News

State Bills HB1838 & SB2919 Bills HB1838 and SB2919 are working their way through the State House and Senate.  Though much of the original language is gone, the bills do give Hawaii County the ability to phase out non-conforming uses.  What does this mean?  It means that Hawaii County can ban STVRs at will in any zoning. This makes it all the more important to defeat Bill 121.  Once Hawaii County forces families to apply for permits, the next step will be an effort to ban our industry entirely.  It happened on Oahu, it is happening on Maui and it will happen here. A Great Explanation of Bill 121 Maly Romero did a great job unpacking Bill 121 and how it will impact families.  Please share this around!

Start Writing and Planning for the Windward Planning Commission Date: April 4, 2024 @ 9:00 AM Location: Hawai‘i County Council Chambers in Hilo 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, HI 96720 It is important that everyone submit both written and in-person testimony! If you cannot be there in person, please register to testify via zoom. Our testimony tool will help you to draft an email that draws from our list of requests.  It can help you write your testimony in less than one minute.  If you'd rather write your testimony yourself, please ask the commission to take action on one of the items in our list of requests and send it to:   WPCtestimony@hawaiicounty.gov

Membership Drive

Hopefully you’re finding our updates helpful. If you’re not a paying member, please sign up. The HTA and hotels are spending millions of dollars trying to legislate our industry out of business. Membership is only $10/mo and supports both our Hawaii Island and state wide organization.

Our advocacy benefits everyone in the industry so please pay your fair share.

Ohana Aina Fund - Being Part of the Affordable Housing Solution

On Sunday we launched the Ohana Aina Fund, a $100M real estate investment fund designed to help aspiring short term rental hosts to become homeowners.

We had several candidates for public office attend, however, none of the incumbent county councilors considered affordable housing important enough to make time for the event.

The fund is designed for hospitality workers with solid credit, but it is open to anyone who manages their money responsibly and wants to become an on-site host. If you have a housekeeper, maintenance worker or property manager who fits that description, please share the application link with them.

We have already completed our first project where we put two median income maintenance workers into a 5,400 sq-ft, 7 bedroom, 6 bathroom, $2.1M home.

The project is based on an idea Joshua wrote up in CivilBeat in 2022 and funded out of his own pocket. Future funding will take the form of a real estate investment fund paired with a long term debt instrument.

Our next step is to select additional families for the program, so please share this as widely as possible.

Our goal is to prove that there are enough qualified hosts interested in the program to justify the time and money it will take to make it a success.

Windward and Leeward Planning Schedule - Bill 121

We have been informed that the tentative schedule for Bill 121 is as follows:

- April 4, 2024 - Windward Planning Commission

- April 18, 2024- Leeward Planning Commission

In our next update we’ll provide some guidance and tools for generating testimony that we fee will be effective.

Many of you may have seen the hundreds of people who showed up to oppose the Punalu’u Black Sand Beach Llc project. Their opposition was effective - the issue has been tabled for the foreseeable future.

If we can turn up a crowd this size there is a real possibility we can stop this legislation. Put it on your calendar, put it on your housekeeper’s calendars, put it on your maintenance worker’s calendars, bring it to the attention of other owners.

It’s your livelihood, protect it.

Be there.

UHERO Study - 58% of Housing Costs are Regulatory

It turns out that short term vacation rentals aren’t the cause of our housing crisis. Who would have guessed?

The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization ( UHERO ) released a study last week that indicated 58% of housing costs in Hawaii are regulatory.

So the buyer of a $600,000 new home is paying $348,000 for paperwork and $252,000 for the new home.

Hawaii County is trying to lay the affordable housing crisis at our feet. Don’t let them. It is our elected officials, unelected boards and Zendo Kern’s Planning Department that have caused the crisis. Don’t let them forget it.

HTA Survey - Let Them Know What You Think

The HTA wants to know what we think of them. Please take a moment and let them know!

Here are a couple of comments I made:

“The HTA has waged a multi-year war against our industry despite receiving millions of dollars of funding through the TAT and GET we pay.

The Hotel’s effort to put us out of business with Bills HB1838 and SB2919 is simply the latest in a long line of activities designed to regulate competition out of business so they can boost their bottom line.

Despite making up almost 1/3 of the total industry, we have no representation on the HTA and are constantly having to defend ourselves against anti-competitive regulatory interference.”

Some of my other comments may have included four letter words. Please feel free to do the same.

