed an important concurrency principle: County zoning may be more restrictive than State land-use law so long as it is not inconsistent with State law. The County therefore is not legally forced to take the most permissive plausible interpretation of the pre-1976 exception. The practical implication is important. Where State law is uncertain and the Supreme Court's most recent Agricultural District decision repeatedly emphasizes protection, prohibition of unenumerated uses, and the danger of expanding transient activity by implication, the conservative course is to preserve §205-6 review until the State-law question is actually answered. That is not anti-owner. It is pro-reliance. The worst outcome for property owners is not an extra permit process up front. The worst outcome is for the County to invite investment, collect fees, issue registrations or approvals, encourage reliance, and then discover years later that its underlying State-law theory was wrong. Rosehill itself should be warning enough against creating reliance before legal authority is settled. 5. NEAL/ZANONE DOES NOT RESCUE THE THEORY EITHER. IT SHOWS THE QUESTION IS STILL UNRESOLVED. The public appellate record in Ford v. Board of Appeals / Neal & Zanone, CAAP-25-0000004 and CAAP- 25-0000005 (Haw. ICA Mar. 30, 2026), is useful because it involved the hosted-rental problem directly. The property was in the Hawaiʻi County Agricultural Project District and the State Land Use Agricultural District. The owners represented that they resided on the property and hosted guests. Planning had concluded that the activity did not violate the County's then-existing STVR definition because the owners resided on the property. Neighbors challenged the activity under both County zoning and HRS Chapter 205. The Intermediate Court of Appeals did not affirm the County's substantive legal theory. It did not hold that owner occupancy converts transient accommodation into a permitted Agricultural District use. Instead, it remanded because the Board of Appeals' summary-judgment orders lacked the findings of fact and conclusions of law required by HRS §91-12. The ICA expressly stated that, without those findings and conclusions, it could not determine whether the Board's legal conclusions were right or wrong. That is the point Council needs to understand. Neal/Zanone is not a holding that hosted rentals are prohibited. It is also not a holding that the County's hosted-rental interpretation is valid. It is evidence that the issue has already generated litigation and still has not produced the merits ruling Bill 147 is behaving as though it has. So there are now two public appellate cases that should produce caution: Rosehill, which strongly protects Agricultural District purposes but does not decide the pre-1976 hosted question; and Neal/Zanone, which squarely presents hosted activity but leaves the substantive legal issue unresolved. That is not a solid foundation for an islandwide entitlement. It is a textbook case for a declaratory ruling. The Neal/Zanone remand should be treated as unresolved unless and until the Board of Appeals enters findings and conclusions that comply with HRS §91-12 and the resulting merits determination survives whatever review follows. 6. IF THE COUNTY IS CONFIDENT IN ITS THEORY, ASK THE LAND USE COMMISSION. HRS §91-8 authorizes an interested person to petition an agency for a declaratory order concerning the applicability of a statute, rule, or agency order. The LUC's administrative rules provide the procedure for declaratory rulings. HAR §§15-15-99 through 15-15-104. This is not hypothetical procedure. Hawaiʻi County used the LUC declaratory-ruling process in the Rosehill matter. The County knows how to obtain an authoritative State-level interpretation when Chapter 205 is uncertain. The question is therefore simple: why is Council being asked to legislate first and ask later? If the County's theory is correct, a declaratory ruling can say so. That would give owners, lenders, appraisers, title companies, Planning staff, the Council, the Mayor, and future courts a public legal foundation. If the theory is wrong, the ruling will expose the problem before hundreds or thousands of owners change behavior in reliance on Bill 147. There is no credible planning advantage in maximizing legal uncertainty. The only advantage is speed. Speed is not enough. The County should not turn its own enforcement backlog into an argument for a more liberal reading of State Agricultural District law. Administrative desperation does not expand statutory authority. 7. DRAFT 2 ITSELF STILL SHOWS THAT THE LEGISLATION IS NOT MATURE. Bill 147's defenders may say the large number of amendments proves the process is working. Amendments are normal. But the nature of these amendments matters. They have repeatedly addressed core architecture: definitions, hosted residency, Agricultural eligibility, Special Permit treatment, bedroom limits, enforcement language, exemptions, parking, evidence, transition periods, and the relationship between Chapters 6 and 25. That is not merely polishing language. It is discovering the program while drafting it. Draft 2 still contains visible signs of that problem. Section 1 creates an 'STVR enforcement fund' even though the bill deletes the old STVR definition and moves the substantive terminology to 'Hosted TVR,' 'Un- hosted TVR,' and 'TVR.' That alone is not fatal, but it is a small example of the bill carrying pieces of prior regulatory generations forward while changing the vocabulary around them. More significantly, Draft 2 appears to amend the RM permitted-use list in inconsistent ways. Section 13 says §25-5-32(a) is amended by replacing the existing B&B reference with 'Hosted TVRs.' Section 19 later restates that same RM subsection and reproduces 'Bed and breakfast establishments, as permitted under section 25-4-7,' even though Section 6 of Draft 2 repeals §25-4-7. That conflict should not be left for codification staff, Planning, applicants, or a court to decipher after adoption. Communication 806.9 creates another mismatch. The chart expressly says a guest house is not a dwelling unit because it does not contain a kitchen, yet the chart depicts guest-house rooms as available for transient guests. Draft 2 defines a TVR as a 'dwelling unit or portion thereof.' If guest-house rental is intended to be authorized, the operative text should say how. A handout cannot quietly supply permissions or restrictions that the ordinance itself does not contain. The same concern applies to the pre-1976 theory. The date is doing enormous legal work in the Planning scenario chart, yet proposed §25-4-B's operative 'no farm dwelling' branch does not itself contain the date. If the distinction is essential, write it into the law. This is why the amendment history is embarrassing. The problem is not that Council and Planning changed language. The problem is that core legal and operational assumptions are still being discovered at the point when Council is being asked to enact them. 8. BILL 147 ALSO REMOVES EXISTING SITE-SPECIFIC USE PERMIT REVIEW WITHOUT SHOWING WHY THAT REVIEW IS NO LONGER NEEDED. Bill 147 is not simply adding regulation. In some places it removes an existing layer of discretionary land- use review. HCC §25-2-60 explains why Use Permits exist: they apply to uses that