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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-04-14 PL-CCI-2024-000003 Bill 121 Richard Ingram Testimony From: Richard Ingram To: LPCtestimony Subject: Bill 121-Comment Letter 2 of 2 Date: Sunday,April 14, 2024 9:59:58 AM Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments regarding proposed Bill 121. 1 am providing two comment letters to the Commission. The first letter addressed a specific line item of the bill. This letter, the second of two, addresses how the current regulations, enacted though the passage of Bill 108 five years ago, have impacted me and my neighborhood. My hope is that the Commission might better understand and be able to foresee potential outcomes regarding further regulation of vacation rentals. I am an owner of a fully compliant and registered residential vacation rental. I choose to rent my home part time to guests when I am not on the island. Just this week I received the following complaint from one of my neighbors: "Your current tenants have a smoker who I have repeatedly seen walking up and down (Street Name Removed) smoking a cigarette. This morning she is sitting in the gutter outside your property smoking. IS THIS NOW A HOMELESS COMMUNITY. HAVE YOU NO RESPECT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE THIS AREA HOME. IT IS ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER. THIS HAS TO STOP!" To provide context to this comment — this observation was made sometime in the morning before 9:30 AM on my street in a quiet public residential neighborhood in front of my house. The street has a terrific view, and as everyone knows who lives in Kona, morning is a blessed time to be out. I do not allow smoking in my house or on my lot. If you are a guest at my home you have to choose another spot to smoke. I would believe one would choose the curb and not the gutter to sit on — but who knows! Certainly, the individual smoking is not homeless!! This is a typical example of the absurd and aggressive reality that has developed in our neighborhood since the passage of Bill 108. Bill 108 has nothing remotely to do with where you can and cannot smoke. Bill 108 has entirely changed the landscape of the neighborhood. Vacation rentals existed before the law came into effect. Issues, if there were any, were dealt with swiftly by direct communication. However, once the law went into effect things changed. The law's good neighbor rules have been the jumping off point for those opposed to vacation rentals to create their own interpretation of what it means to be a good neighbor. As illustrated above, apparently good neighbors do not smoke when walking down the street if they are guests at a vacation rental. Bill 108 has created fertile ground for bullying. The bullies opposed to vacation rentals have, over time, mentally expanded the reach of Bill 108. The complaints I have received are obscure and far reaching. "No smoking in public; no talking on the phone in the middle of the day in your yard; no children's laughter; no crying babies; a demand of silence after 8PM !" - as my neighbor would say— "ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER". And none of it having anything to do with the actual rules that were enacted by the County. What I find truly frustrating is that the individuals who are so adamantly opposed to vacation rentals are not people who grew up here or worked here for most of their lives. They are retired transplants from the mainland who wholeheartedly wish they were in a retirement community. They have ruined our neighborhood. They have also created an unusual dynamic for those other full-time residents that are not particular zealots about vacation rentals. Those residents are now questioning "which side should I take?" — "what will happen to me if I associate with the owners of a vacation rental?" — "I now live in a neighborhood with this person that is so domineering, what do I do? - I don't want to get on their bad side" - "I fear the repercussions and ending up being ostracized by others in the neighborhood". All of this seems kind of crazy. It is sad. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it happen. This is not Aloha. Fortunately, the bullies are not the majority of people in the neighborhood — only the loudest and nastiest. I have neighbors who live right next door to me that I talk to frequently. They check in on my place - they never hear anything out of the ordinary from my guests. The bullies have created a fictional reality that suits them. Just because you don't like something does not give you the right to mistreat those who live outside that fictional reality in the normal world. If there ever was a problem with my vacation rental I would want to be the first one to know. But when I get a complaint about someone smoking on the street in front of my house and it is accompanied by an ALL CAPS "THIS HAS GOT TO STOP" - what am I supposed to do? This has led me to only listen to the neighbors that are honest and ignore the rest. Being the recipient of prejudice stings. I have been threatened. My family members have been harassed and yelled at. I have called the police and asked for guidance on how to deal with this continuous harassment. I am bringing this to the Commission's attention so that you might understand the unintended consequences that passage of new vacation rental legislation may create. I would ask that the Commission consider ways to structure Bill 121 to provide equity for all people. Inequity, as we have seen from our history, causes division and prejudice and gives rise to the aggressive behavior that bullies exhibit. Mahalo, Richard Ingram Sent from Mail for Windows