Cracking Down on Illegal Vacation Rentals Won't Solve Housing Crisis

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Gov. Josh Green used his strongest language to date on Tuesday to condemn short-term vacation rentals operating illegally, calling the situation “bullsh**” as he spoke in favor of legislation that would convert thousands of them into housing for local residents.

But legislators writing those laws say they probably will not have the impact the governor is hoping for.

Lawmakers trying to find solutions to the decades-old vacation rental conflict say the answer is not cracking down on illegal rentals, but getting owners to walk away from lucrative rental businesses operating legally.

The governor’s profanity reflected his frustration of the situation on Maui, where fire survivors remain in hotels while thousands of homes are rented to visitors. Converting those to long-term rentals sounds easy, especially when the governor suggested thousands are illegal. “We got 89,000 short-term rentals in the state of Hawaii, of which are only 14,000 are legal,” he said, at a news conference Tuesday.

State Sen. Troy Hashimoto of Central Maui said the same is true on the Valley Isle, which has also successfully cracked down on illegal rentals.

On both islands, thousands operate legally under county non-conforming use permits or certificates.

The units were operating as vacation rentals when the zoning rules allowed it, but were considered “non-conforming” after the counties banned them in residential or apartment areas.

Lawmakers plan to give the counties power to convert those to owner-occupant homes or long-term rentals, but because they are legal businesses that’s not easy.

Former Attorney General David Louie represents Air BnB and has been testifying against the effort.

“You don’t get to retroactively go back and say, Hey, I’ve decided you can’t do what you’ve been doing on your property. That’s not allowed,” Louie said at a House hearing on January 31.

“This is going to lead to litigation, it’s going to be unconstitutional.”

Chris Adair, who said she operates rentals on the Big Island, was one of hundreds who testified against the House bill.

“We’ve invested time, effort and resources under the assurance that our rights to use our property will be respected,” she said the rentals make it possible to afford her own home.

The state lawmakers say what the counties will do with the authority to convert the rentals is entirely up to the counties, because each has been operating a different regulatory environment, and faces different legal challenges.

“I think there are various ways that we may be able to find a compromise, to make sure that we can get a hold of short term rentals without having to, you know, pay out the use of your property,” Hashimoto said.

Evslin said litigation is expected and it could be up to the courts to determine when a policy is unconstitutional or demands compensation for the loss of property or income.

“These people can continue to operate for 10 years, and then they lose the permit,” Evslin said was one concept.

“I’ve also heard the possibility of maybe they lose the permit on the sale of the property,” he said.

Both lawmakers say the counties already have what they consider the best tool for discouraging vacation rentals — tax them until they are less profitable.

Third Time, Not Charming

The third draft of Hawaii County’s proposed regulations is out.  It is even worse for homeowners, service providers and affordable housing than the first draft. If you do nothing else this week, please do these two things: 1. Sign the petition.  Our original goal was to get 500 signatures.  We’ve crushed that goal and are aiming for 1,000.  Be sure to share the petition with any other owners, service providers or supporters you might know. 2. Please take 5 minutes and help us understand your role in the vacation rental industry.  We are going to use your response to help us accurately draft correspondence to Hawaii Lawmakers.  <Too Long, Didn’t Read> Sign our petition. We’ve analyzed the latest draft of the regulations. They are worse than the first draft. We’re publishing an open letter in the local newspapers. Help fund it. Our industry is now coordinating state wide. Here is a legislation tracker. The County’s own report highlights the real causes of the affordable housing crisis. Newsflash! - It isn’t vacation rentals. </TLDR> Petition Progress We soft launched our petition a couple weeks ago and passed the 500 signature goal immediately.  We’re now aiming for 1,000.  Please sign our petition and share it with service providers, friends and family members who might be affected by additional restrictions on our industry. Third Draft of Regulations Counselor’s Kimball and Kierkiewicz have released a 3rd draft of proposed regulations on homestays and farmstays.  For some reason the 3rd draft is even worse for families than the first two.  Take a look at our analysis. Open Letter For Publication in Local Newspapers We are publishing an open letter in the local newspapers and online news sources.  This is going to be quite expensive.  If your business is going well and you want to protect it from government overreach, please consider making a $100 donation. State Wide Coordination We are now coordinating our efforts at the state level with all major vacation rental platforms as well as grassroots organizations on Maui and Oahu.  One of the participants in this effort has developed a dashboard to track state laws that might impact our businesses. As near as we can tell, all of the really threatening state laws were abandoned in committee, but it is clear that the “bad idea fairy” has a long term engagement in the Hawaii Statehouse.  We’ll keep you informed about future bills and we will reach out when testimony would be useful. The Real Cause of the Affordable Housing Crisis Affordable housing is the reason lawmakers have cited as the motive to heavily regulate our industry.  The County’s review of their affordable housing program was published and it’s brutal.  The report found serious problems across the board with the County’s affordable housing program including embezzlement, lack of record keeping, pre-awarded affordable housing credits and a host of other issues. Homestays and Farmstays are not causing the affordable housing crisis and eliminating them will not solve it.  In fact, by taking away nearly $400,000,000 in homestay revenue the county will make it impossible for those of us in the industry to make ends meet. This legislation targets our operations under the guise of “creating affordable housing”  We need to be sure to clearly communicate what the real problem is - corruption, incompetence and overly burdensome building regulations.  Politicians want to scapegoat our industry to distract from the real issues, we need to put an end to that.