require special attention to ensure they will neither unduly burden public agencies providing services nor cause substantial adverse impacts on the surrounding community. HCC §25-2-61(a)(1) currently requires a Planning Commission Use Permit for bed-and-breakfast establishments in RS, RA, FA, and A districts when the property is within the State Land Use Urban District. Draft 2 replaces that individualized review with a broad permitted-use pathway for hosted TVRs in RS and in qualifying County agricultural districts. Planning's own recommendation report acknowledges the change, specifically noting that B&Bs in RS currently require a Use Permit and that Bill 147 proposes to remove that requirement. That is not merely 'streamlining.' A Use Permit is where site-specific facts can be tested: parking, access, wastewater, neighborhood compatibility, public-service demands, unusual site constraints, and conditions tailored to a particular property. If Council removes that review, the record should show why uniform operational standards are an adequate substitute. The burden is not on the public to prove that every hosted rental needs a Use Permit. The burden is on the County to explain why a review process the Code expressly says exists to protect public services and surrounding communities is no longer necessary for this class of uses. 9. BILL 147 CHANGES THE NATURE OF EXISTING NONCONFORMING-USE CERTIFICATES IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. Draft 2 also makes two major changes to existing STVR nonconforming-use certificates that deserve more attention than they have received. First, proposed §25-4-C(c) provides that if the Planning Director cancels the Chapter 6 TVR registration of a TVR operating under a NUC, that cancellation 'shall also cause and constitute revocation' of the NUC. A Chapter 6 business-registration status and a Chapter 25 nonconforming-use entitlement are related, but they are not the same legal instrument. Council should know exactly how the Chapter 6 cancellation process and the Chapter 25 land-use entitlement interact. What findings are required before a registration cancellation automatically extinguishes the NUC? What appeal stays what? And why should a registration decision automatically decide the continued existence of a separately issued land-use entitlement? Second, proposed §25-4-C(d) allows an un-hosted TVR operating under a NUC to increase the number of bedrooms available for rent, up to five, simply by registering the change with the Director. That is not preservation of an existing nonconforming use in the ordinary sense; it can be an increase in transient intensity. The Code need not freeze every nonconforming use forever. But if Council intends to authorize greater transient intensity on grandfathered sites, it should say why, identify the limiting principle, and explain why no new site-specific land-use review is necessary. 10. SECTION 22 IS AN ADMISSION THAT THE SPECIAL PERMIT WORKLOAD WAS NOT PLANNED. Draft 2, Section 22 is one of the most revealing provisions in the bill. For a hosted-TVR Special Permit application filed before September 1, 2027, Section 22 says the Planning Director is not required to accept the application within fifteen days; the Planning Commission is not required to commence a public hearing within ninety days of acceptance; and the applicant is exempt from sign-posting requirements. Read plainly, the bill creates or expands a class of applications and simultaneously suspends ordinary processing expectations and a public-notice mechanism because the County expects difficulty processing the workload. That is backwards. If the County expects the number of applications to overwhelm ordinary review, the solution is to phase eligibility, budget staff, preserve notice, and process the applications lawfully. The solution is not to create the entitlement first and then relax the process that protects applicants, neighbors, and the integrity of the record. HRS §205-6(b) requires the planning commission, after consultation with the central coordinating agency, to establish by rule or regulation the time within which the hearing and action on a Special Permit petition will occur. Draft 2 removes the familiar 90-day hearing trigger for this class without identifying a replacement period in the bill. Council should have a public legal explanation of how that interacts with §205-6(b) before adopting it. The sign-posting exemption also deserves more than a workload explanation. A Special Permit is an individualized land-use entitlement in a State Agricultural District. Neighbors have a legitimate interest in knowing when such a use is proposed nearby. Removing on-site notice because there may be too many cases sends exactly the wrong message: administrative convenience is being placed ahead of public participation. Section 23 compounds the point by allowing delayed enforcement through December 31, 2027 for certain TVR violations involving structures or dwellings not duly permitted under Chapters 5 through 5F. That may provide practical transition time, but it also reveals that the County expects a meaningful population of properties to enter the program while basic construction approvals remain unresolved. If the program needs suspended timelines, reduced notice, and delayed enforcement before it even stabilizes, that is not proof of readiness. It is evidence that implementation capacity was never adequately modeled. 11. THE DECKARD ROLLOUT PROVED THE SEQUENCING PROBLEM, NOT PROGRAM READINESS. The Chapter 6 registry went live before the Chapter 25 eligibility framework was settled. Ordinance 26-63 then changed major administrative responsibilities after go-live. The County has been building the registration, technology, enforcement, and zoning components while the underlying legal architecture is still moving. Software can collect a fee, assign a number, and store records. It can even make a bad assumption searchable. It cannot answer whether the underlying land use is lawful under HRS Chapter 205. HCC §6- 49 exists for precisely that reason: registration does not create the underlying land-use right or erase obligations imposed by other law. The sequence should therefore be law first, implementation second. Instead, too much of this program has looked like implementation first, legal reconciliation second. That sequencing creates pressure to keep moving because money has been spent, systems have launched, staff have been assigned, and the public has been told to register. None of those facts changes the legal analysis. Sunk administrative effort is not a reason to enact a questionable land-use rule. Chair Inaba asked during the Bill 175 process whether Planning would actually be ready to administer the program by its launch date. Council Member Kierkiewicz pressed for the anticipated internal workflows, turnaround time for registration numbers, complaint tracking, public availability of registered locations, and procedures for owners to update records. Those were exactly the right questions. The difference now is that Council should be able to demand actual post-launch answers, not another forecast. The September 1 launch and Ordinance 26-63 have converted readiness from a promise into something measurable. 