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Ohana Aina Association

Problematic New Regulations Proposed

November 24, 2022 1:10 PM | Anonymous

On November 21, 2022 County Counselors Heather Kimball and Ashley Kierkiewicz presented a fully formed policy that, if adopted, would radically harm more than 7,500 families here on the Big Island.

Among the most potentially harmful consequences of the bill as written:

  • Cuts off an important path that many kama'aina have used to become home owners.

  • Completely bans people from renting ohanas for less than 180 days.
  • Provides no path for farmers to participate in the visitor economy.
  • Creates insurmountable hurdles for kama'aina who rent a single room.
  • Contains egregiously large fines ( $10,000 per day )
  • Attempts to fix long standing problems with the permitting department at the expense of homeowners.
  • Eliminates jobs for service providers like cleaners, maintenance people, farm hands and managers.

The underlying cause of these problems is a processes that is fundamentally broken and unfair.  Counselors Kimball and Kierkiewicz have drafted this bill without input from homeowners, service providers, farmers or others.
First off, rewind.  A bill affecting the livelihood of 7,500 families needs more public input, socialization and collaboration than a bill authorizing a change in parking regulations.  Tens of thousands of people are going to be financially affected by this bill.  Let's start from scratch and get it right.

To fix the bill the counselors need to rewind and listen:

Rewind:  A bill affecting the livelihood of 7,500 families needs more public input, socialization and collaboration than a bill authorizing a change in parking regulations.  Tens of thousands of people are going to be financially affected by this bill.  Let's start from scratch and get it right.

Listen: to the people who are going to be affected by this bill before drafting it.  And then draft it collaboratively.  People who host transient accommodations are experts in the economics, practicalities and impact of vacation rentals.  The County is not.  The County wouldn’t seek to regulate the automotive industry without consulting automakers.  If the county is looking to regulate hosted transient accommodation rentals it makes sense to talk to the people who earn their mortgage each month by running them.

Folks who want to see how this regulation was presented can find the information here: https://youtu.be/V2Yf3LoWmY4

The regulations themselves can be found here. https://tinyurl.com/TARVNdraft1122




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