Opposing HB-84 - A Bill Giving Hawaii County the Power to Retroactively Ban Vacation Rentals

If you only do one thing this week please take a minute to submit testimony to the State House about House Bill 84. <Too Long/Didn’t Read> The State House of Representatives has proposed a bill that would allow Hawaii County to retroactively eliminate non-conforming uses and effectively shut down the entire vacation rental industry. Hawaii County has yet to respond to our $10,000 offer to fund a study of the effects of hosted rentals on the local housing market.  We are going to expire the offer after another week. Heather Kimball and Ashley Kierkiewicz have been promising a new draft of the Hawaii County bill since early January, but as of this writing no draft has become available.  We will let you know when a revised draft is available. I’ve been asked to do several interviews over the past couple of months including one with Think Tech Hawaii that might be worth a look. Hopefully I’m carrying our message in an honest and accessible way. Petition Soft Launch - We’ve soft launched a petition.   Once we get 500 signatures we'll promote it more broadly.  Please sign up early to help us build momentum. </TLDR> House Bill 84 - Giving Hawaii County More Power Today we are protected by State and Federal law that restricts Hawaii County’s ability to shut down our businesses, but HB 84 changes that.  This bill would grant counties the power to retroactively revoke non-conforming use certificates to make vacation rentals illegal. If anyone doubts that there is a consistency that wants us fully shut down and doesn’t care at all about our ability to make a living then you haven’t been paying attention. The last thing we need is a county with more power.  I’m headed to Oahu to testify in person, but I’d like to urge you to please submit testimony in opposition to changes that give Hawaii County more power over us. Studying the Effects of Hosted Vacation Rentals In 2018 Hawaii County passed regulations that banned new un-hosted short term rentals, regulated existing short term rentals and created a new bureaucracy for managing the industry.  The justification for this effort?  Affordable housing. Five years later the county is proposing new regulations, fees and bureaucratic roadblocks for the industry under the same justification.  Affordable Housing.  But what were the effects of the first effort?  Is there more housing now than there was then?  What have been the impacts on families who depend on rental income?  Has their housing situation improved?  To answer these questions we offered to match Hawaii County $10,000 to conduct an independent study of the effects of the 2018 law and the potential impacts of the new legislation.  To date we have not received a response.   This raises the question: What is the county afraid of?  If our industry truly is the cause of the affordable housing crisis ( it isn’t ) and does not’ benefit local families ( it does ) then why not conduct an independent study to confirm that hypothesis before launching into an onerous, divisive and expensive legislative process? This week I’ll put an expiration date on the offer and, if they refuse to conduct a study, we’ll be sure to bring that up as the bill moves through the County Counsel and mayor’s office. New Draft Hawaii County Bill The draft of the Hawaii County bill provided November 20 had a significant number of problems. In addition to many of the issues we’ve brought up here it was clearly in violation of recent court decisions at both the State and Federal level. Over the past two months we’ve been working hard to provide positive feedback on the bill and have been promised a new draft that solves many of the problems we’ve brought forward.  So where is it?  We’ve been promised a draft numerous times and it has failed to appear, but when it does we’ll be sure to give you a complete rundown of its impacts on our community. Petition Soft Launch We’re circulating a petition to send to Hawaii County regarding the proposed county legislation, please consider signing on and having your service providers sign on as well.  There are thousands of us who depend on vacation rental income to make ends meet.  Lets be sure to let Hawaii County know that. We're aiming for 500 signatures before we broadly promote it.  Please sign on today.

Rather than a update this week I'm publishing an open letter to Heather Kimball and Ashley Kierkiewicz about the justification for further regulating hosted vacation rentals here on the Big Island.

