|
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>
</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.
|