12. THE COUNTY STILL HAS NOT SHOWN WHAT THIS PROGRAM WILL COST OR WHAT THE FEES PAY FOR. The County now has recurring Chapter 6 fees: an initial registration fee and annual renewal fees for hosted and un-hosted TVRs. Ordinance 18-114, by contrast, required conforming existing STVRs to register with a one-time $500 fee, while annual renewal applied to nonconforming-use certificates. Council can change a fee structure. But it should know why. HRS §46-1.5(8) authorizes counties to charge reasonable fees for services rendered. Hawaiʻi case law distinguishes a regulatory fee from a tax by looking, among other things, to the relationship between the charge and the regulatory service or burden. If the current annual fees are cost recovery, the County should publish the cost allocation. If they are intended to finance a broader enforcement apparatus, that should be stated and analyzed openly. The public should be able to see a program-sustainability model that separates: initial registrations; annual renewals; NUC renewals; Use Permit and Special Permit fees; likely nonpayment; exemptions; appeals; refunds; enforcement collections; vendor and software costs; staff salaries and benefits; legal support; inspections; investigations; public records; rulemaking; and administration. Enforcement fines should not be treated as guaranteed operating revenue. A successful compliance program should reduce violations. A budget that depends on persistent noncompliance creates the wrong incentive and is fiscally unreliable. The County repeatedly describes this program as data-driven. Then show the data that demonstrates the program can pay for itself, what part taxpayers subsidize, and what each annual fee is buying. 13. PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE IS NOT MAGIC, AND A VENDOR SCREENSHOT IS NOT SELF- PROVING. Draft 2 authorizes significant administrative fines: up to twice the highest advertised daily rate in the preceding twelve months, plus $5,500 for a first violation, $7,500 for a second violation, and $10,000 for subsequent violations. It also allows a violation determination to be based on prima facie evidence including an active rental advertisement, booking availability, transient accommodations tax returns, or information reported by a contracted third party, and places the burden on the owner to establish either that the property is not being used as a TVR or that it is lawful. Those are powerful enforcement tools. They require a correspondingly disciplined evidence protocol. HRS §91-10 requires contested-case decisions to rest on reliable, probative, and substantial evidence, with appropriate opportunity for rebuttal and cross-examination where necessary for a full and true disclosure of the facts. HRS §91-12 requires adequate findings and conclusions. Neal/Zanone is a recent reminder that an agency cannot simply announce a result and leave a reviewing court to guess how it got there. Rentalscape/Deckard may be useful as an investigative lead. It should not become an evidentiary black box. Council should know: which sites are monitored; how often; how stale listings are treated; how addresses, TMKs, CPR units, and duplicate listings are matched; how confidence scores are set; how a listing is distinguished from an actual rental; what source material is preserved; what false-positive and false-negative testing has been done; and how an owner can inspect, correct, and rebut the underlying evidence. The rule should be simple: software may start an investigation. Software should not end one. Council Member Hustace’s concern about prima facie and vendor-derived evidence is therefore not technical trivia. It goes directly to due process when daily penalties can reach thousands of dollars and the owner is then required to rebut the County’s initial inference. Before those penalties become routine, the County should publish the evidentiary protocol and correction process rather than asking residents to discover them one appeal at a time. 14. PUNA SHOWS WHY THE MISSING CUMULATIVE-IMPACT ANALYSIS MATTERS. Puna is where this legislation's abstract assumptions become real. The adopted Puna Community Development Plan documents that more than 52,500 subdivision lots were created between 1958 and 1973. County planning material also describes Hawaiian Acres as the first of many speculative subdivisions created during a boom that lasted until 1975, and County food-system planning has described large speculative agricultural subdivisions in Puna and Kaū that predated modern ʻ planning regulations. That history matters. These were not uniformly master-planned communities designed with full urban infrastructure for eventual residential build-out, much less visitor-accommodation intensity. The Puna CDP itself notes that most subdivision lots are accessed by private, unpaved roads that generally lack sidewalks and lighting and do not meet current County standards for width, drainage, and other design elements. It warns that evacuation problems worsen as lots continue to develop without infrastructure improvements and that the cumulative impact of widespread cesspools was undetermined. No one should claim that every pre-1976 Puna lot is in the State Agricultural District, is buildable, is eligible for a hosted TVR, or can support multiple dwellings. That would be wrong. But that uncertainty is exactly why a parcel-level GIS analysis is needed. Draft 2 allows a TVR to contain up to five bedrooms or suites. Its adult renter cap can reach twelve. Gatherings may reach twice the renter limit. CPR treatment can allow one TVR per condominium unit. Even if only a fraction of eligible legacy lots participate, those are real additions to visitor occupancy, turnover, vehicle trips, wastewater loading, emergency-service demand, and competition for residential space. The County should map the actual universe before legislating it: pre-1976 lot count; State Land Use district; County zoning; existing dwelling type; farm dwelling versus single-family dwelling; ʻohana or ADU; CPR status; vacant versus developed; existing agricultural use; road type; wastewater; water source; hazard exposure; and potential guest capacity. Then run low-, medium-, and high-participation scenarios. Without that work, statements that impacts are manageable are not analysis. They are assumptions. 