In this letter our organization is committing $10,000 in matching funds for an independent peer reviewed study of hosted rentals and their impact on obtainable housing.  This commitment is contingent on Hawaii County pausing this legislative process until the study is commissioned, conducted, completed and peer reviewed.

Quality investigation leads to quality legislation.

If you only do one thing this week, please be sure to attend the information session tonight at 5 PM.

[ Too Long, Didn’t Read ]

• There is an information session tonight at 5 PM about the proposed regulations. Be there, comment in the chat, provide feedback if allowed.
• VRBO sent an email message. We are now planning local feedback sessions. We need volunteers to help organize them.
• 2022 Financial Statements are now available.

[ /TLDR ]

Information Session Tonight - Log In, Comment

Counselors Kimbell and Kierkiewicz are holding an information session on the County’s plan to regulate and, in some cases, eliminate hosted vacation rental operations here on the Big Island.

If this meeting follows the format of the November 20th meeting their will not be any forum for meaningful discussion. It is purely to inform the public what they plan to do, not to give the public an opportunity to tell them why they shouldn’t do it.

This one sided approach to information sharing prevents meaningful engagement about the impact this bill will have on the incomes and home values of thousands of families.  It is intended to calm us.

We are encouraging members of the public to make use of the chat feature to provide timely feedback to the proposal. We are also planning in-person listening sessions sometime in the next several weeks where members of the public will be able to voice their concerns. Both Counselors have agreed, in principle, to attend.

You are supposed to register individually here, but since many folks won’t have time to do this in advance I’m providing my personal link as well. If you use my personal link you will show up with my name so please don’t do or say anything that I’ll have to apologize for later.

VRBO Email

VRBO sent out a nice email message this week pointing hosts to our group. As a result we’ve added dozens of new members.

I’ve also been put in touch with the public affairs team at AirBnB.

Now that we have a path to communicate with most of the industry we will be planning public feedback sessions which both sponsors of this bill have agreed, in principle, to attend.

We will host the Kona event on our farm, but need hosts in Puna, Hilo and Waimea. If you can help organize one of these sessions it would be much appreciated. If you’ve already volunteered and I missed your email, please reach out again.

2022 Financial Statements

In keeping with our core principle of transparency here is our 2022 profit and loss statement as well as a balance sheet.

We are rapidly adding members and are working to build a sustainable revenue stream so we can bring on part time staff and start participating in local elections, but we’re not quite there yet. If you haven’t already joined, please consider becoming a paid member. We all count on rental revenue and this is a good investment to protect that revenue from government overreach.

If you only do one thing this week, please sign up for and attend Hawaii County's webinar January 20 and be sure to weigh in with your opinion in the chat window.

<Too Long, Didn't Read>
Platforms Reached - If things go to plan we’ll send our first email to all hosts on the island next week.
County Publishes Sketchy Website - It turns out there were practically no complaints about vacation rentals.
Counselors Hold Webinar - Please plan on attending.
Petition to Launch - We are launching a petition drive.
County Reacting to Input - The justification for this bill is changing because of our efforts.
</TLDR>

Platform Reached

We have had several nice conversations with the team at VRBO over the past two weeks and, if things go as planned, they are sending an email blast on our behalf early next week. They will be sharing our video and promoting our group as much as they can within their brand guidelines.

County Publishes Sketchy Website and Confirms: There Have Been Practically No Complaints About Vacation Rentals

In response to all of the emails, phone calls, meeting requests and pushback from the community, Heather Kimball has published an unofficial Hawaii County website promoting the proposal.  Well, we think it is Heather, but.....

I’m not linking it here because it doesn't have a privacy policy, doesn’t list contact information for the site owner, the SSL certificate contains no organization information and it asks for the reader's name and email address. It could be an effort by hackers or an industry group to influence this legislation.

But assuming it is legitimate…..one item that stands out is that there have been very few complaints about vacation rental operators here on the Island.

The site claims that there are 4,441 registered vacation rentals and points out that hosted rentals are not registered. That means there were 1,691,000 rental nights available at registered vacation rentals last year.

The number of complaints received? 65.

This works out to a complaint rate of %0.000062.

To address these complaints Hawaii County is demanding thousands of dollars in fees, floor plans of homes, adding additional work to an already overburdened planning department and threatening the livelihood of thousands of operators and service providers.

Counselors Holding Additional Webinar

Counselor Kimball and Kierkiewicz are holding another webinar on this issue on January 20. The format is likely to be the same as the one in November.

