The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0739.324 2016-2018 iv Pc, bill IOlc From: Ted Klassen To: Council Testimony Subject: Bill 108 testimony Date: Monday,October 15,2018 12:00:08 PM O ‘,7) Co Q October 15th, 2018 C, --I o� Aloha Council Members, -0 Mahalo for all the hard work on Bill 108 and the chance to once again provide testimony. As a professional property manager, we understand the need for enforcement and additional zoning .**Li —.. changes to protect our residents and neighbors from operators not following the existing zoning and laws. Having said that, I believe the unintended consequences of this Bill will be devastating to our economic well-being on the island. I have a few points on the Bill that I believe will assist in clarification and then some comments. Mahalo for you time and for reviewing both. • Please recommend that a non-conforming property will need to inform only physically adjoining properties. Placing the burden of reviewing and confirming the contact information for all properties adjacent and within 300 feet will be inefficient use of the planning department resources. There is already a database being established for both conforming and non-conforming, is that not sufficient. • GET and TAT licenses are already required to be displayed in all advertising and in the STVR properties. The ability to cross reference to non-conforming certificate numbers should make this effort redundant. Please consider removing this additional burden. • Please add some reasonableness to this definition: by differentiating between an information type call and an emergency or Agency call. There are situations where people may be abusing this section to the detriment of all parties involved. SECTION 3. Chapter 25, article 1, section 25-1-5, of the Hawai'i County Code 1983 2016 Edition, as amended), is amended by adding new definitions to be appropriately inserted and to read as follows: Current wording: Reachable"means being able to:1)Respond via telephone to a request from a guest, neighbor, or County agency within one hour of receiving that request;and 2) Be physically present at the short-term vacation rental within three hours of receiving a call from a guest, neighbor, or County agency, when that guest, neighbor, or County agency requests the presence of the reachable person." Suggested wording:Reachable"means being able to:1)Respond via telephone to a request from a guest, neighbor, or County agency within one hour of receiving that request; and 2) Be physically present at the short-term vacation rental within three hours of receiving a reasonable call request from a guest or neighbor, when that guest or neighbor reasonably requests the presence of the reachable person." and 3) Be physically present at the short-term vacation rental within three hours of receiving an emergency call(fire, blood or flood)from a guest or neighbor, ora call from a County agency requests the presence of the reachable person." M Comm. No. -1 N:NA Ref.To:_P IPC Ref. Date OCT 1 5 2018 • There are already laws in place to manage vacation rentals—Hawaii Chapter 467 (Real Estate Brokers...) and Chapter 237 (GET). Please add reference to these two laws within Bill 108, so the enforcement officers will be able to utilize all the available tools for enforcement. Many issues arise from non-licensed operators presenting as cleaners, landscapers, home check or pool service companies which are acting as property managers as they choose to interpret their role under Chapter 237 as an on-island contact. Although once these non- licensed operators represent more than one property owner they are governed under Chapter 467. This will allow the Bill 108 enforcement officers to address these issues as well. Comments • At the recent Hawaii Tourism Summit(Oct 3,2018),an airline consultant stated that the airline routes to Hawaii are lucrative and that the only restriction to tourism growth in Hawaii is the lack of accommodation. • travelers looking for alternative accommodations continues to increase globally o Hotels are achieving record REV/PAR and occupancy o Hawaii Island hotels have been reducing their available rooms by switching them to timeshare offerings (Hilton), and some to condos (Hapuna Prince converting about 100 rooms to'condos) o If the goal is restricting our economic growth,this Bill should be the cap everyone is looking for. o The economic hit Hawaii Island suffered just by the May 3rd eruption, and subsequent hurricane scares should be an indicator of how this will affect our island. Two restaurants by our resort area office closed their doors,one tour company,and how many other companies have laid off people. • As a professional Management Company,we employ about 27 full time local people,with pay scales well above the current minimum wage,full time employment at 40 hours per week, provide 100% health care and contribute 3%of wages to a 401K. One of our employees recently purchased their first home due We also contract about another 20 full time equivalents at the Hawaii average salary of about 53k per year. Unfortunately,we predict that we will need to terminate about 6 full time positions over the first year of the Bill's implementation as our future growth is restricted to resort nodes despite many HOAs or CCRs allowing seven-night minimum rentals. • Hosted STVR is allowed,so called un-hosted is not allowed. As a professional company,we have seventeen (17) pages of policies to deter any parties or events in any of our managed properties. We have people on call 24/7 in case of any emergencies and we monitor our properties through noise sensors which alert us if a certain decibel range has been reached, so we can contact our guests immediately. Our controls and actions suggest that our un-hosted property is monitored as closely as a hosted property if the management company is acting in good faith. • Many of the homes being used legally(Licensed, paying taxes,approved CCRS)for STVR are second homes. People purchase them as either their vacation home or as a future retirement home. Many would sit empty or these people will invest elsewhere where they can offset maintenance costs via STVR rentals. By eliminating the future option of STVR,there will be a reduction in property values,which in turn will reduce the tax base for the County. This suggests there will be an increase in tax rates for all of those paying property taxes across the county to make up for the loss. A strike against affordable housing. • As the testimony showed at the last meeting, many of the STVR condos have been STVRs for about 40 years. If these resort nodes have been operating for all that time,then blaming the shortage of affordable housing on STVR may be misleading. • History has shown that it takes a long time to get approvals for zoning changes or for building permits. To think we will be able to get changes to accommodate affordable housing or . futyr,e SMs,within a reasonable time frame is not feasible. This article in Hawaii Business : 1 f explains it well. https://www.hawaiibusiness.com/honolulu-late-and-last/ • To my knowledge not one professional on-island management company was involved in any discussions related to the creation or original draft of the Bill. Presentations were provided to the council from groups outside the industry but on island management companies were only provided an opportunity to testify or comment after the Bill was drafted. Council members were gracious with their time discussing the Bill after it was drafted. It is unfortunate that the companies,their employees and employees'families,who make a living from this industry were not consulted in the original stages. Mahalo for taking the time to review, Mahalo Ted Ted Klassen mba Kona Coast Property Management LLC, Dba Kona Coast Vacations 745565 Luhia Street,#101 Kailua Kona, HI • 96740 808-329-2140 www.konacoastvacations.com