15. “I THINK IT IS ALIGNED” IS NOT A GENERAL PLAN CONFORMITY ANALYSIS. General Plan 2045 became effective June 26, 2026, before Draft 2 reached this first reading. It is now the County's controlling long-range comprehensive plan. Hawaiʻi County Charter §3-15(b) requires zoning and related ordinances to contain the provisions necessary to carry out the General Plan. Section 3-15(c) is even more direct: no zoning ordinance shall be initiated or adopted unless it conforms to and implements the General Plan. The current General Plan itself repeats that requirement and describes the Plan as the primary policy document guiding County land-use decisions. During the October 6 committee discussion, Council Member Villegas stated that she “thinks” Bill 147 is aligned as is with the General Plan. That is refreshingly candid, but it also identifies the problem. The Charter contains no “I think” safe harbor. It requires the zoning ordinance itself to conform to and implement the General Plan. Conformity is a legal and planning question that should be demonstrated in the record. It is not a séance. Council does not need to divine alignment from the legislative ether; it needs to show the work. If Draft 2 is aligned, identify the General Plan 2045 policies it implements; identify the housing, agriculture, infrastructure, hazard, transportation, and community-plan policies that may pull in a different direction; and explain how those tensions were reconciled. Bill 147 is a major islandwide zoning ordinance. Where is the written General Plan 2045 conformity analysis for Draft 2? Not a generalized statement that transient rentals have economic value; not an explanatory handout; and not a conclusion from the dais. A conformity analysis. If it exists, put it in the record. If it does not, Council should not pretend the missing analysis was performed by saying the magic words “aligned as is.” Kona's own planning record gives a concrete example. In its May 14, 2026 comments, the Kona Community Development Plan Action Committee warned against converting resident-serving RM and CN inventory to un-hosted visitor use. It tied that concern to workforce housing near employment centers and to reducing long-distance commuting and transportation impacts. Draft 2 partially responds by narrowing un-hosted eligibility in RM and CN, but it does not make the underlying planning question disappear. Hosted TVRs remain broadly permitted in RM and CN, and Draft 2 retains a pathway for certain pre-effective-date RM units outside resort areas. Council should know how many units and building sites remain affected and what that means for resident housing supply in Kona. The Action Committee's position does not prove Bill 147 violates the Kona CDP or General Plan. It proves that the County's own adopted planning process identified a housing-and-transportation conflict that deserves an explicit response in the legislative record before Council changes the zoning rules. 16. LOWER-INCOME OWNER-OCCUPANTS AND RESIDENT HOUSING HAVE NOT BEEN ANALYZED AS A DISTRIBUTIONAL QUESTION. The County should stop talking about 'hosted' as though every hosted property is economically equivalent. A homeowner renting one modest bedroom to supplement a fixed income is not the same economic actor as a high-value property operating five visitor bedrooms. Yet flat registration classes and potentially similar professional, permit, building, wastewater, insurance, tax, and compliance burdens can affect them very differently. Some owner-occupants use hosted rental income to remain in their homes, cover repairs, pay mortgages, or make fixed-income ownership workable. Others may be operating commercial-scale visitor accommodations in residential settings. A serious policy distinguishes those situations instead of assuming one label answers the equity question. The long-term real-property-tax issue also remains unfinished. Bill 173 proposed a Bed and Breakfast Home property-tax classification and related relief for qualifying owner-occupied hosted rentals, but that proposal did not become part of the present framework. The tax issue should return when the County rebuilds the land-use package. Property-tax classification, homeowner protections, transition relief, and any appropriate amnesty should be designed as an integrated part of the eventual program so owners can understand the full legal and financial consequences before they register, invest, or seek land-use approval. Tax policy should not be another repair bill after the land-use rules are already in place. 17. OWNER OCCUPANCY IS NOT A LAND-USE CURE-ALL. Owner occupancy can be a legitimate management distinction. A resident host may respond faster to noise, parking, or guest problems. But residency does not erase land-use impacts. A hosted five-bedroom transient use still creates visitor turnover, vehicle trips, wastewater demand, water demand, fire and emergency-service exposure, and potential neighborhood effects. In the State Agricultural District, owner presence does not itself transform visitor accommodation into agriculture. The residency rule also creates its own enforcement problem. If legality depends on where the host actually resides while guests are present, the County must define how residency is proven, how travel and hospitalization are handled, how trusts and multiple owners are treated, what records may be demanded, how often status is checked, and how selective complaint-based enforcement will be avoided. The County should explain, before adoption, how it intends to verify and enforce this residency requirement consistently, practically, and equitably. Communication 806.9 makes the problem more complicated because the legal result changes depending on the classification of the structure occupied by the host. On a pre-1976 site with a single-family dwelling and ʻohana, the chart shows no Special Permit. Add a first farm dwelling, and the chart changes the result. The physical intensity may be similar; the entitlement changes because of structure classification. That may be legally defensible if Chapter 205 clearly requires it. But when that distinction becomes the core of a countywide program, Council should demand a public legal explanation that ordinary owners can understand. 18. THE PROCESS ITSELF IS NOW PART OF THE PROBLEM. Bill 147 did not arrive after a clean planning sequence. The record shows a pattern of overlapping legislation, repeated revisions, implementation before full legal reconciliation, and new transition provisions added to manage problems created by the implementation sequence. The County enacted the Chapter 6 registration framework before the commissioned Hunden economic- impact study had been completed and presented to Council, and that’s still the ONLY study that’s been completed, let alone attempted. The registration system later needed implementation delays and administrative changes. The portal went live September 1, 2026 while Bill 147 remained unresolved; Ordinance 26-63, effective September 22, then amended Ordinance 25-50 after launch by shifting registration responsibilities to the Planning Director, revising enforcement and transition provisions, and authorizing delayed enforcement of registration requirements through December 31, 2026. Planning had already issued fifteen recommendations, then revised major recommendations again. Communication 806.9 later supplied an Agricultural District scenario chart. Communication 806.14 then produced Draft 2. The architecture was still being rewritten after the public had been told to board. That is not simply the unavoidable messiness of legislation. It is evidence that the County started building before it finished designing, opened the doors, and then kept moving the walls. Welcome to amateur hour. A professional planning process would have produced, before implementation: a legal issues matrix; a parcel eligibility map; alternatives; staffing scenarios; fiscal scenarios; infrastructure analysis; housing and equity analysis; enforcement evidence standards; a clear relationship among Chapters 6, 19, and 25; and a staged implementation plan. Measured against that basic due-diligence sequence, a legislative record still missing the legal theory, parcel universe, fiscal model, cumulative-impact analysis, General Plan conformity analysis, and vendor evidence protocol is not a minor paperwork defect. It is the analysis the decision is supposed to rest on. Instead, the public has watched the program become more complicated as each unanswered issue surfaces. The number of amendments is not the embarrassment. The embarrassment is how many foundational questions those amendments are still trying to answer. Receiving declining testimony from a tiring, worn out public is also not something that should be misconstrued. 