I encourage our members to attend, but to keep in mind that the goal of the proponents of this bill is to reduce opposition. The content and tone is likely to be conciliatory. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is the language of the bill as written. According to our analysis the current language has the potential to put a lot of families in financial trouble.

If you attend I encourage you to make your thoughts on the bill clear in the Zoom comments. These will be seen by all participants and give you the opportunity to communicate your thoughts. Be kind and be honest, but also persistent and vocal.

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QlHr-wlsTsCKvoHS-odmQA

Petition

We plan to launch the petition this week in concert with the VRBO message. When that happens we will be asking our members to circulate it widely.

County Reacting to Community Input

All of the emails, calls, meetings and efforts are definitely paying dividends. The County has been reacting to our messaging and has already started to change the language they are using to describe the bill.

That said, the language of the bill itself does not appear to have changed significantly and ultimately that is what matters.

On her constituent communication call November 29 Heather Kimball indicated that the two drivers of this bill were complaints and affordable housing. Zendo Kern confirmed this in his communications with West Hawaii Today. Now that it is clear that there were practically no complaints the justification has changed. In the unofficial website Kimball cites two reasons:

“First, the bill is meant to ensure that all TAR operations in Hawaii County are legal, safe,and followingstandards(sic) of operation so that they are not disruptive to the neighborhoods where they are located.”

Lets unpack that.

“Legal” - Hosted TARs are already legal. They would only become illegal if this bill passes and people can’t or won’t register.

“Safe” - The County already has a byzantine permitting and planning process that ensures construction is safe and legal.

“Following Standards of Operation” - Almost all vacation rentals use technology platforms with well developed standards for safety, financial security and physical security. These platforms have a reputation system for customer feedback and dedicated teams who address conflicts and violations of standards. Is Hawaii County saying that they can do it better?

“So that they are not disruptive of neighborhoods” - Hawaii County received 65 complaints for over 1,691,000 rental nights. That is a complaint rate of %0.000062. Evidence shows that TARs are not disruptive in any meaningful way.

“The second reason for the bill is the due to the impact that TARs have on the housing market. TARs reduce the inventory of housing available for residents and increase area housing costs and rents. Hawaii County has a significant problem with the availability of housing and this bill is intended to reduce speculation by outside investors on our island.”

“TARs reduce the inventory of housing available for residents and increase area housing costs and rents.” - The county has admitted that they have commissioned no studies, conducted no research and developed no data on the impact of hosted TARs on affordable housing.

The hosted TARs that this bill targets are operated by owners or renters who live on the property. They use the vacation rental income to pay their rent and their mortgage.

7,500 families count on this income to make ends meet every month. Making it harder for these kama aina to pay their bills is going to result in people losing their housing.

This bill will reduce affordable housing.

“Hawaii County has a significant problem with the availability of housing” - One of Hawaii County’s key affordable housing employees embezzled $11,000,000 of affordable housing credits for his own personal gain. Perhaps Hawaii County should address this issue internally before disrupting the livelihood of thousands of Hawaii families.

“this bill is intended to reduce speculation by outside investors on our island.” - Once again Kimball conflates absentee owned rentals ( which are ALREADY regulated ) with hosted rentals - local families who rent a room or an ohana to visitors. This bill is not about outside investors.

In fact, this bill may increase the number of outside investor owned properties. Families forced to sell their property because of this bill are very likely to find buyers on the mainland or internationally.

If you only do one thing this week please share this video across all of your social media.

This week we made good progress on getting our message through to our elected representatives.  I met with Mayor Roth, Heather Kimball and Dr. Holeka Inaba. All three conversations were very productive.

<Too Long, Didn’t Read>

• Rumor Mitigation - Nothing nefarious is going on.  The political process is playing out as per-usual and we have ample opportunity to succeed within it.
• Platform Involvement - VRBO has agreed in principle to send out communications on our behalf.  We need to get ready for it.
• Alternative Bill - We’ve drafted an alternative bill.  Give it a read and provide comments to Jennifer if you have any.
• Direct Action - We took our first direct action this week with mixed results.
• Items of Concern - Our industry runs the risk of being scapegoated unfairly as the cause of the affordable housing crisis in Hawaii.  We need to get better at telling our story if we want to avoid that outcome.

</TLDR>

Rumor Mitigation

I’ve been talking to a lot of elected officials and I want to put a few rumors to bed.

1. “This legislation is an ambush on our businesses.” - Heather and Ashley put this legislation out into the community months ahead of introducing it.  If you look at how other legislation has been proposed recently you’ll see that this is not the norm.  They are honestly interested in feedback and I believe they are listening to our message.  