19. “AS STREAMLINED AS IT IS GOING TO GET” IS NOT A REASON TO PASS A KITCHEN- SINK BILL. Council Members Villegas, Kierkiewicz, and Kimball have suggested during deliberation that Bill 147 is about as streamlined as it is going to get. Ha! If that is the position, it proves the sequencing problem rather than answers it. A measure is not mature merely because its sponsors or proponents have run out of ways to compress it. “Streamlined” is not the same thing as studied, and it is certainly not the same thing as staged/phased. The record is especially revealing because Council originally described the Chapter 6 registration measure in incremental terms. During the May 2025 Bill 47 committee discussion, Council Member Kimball explained that registration would identify the location and volume of transient rentals, while Council Member Kierkiewicz described the process as “purely informational,” intended to complement the then-ongoing economic impact analysis and guide future policy decisions. That may have been a sensible sequence: register first, learn from the data, then legislate from an evidence base- especially if you are only going to attempt a single study. But the County did not wait for the new registry to complete even one full enforcement and renewal cycle before advancing a sweeping Chapter 25 rewrite. The system went live September 1, Ordinance 26-63 changed the administrative structure on September 22, enforcement may still be deferred through December 31, and Council is now being asked in October to treat the broader zoning architecture as mature. The data-gathering phase that was supposed to guide future policy has barely had time to gather data. Perhaps the sponsors/proponents prefer the kitchen-sink option because it promises one bill, one vote, and one regulatory package. But registration, Agricultural District authority, pre-1976 dwellings, hosted-rental zoning, 31-to-179-day legacy rentals, NUC rights, registration cancellation, penalties, prima facie evidence, permit timing, occupancy, parking, residency verification, neighborhood standards, fee revenue, and tax consequences are not one policy question simply because they have been stapled together. Putting every unresolved problem in one sink does not make the plumbing simpler. The more prudent sequence was—and still is—obvious: first stabilize and validate Chapter 6 registration; second enforce existing law and reconcile the actual inventory; third obtain an authoritative State answer on the HRS Chapter 205 questions; fourth model parcel eligibility, workload, infrastructure, housing, and fiscal effects; fifth address hosted-rental zoning outside the State Agricultural District; and only then codify the enforcement and operational architecture supported by those findings. Council can still separate those pieces. That is not legislative paralysis. It is how risk is managed before it becomes reliance, litigation, and constituent harm. 20. FOUR YEARS OF OUTREACH SHOULD HAVE PRODUCED A DECISION RECORD, NOT JUST AN ARCHIVE. This criticism should be precise. The record does show public outreach. Council Members Kimball and Kierkiewicz began public informational sessions on transient-accommodation legislation in 2022; additional sessions and public-comment tools followed in 2023; later briefings addressed Ordinance 25-50, the Hunden study, registration, and Bill 147. The sponsors’ TAR outreach archive includes webinar recordings, slide decks, questions and comments, a Google-form process, and a community-engagement tool. The Planning Commissions then received extensive written and oral testimony in 2026. So the issue is not that nobody ever asked the public anything. The harder question is what happened to all of that input. After years of work, where is the consolidated stakeholder findings report? Where is the issue matrix identifying the principal concerns, the stakeholder groups or interests raising them, the alternatives considered, the changes made in response, the recommendations rejected, and the reasons for accepting or rejecting them? Where is the written decision trail connecting years of outreach to the current architecture of Draft 2? A webinar archive is not a findings document. A Google Form is not an alternatives analysis. A stack of testimony does not become a policy rationale merely because it is thick. At some point somebody has to synthesize the evidence. Otherwise, the public is left reconstructing a multiyear legislative history from old videos, chat logs, slide decks, amendments, and institutional memory—an archaeological exercise before the ordinance has even passed. Council Member Kimball has been working on transient-accommodation legislation for years, and Council Member Kierkiewicz has been deeply involved in that public process- at least until recently. That longevity deserves acknowledgment—but longevity is not, by itself, evidence of analytical completeness. If the years of stakeholder engagement produced a documented synthesis, publish it and let Council test Draft 2 against it. If no such synthesis exists, then the length of the process should not be offered as a substitute for the missing analysis. The same applies to the Hunden study. It is useful economic and market information, but it is not a substitute for a land-use alternatives analysis, a fiscal sustainability model, a parcel-level eligibility study, an Agricultural District legal opinion, a stakeholder disposition matrix, or an implementation-readiness report. One commissioned study cannot carry every analytical burden created by a countywide zoning rewrite. I am not suggesting that every constituent conversation or informal meeting must be memorialized. I am asking for the policy synthesis that a multiyear legislative effort of this scale should have produced. If Council is being told that the bill has already been studied, streamlined, and stakeholder-vetted as far as practicable, then the most straightforward response is: show the work. There is also a transparency principle here, but it should be stated accurately. HRS §§92-1 and 92F-2 declare a State policy that the formation and conduct of public policy be conducted as openly as possible, and HRS §92F-2 expressly emphasizes accurate, relevant, timely, and complete government records. This testimony is not alleging that sponsor outreach or the Bill 147 process violated the Sunshine Law, and HRS §92F-11(c) does not require an agency to create a compilation or summary that does not otherwise exist. The narrower point is more basic: if a stakeholder synthesis, alternatives matrix, fiscal model, or decision record exists, put it in the public record. If it never existed, then the County should stop treating years of outreach as though duration alone proves the analysis was done. 21. WHERE ARE THE INSTITUTIONAL CHECKS - AND WHERE IS THE LONG-RANGE PLANNING? Council Member Kimball is entitled to sponsor legislation, advocate policy, question staff, circulate explanatory materials, and propose amendments. But Bill 147 now reaches across County zoning, HRS Chapter 205, Chapter 6 registration, Chapter 19 tax consequences, Special Permits, Use Permits, enforcement, evidence, housing, infrastructure, software, staffing, and fiscal policy. One elected sponsor should not have to function simultaneously as the public-facing planner, land-use analyst, fiscal modeler, systems architect, stakeholder synthesizer, and legal interpreter. Those are institutional functions. The question is: where are they in this record? The County Planning Department itself says it provides technical advice to the Mayor, Planning Commission, and County Council on planning and land-use matters. Its Long-Range Planning Division is expressly responsible for legislative review and testimony, General Plan amendments, code and rule amendments, Community Development Plans, ordinances and resolutions, the land-use inventory, and consultant-services contracts. That is almost a checklist of the institutional capacity Bill 147 should have drawn upon before Council was asked to enact an islandwide land-use regime. This is not a criticism of individual Planning staff- although it could be. It is a governance and resource- allocation question. Where is the independent Long-Range Planning memorandum evaluating alternatives? Where is the build-out or land-use inventory analysis? Where is the geographic distribution of potentially eligible properties? Where is the housing and infrastructure scenario analysis? Where is the implementation and fiscal model? The Planning Director produced a recommendation report and numerous text amendments, but a recommendation for passage is not the same thing as an alternatives analysis demonstrating why this architecture is preferable to narrower, staged options. The contrast with General Plan 2045 is difficult to miss. The County describes General Plan 2045 as its official long-range comprehensive plan, developed through years of community engagement, technical analysis, and interagency collaboration. It became effective June 26, 2026. By September, the Planning Director had already initiated a formal package of interim amendments and opened another public- comment process. Whatever one thinks of those proposed amendments, that process demonstrates that the Department can mobilize a formal long-range planning process to revisit policy language when it chooses to do so. If the County has the capacity to reopen portions of a comprehensive plan only months after adoption, it is fair to ask why one of the most consequential islandwide zoning measures in years has not been accompanied by the same visible analytical architecture. Bill 147 is exactly the kind of measure for which long-range planning exists: define the problem; map the affected geography; quantify possible build-out; test housing, infrastructure, fiscal, environmental, and community effects; develop alternatives; identify tradeoffs; and then recommend legislation. Planning should precede legislation. It should not arrive afterward as damage control. The more a sponsor must carry the policy architecture, explanatory narrative, stakeholder transmission, and amendment process personally, the more important an independent technical record becomes. That is not a criticism of sponsorship. It is the institutional check that protects the sponsor, the rest of Council, staff, property owners, and the public from turning one policy theory into the islandwide pilot project from which the planning analysis is eventually derived. 22. WHAT IS BILL 147 ACTUALLY DESIGNED TO ACCOMPLISH - AND WHO PAYS? The public should not have to guess at the primary policy objective. Is Bill 147 principally intended to bring existing rentals into compliance, expand the number of lawful hosted accommodations, reduce illegal transient use, protect resident housing, improve neighborhood enforcement, generate sufficient revenue to support the program, or accomplish some defined combination of those goals? Different objectives produce different zoning choices, different fee structures, different staffing needs, and different measures of success. There is an equally important behavioral question. Is the expected result that substantially more homes and rooms become lawful visitor accommodations? Or is the expected compliance burden high enough that some small operators leave the market? If operators leave, where is the displaced visitor demand expected to go - hotels and resorts, other lawful TVRs, longer-term rentals, or somewhere else? If operators stay, what is the full annual cost of compliance, including County registration and renewal fees, permit expenses, professional services, building or wastewater work, insurance changes, and real-property-tax effects? Those are not rhetorical questions. They are model inputs. The County has already enacted measurable financial consequences. HCC Chapter 6 requires initial TVR registration fees of $250 for hosted and $500 for un-hosted TVRs, annual renewal fees of $100 and $250 respectively, tax-clearance and State tax-registration documentation, and a signed acknowledgment that TVR operation may affect the owner's real-property-tax liability. Bill 173 separately proposed a Bed and Breakfast Home tax classification and homeowner protections. The existence of that bill is itself evidence that the property-tax consequence was important enough to require legislative attention, even though that component is not part of the present Bill 147 framework. A real policy model should therefore show, at minimum: expected units by category and district; low-, medium-, and high-compliance scenarios; registrations and attrition; Special Permit and Use Permit workload; annual fee revenue; likely changes in property-tax treatment; staffing and fringe costs; vendor and software costs; inspections and investigations; appeals and legal support; refunds and nonpayment; enforcement collections; effects on the supply of hosted and un-hosted rentals; and any reasonably anticipated shift in demand among hotels, resorts, lawful TVRs, and residential rentals. Without that model, the public record cannot responsibly tell us whether the program is likely to expand or contract transient-rental supply, materially change resident housing availability, generate a recurring surplus or deficit, or impose disproportionate costs on modest owner-occupants. That vacuum is exactly how residents end up debating whether the island is being turned into a larger visitor-accommodation zone on one hand, or whether the regulatory burden is designed to drive smaller operators out on the other. The present record does not establish either motive. It also does not provide the modeling needed to rule either outcome in or out. The same is true of the accusation that this is merely a County money grab. The current record supports the fact that the County will collect recurring fees and that owners may face tax consequences; it does not establish that revenue extraction is the hidden purpose of the bill. The cleanest way for Council to dispel that perception is not to object to the question. It is to publish the fiscal model: what the program costs, what each revenue source is expected to produce, how those revenues are restricted or used, what taxpayers subsidize, and how the financial burden is distributed among different kinds of property owners. When the public record cannot tell us whether the program is supposed to produce more rentals, fewer rentals, more housing, more enforcement, more tax revenue, or merely more applications, the program is not yet ready to be treated as analytically settled. 