That said, they can’t get our message if we aren’t broadcasting it so make sure you write them and let them know what you think.

2. “The legislation seeks to reduce homestays and farmstays in favor of the hotel industry.” - While lobbyists from the hotel industry may be working to restrict competition at both the state and local level, nothing I’ve seen indicates that this is the primary motivation for this bill.

If lobbyists for the hotel industry are taking action they are most likely promoting the story that homestays and vacation rentals take away from affordable housing.  This seems to be a story that resonates with lawmakers.

To combat this story we need to stand up and demonstrate that vacation rental income is critical to local families who use it to offset the extreme cost of living here in Hawai’i.  Far from reducing housing availability, the revenue from this industry makes it possible for families to purchase and maintain their homes.

The best way to tell our story today is to provide a video testimonial to Ryan Leese who is working to create video messaging that tells our story.  A testimonial only takes a few minutes to create and, as you can see in this weeks video, sends a powerful message.  Take a minute and contact Ryan today.

Platform Involvement

Expedia ( VRBO ) reached out to us proactively a few weeks ago and I was finally able to circle back and connect with them.  They’ve indicated a willingness to consider sending an email blast to all of the hosts on the Big Island on our behalf.

We’re anticipating this email will go out in the second week of January so we need to get ready for it.

Among the actions we need to take:

1. Polish up our video story(s) so it can be part of the message.
2. Provide logistical support for listening sessions with Heather, Ashley and the broader community.  The email blast will promote these sessions and ensure they are well attended.  We need to book venues, promote the meetings, provide snacks and attend them in force.
3. Further refine our definition of the bill so that the general public can understand it.  We will do so honestly, but also in a way that clearly communicates our concerns.
   
   Short one-page fliers will go further than multi-page detailed analysis, so lets work on creating a concise and honest assessment of what this bill means to our industry, our businesses and our families.

4. Get our website and messaging configured to recruit paying members.

We really need folks to step up and take the role of community leaders to help organize their local listening sessions.  If you’re willing to step up, please send me a note:  joshua.montgomery@guardwellfarm.com

Redline Bill

Several of our members have been working on an alternate bill that addresses Hawai’i County’s concerns while preserving our right to earn a living.  Chief among them is Jennifer Wilkinson who has done a lion's share of the work.

Here are links to both the redlined version and a more readable alternate version of this bill.  We’d love to see folks commenting on this in the Ohana Aina Association members forum.  If you’re a member, please log in and give us your viewpoint.  If you are not a member please join.  The dues are very reasonable and we need all the help we can get.

Direct Action

We took our first direct action this week by attending Heather Kimball’s talk story session en-mass.  Her call usually only has a half dozen attendees.  We brought more than 40.

The action was a partial success.  Everyone was polite and I think we made our voices heard, but there were far less of us than is really needed to make our point by numbers.

Part of this failing is the late notice.  I only sent out the details 2 hours before the meeting and our Facebook group is locked which makes it difficult to message people over social media.

That said, our group is too small.  There are more than 7,000 families that could be impacted by this bill.  In my household alone we have six: my core family, may farm hand’s family and four cleaning staff’s families.  That is for two addresses.

We need to do a better job recruiting owners, but also - critically - activating service providers who depend on vacation rental operations as part of their income.

Items of Concern

Gov. Green recently appointed Nani Mederios to the state’s new chief of housing and she has indicated a desire to convert vacation rentals into long term housing.  There are a number of ways to do this including enforcing current rules, providing incentives to vacation rental operators and streamlining permitting of density enhancing conversions from un-hosted floorplans to hosted floorplans.  Unfortunately those solutions take resources, consensus building and changes to the bureaucracy.

Simply attempting to villainize and outlaw our industry is the easy path.

I’m concerned that without a strong voice at the state level telling the stories of families who are service providers for our industry, hosted operators in our neighborhoods it is easy to make us a scapegoat for systematic failures of leadership.

To combat this approach we need to organize at the state level and work hard to tell our story to lawmakers who might not understand that many of those 25,000 “illegal” operators are simply families trying to make ends meet in one of the most expensive places on earth.

In last week’s update we indicated that Heather Kimball is hosting a talk story event at 9 AM on December 20 via Zoom and we are encouraging everyone to attend.

Please remember to enter your full name and be kind, courteous and honest. We are not against anyone. We are for our right to participate in the local economy.

https://bit.ly/talk_story

Meeting ID: 895 1338 3304

Attend today.