23. BY 2028, THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE A RECORD, NOT A THEORY. The next County of Hawaiʻi mayoral election is in 2028. If Bill 147 is adopted now, the public will not reach that election still debating a concept. The Chapter 6 registry will have been operating for roughly two years, and Bill 147's Chapter 25 choices will have had time to produce actual numbers: registrations, renewals, Special Permit applications, appeals, enforcement actions, fee revenue, staffing costs, tax consequences, neighborhood disputes, and—if the Agricultural District theory is wrong—reliance claims and litigation. By 2028, the fan will not be waiting politely in the corner. It will have been running for two years. Whatever Bill 147 has thrown into it will already be airborne and landing on actual people—owners, neighbors, staff, taxpayers, and voters. Council may reasonably disagree about what the policy should be, but it should not pretend the implementation risk can be postponed until after the political calendar. By then, any design flaw that matters will have had two years to become an operating problem—and probably a constituent problem. I am not pretending to know how voters will weigh every issue in 2028. But the direction of the political risk is not mysterious. A program that works can become an administrative accomplishment. A program that produces foreseeable legal reversals, permit backlogs, bad data, tax surprises, or neighborhood conflict becomes a political liability because those effects are personal, visible, and memorable. By 2028, voters will not need to be told what Bill 147 did. Many of them will have lived with it. That is another reason to finish the analysis before adopting the framework, not after. 24. WHAT SHOULD BE ANSWERED IN THE PUBLIC RECORD BEFORE THIS FRAMEWORK IS TREATED AS SETTLED. • If the no-farm-dwelling pathway in proposed §25-4-B(2)(B) depends on the June 4, 1976 exception in HRS §205-4.5(b), why does the operative text not expressly contain that limitation? • What statutory language affirmatively authorizes hosted transient lodging in a qualifying pre-1976 single- family dwelling without HRS §205-6 review? • What is the limiting principle? If the lawful dwelling carries transient lodging with it, which other unenumerated commercial uses also travel with the dwelling, and why? • What does Rosehill actually establish for the pre-1976 hosted question, given that its petitioners owned post- 1976 lots? • What does Neal/Zanone establish on the merits, given that the ICA expressly said it could not determine whether the Board of Appeals' legal conclusions were right or wrong? • Why has the County not sought an LUC declaratory ruling under HRS §91-8 on the precise pre-1976 hosted- rental question? • How does Draft 2 Section 22 interact with HRS §205-6(b)'s requirement that Special Permit hearing and action timing be established by rule or regulation? • Why should sign posting be removed for a surge of Agricultural District Special Permit cases instead of preserving notice and staffing the review process? • How many parcels islandwide—and specifically in Puna—could fall within the pre-1976 hosted theory after accounting for State district, zoning, dwelling type, development status, and actual legality? • What are the low-, medium-, and high-participation effects on visitor occupancy, roads, wastewater, water, emergency access, fire protection, agriculture, and resident housing? • What is the recurring program cost, and what portion of each annual fee pays for renewal processing versus broader administration and enforcement? • What is the Rentalscape/Deckard false-positive rate, false-negative rate, platform coverage, parcel-match methodology, source-retention policy, and correction procedure? • Why does Section 13 appear to replace the RM B&B reference with Hosted TVRs while Section 19 later restates the RM list with the old B&B reference to a section Draft 2 repeals? • If Communication 806.9 intends guest-house rooms to be rentable while also stating that a guest house is not a dwelling unit, how does that square with Draft 2's definition of a TVR as a dwelling unit or portion thereof? • Why is Council being asked to resolve these questions through adoption rather than requiring the Administration to answer them first? • Where is the Hawaiʻi County Charter §3-15(c) analysis demonstrating that Draft 2 conforms to and implements the now-effective General Plan 2045? • What site-specific protections are being lost when existing Planning Commission Use Permit review for B&Bs in RS, RA, FA, and A districts is replaced by a permitted-use pathway, and where is the analysis showing those protections are no longer needed? • Why should cancellation of a Chapter 6 TVR registration automatically revoke a separately issued Chapter 25 nonconforming-use certificate, and how do the respective notice and appeal rights interact? • Why should an existing NUC authorize an increase in rentable bedrooms up to five through registration alone without new site-specific land-use review of the increased transient intensity? • How many RM and CN units or building sites remain eligible for hosted or un-hosted TVR use under Draft 2, and how does that outcome respond to the Kona CDP Action Committee's workforce-housing and transportation concerns? • What written analysis supports the assertion made during committee discussion that Draft 2 is already aligned with General Plan 2045, as opposed to simply stating that belief? • If Council Members Villegas, Kierkiewicz, and Kimball believe Draft 2 is about as streamlined as it can reasonably become, what alternatives analysis demonstrates that the major policy components could not instead be separated and implemented in studied increments? • Why did Council describe the 2025 Chapter 6 registration system as an informational data-gathering step intended to guide future policy, yet move to a comprehensive Chapter 25 rewrite before the registry completed a full enforcement and renewal cycle? • What consolidated stakeholder findings, issue matrix, consultation summary, or disposition table was produced from the sponsor-led outreach dating back to 2022, and which recommendations materially shaped Draft 2? • Which significant stakeholder recommendations were rejected, by whom, and for what stated reason? If those decisions were never synthesized in writing, why should the duration of the outreach process be treated as evidence that the current bill is fully studied? • Where is the independent Long-Range Planning alternatives analysis for Bill 147, including parcel/build- out, housing, infrastructure, fiscal, and implementation scenarios, given that those subjects fall squarely within the Planning Department's stated technical and long-range functions? • What is the primary measurable policy objective of Bill 147, and what outcome metrics will tell the public whether the ordinance succeeded or failed? • What model shows how the combined registration fees, annual renewals, permit costs, property-tax consequences, compliance costs, and expected changes in transient-rental supply will affect modest owner-occupants, larger operators, resident housing, visitor demand, and County revenue? • If General Plan 2045 could be placed into a formal Planning Director-initiated interim-amendment process within months of adoption, why was a comparable alternatives-and-impacts process not completed for this islandwide zoning measure before first reading? CONCLUSION The central problem with Bill 147 is no longer difficult to describe. The County has built administrative momentum around a legal and planning framework that is not finished. The enforcement backlog is real, but it is not a new source of statutory authority. A lawful pre-1976 house is real, but that does not automatically answer whether transient visitor lodging is a separately permitted Agricultural District use. Rosehill is real, but it does not hold that pre-1976 hosted rentals are exempt from §205-6. Neal/Zanone is real, but it does not validate the County's theory. Chapter 6 registration is real, but registration does not create the underlying land-use right. The missing pieces are also real: no authoritative LUC answer; no parcel-level build-out model; no complete fiscal model; no cumulative Puna analysis; no household-level equity analysis; no publicly demonstrated vendor evidence protocol; no consolidated stakeholder decision record; no independent long- range planning alternatives analysis; no clear statement of the program's primary measurable objective; and no convincing explanation for why a new entitlement must be enacted while ordinary permit timelines and notice are simultaneously being relaxed. The County does not need another amendment piled on top of this structure and another promise that the remaining questions can be handled later. It needs to answer the questions it skipped while there is still time to fix the design on the ground rather than in midair. Get the LUC interpretation. Reconcile Draft 2 with itself. Preserve the Special Permit process where State law may require it. Map the affected parcels. State the policy objective. Model the cumulative impacts. Show the cost of the program and who pays it. Publish the stakeholder decision record. Put Long-Range Planning back into the land-use legislation. Validate the enforcement evidence. Bring the property-tax component back when the land-use framework is coherent. Then write the ordinance. That is not delay for the sake of delay. It is the minimum work necessary before government asks residents, property owners, staff, lenders, neighbors, and ultimately the courts to live with the consequences. Mahalo, BB SELECTED AUTHORITIES AND PUBLIC-RECORD SOURCES • October 21, 2026 Hawaiʻi County Council Agenda; Bill 147, Draft 2 (Comm. 806.15); negative PCPLUED recommendation, 4-5. • Bill 147, Draft 2, including proposed HCC §§25-4-A through 25-4-G and Sections 22-23. • Communication 806.9 (Sept. 1, 2026), Planning Department, 'B&B Hosting Scenarios in SLU Agricultural District.' • Planning Department Recommendation Report, PL-CCI-2026-000016, and Revised Recommendation dated June 30, 2026. • HRS §46-1.5(8); HRS §§91-8, 91-10, 91-12, 205-4.5, 205-6, 205-8, and 205-12; HRS Chapter 521. • HAR §§15-15-03, 15-15-95, and 15-15-99 through 15-15-104. • Rosehill v. Land Use Commission, 155 Hawaiʻi 41, 556 P.3d 387 (2024). • Ford v. Board of Appeals / Neal & Zanone, CAAP-25-0000004 & CAAP-25-0000005, Memorandum Opinion (Haw. ICA Mar. 30, 2026). • Hawaiʻi County Code Chapter 6, Article 6, including §§6-40 through 6-53, as amended by Ordinances 25-50 and 26-63; especially §§6-46, 6-48, and 6-49. • Hawaiʻi County Code Chapter 25, including §§25-2-35 and 25-2-36 and applicable zoning provisions. • Ordinance 18-114 (2018), prior STVR registration / NUC framework; Planning Department Rule 23. • Bill 173, Draft 2 (Comm. 960.3), proposed Bed and Breakfast Home real-property-tax classification. • Puna Community Development Plan (2008, as amended), including legacy subdivision, road, infrastructure, hazard, and build-out discussion. • County Planning Department background report for Hawaiian Acres Community Association, describing Hawaiian Acres as the first of many speculative subdivisions created during a boom lasting until 1975. • Hunden Partners, County of Hawaiʻi Economic Impact Study on Short-Term Vacation Rentals (2025). • Hawaiʻi County PCPLUED public meeting video, October 6, 2026, Bill 147 discussion, including Council discussion of General Plan 2045 alignment. • Hawaiʻi County Charter §3-15(b)-(c); Hawaiʻi County General Plan 2045, adopted by Ordinance No. 26-46, effective June 26, 2026. • HCC §§25-2-60 and 25-2-61, Use Permits; Planning Department Recommendation Report acknowledging removal of existing RS B&B Use Permit review. • Kona Community Development Plan Action Committee memorandum dated May 14, 2026, concerning RM/CN resident housing and transportation objectives. • Ordinance No. 26-63 (Bill 175, Draft 2), effective September 22, 2026, amending Ordinance No. 25-50 and the Chapter 6 TVR registration framework. • State of Hawaiʻi Office of Elections, “Mayor” / Elected Officials, identifying the County of Hawaiʻi mayoral term and next election in 2028. • PCPLUED Report No. 3 (May 6, 2025), Bill 47 / Ordinance 25-50 committee report, including Council Members Kimball and Kierkiewicz describing registration as a means to identify rental location/volume and as an informational step intended to guide future policy. • PCPLUED Report No. 13 (July 2026), Bill 175 / Ordinance 26-63 committee report, including Chair Inaba’s readiness question and Council Member Kierkiewicz’s questions regarding workflow, turnaround, complaints, public information, and record updates. • Hawaiʻi County TAR Draft Proposal outreach archive, linked from the Council District 1 webpage, including informational briefings and public-comment materials beginning in 2022 and continuing through the Ordinance 25-50 / Bill 147 process. • Bill 147 public record, including Communication 806.001 and related testimony/attachments concerning March 2026 hosted-rental guidance and Agricultural District Special Permit treatment. • Hawaiʻi County PCPLUED public meeting video, October 6, 2026, including Council discussion by Members Villegas, Kierkiewicz, and Kimball concerning the degree to which Bill 147 had already been streamlined. • HRS §§92-1 and 92F-2, State policy favoring open public-policy formation and public scrutiny; HRS §92F-11(c), providing that an agency need not create a compilation or summary not readily retrievable in the requested form. • County of Hawaiʻi Planning Department, “About the Department,” including the Department's technical-advice role and the stated responsibilities of the Long-Range Planning Division for legislative review, General Plan/code/rule amendments, CDPs, ordinances/resolutions, land-use inventory, and consultant contracts. • County of Hawaiʻi Planning Department, General Plan 2045 webpage: Ordinance No. 26-46, effective June 26, 2026; official long-range comprehensive plan developed through community engagement, technical analysis, and interagency collaboration. • County of Hawaiʻi Planning Department, “Planning Director-Initiated Interim Amendments to General Plan 2045,” September 2026 amendment package and public-comment process.