you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Welcome to the eighth session of the Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use and Economic Development here in the West Hawaii County Building. It is 235. Present, our council members. Oh my goodness, Inaba, Unishi, Houston, Kimball, In Hilo Kirkwitz, and Kaguata, and I am Vice Chair, Michelle Galimba. We will go to testimony. Thank you, Vice Chair Gilemba. We have six testifiers signed up here so far in Kona. We'll start outside of Kona though. Mr. Ursula, can you provide us with the two of your first testifiers in whatever format you prefer. Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk. Chair, we have one testifier here in person in the Heelow Chamber and a number of testifiers via Zoom. So we'll start with our testifier in Heelow. Joshua Mahalic testifying on Bill 47 to be followed by Heather Karody and Joy Dillon via Zoom. Joshua, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes. Hello, huh? My name is Joshua Mahallek, and I'm here to testify on Bill HP 47. Thank you for letting me speak. So this bill HP 47 appears to be just the second attempt to regulate and register TVRs after SB 121 was shelved. It feels a bit like a shell game where everybody was up in arms over 121. We had a ton of people coming out and saying how horrible it was going to be for them and it couldn't get passed, so it was shelt. Now we have the exact same bill that's been stripped down and nobody's here to testify about it because they kind of, they have already thought they handled it when they got rid of SB 121. Seems that this bill is essentially made to force registration on people who have been doing business for generations like this renting out their homes and their rooms to make ends meet. These homes are not cash cows by any stretch and yet it seems that chance they get they're increasing our taxes, which they just did again, new TBR, STR taxes for TAT. Raise that, I don't think I think one other 1%. Now they want an additional registration fee of $150 for hosted. And then to persecute the unhosted units, we're going to go ahead and amplify that by 150% for the same job and charge us $250. It seems like it's just a way to force these people to register who they are so that when the time comes, and it seems like this is inevitable that the county wants to eventually make these types of businesses illegal, they've got a nice easy way to crack down everybody and put them out of business. It just seems to me that it's unfair to force these people to keep paying and paying and paying. Last year, I, between the state and the county and all my taxes and fees and registration dues and everything that was included. The county and the state made more money on my property than I did. I'm barely hanging onto it. And as we got every year, it's increased and increased. 30 seconds please. I think that we should need to show this and set it aside. It will allow the study that was supposed to go on for SB 121 to go on because this is the same basic thing. And make sure that the public knows that this bill is here now that they can come out and testify or as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next two testifiers are Heather Karoti to be followed by Joy Dillon. Heather, if you could unmute your mic and present yourself when you begin, you'll have three minutes. All right, Aloha, my name's Heather Karate. And I am from Captain Cook. And thanks for hearing my testimony today. I actually think Bill 47 is a positive step. And it seems OK to me. It seems like it's just ensuring all hosted short-term rental operators will be registered, which means like, I don't know, I'll be able to breathe easier just knowing I'm registered and can do business and that all of us are paying the get and tap taxes, which seems like it's a good thing for those of us who've been operating and paying them. It just levels the playing field to get everybody paying those. And for small farms that depend on short-term rentals, I think it's very essential that the final bill allows unpermitted structures that meet health and safety standards and allows continued operation in agricultural zones. So I would only support the bill if those two protections remain, because I think they're vital to the livelihood of small farms that rely on short-term mental income. Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. Our next testifier via Zoom is Joy joy Dylan testifying on bill 47 and then we can take our first two cone of testifiers. Joy when you begin if you could just reintroduce yourself you'll have three minutes. Hello, chair Kerkowitz and members of the committee. I am Joy Dylan. I'm a hero resident and I'm testifyingosing bill 47 draft one in its present form. I respectfully oppose bringing this bill forward at this time. I urge the council to defer any action regarding short term rantles until the release of the economic impact study that was commissioned by the county and is expected to be completed within 60 days. While the reason given for proposing this bill at this time was to obtain more data. Any data collected will not impact the study and can be perceived as premature. It is unclear how any registration data will be used in conjunction with the study. The administrative enforcement in section 6-41. The fines in section 6-46 failure to register. And possible resulting property leans will most likely generate mistrust and noncompliance. Add in the unknown rules in section 6-42 to be established after the passage of the bill. And I will believe I believe that you will find little enthusiasm for compliance. Homeowners and Capuna running out rooms or portion of the property just to get by will most likely find all this overwhelming and maybe unable to comply. Therefore, I urge the council to table this bill until the economic impact study is released and thoroughly studied. Thank you for your consideration and for the opportunity to present testimony. Can I please ask Gordon Linquist and Carol Burns to come forward both the testify on bill number 47. Mr. Linquist you may proceed when you're ready you'll have three minutes. Good afternoon Gordon Linquist,a-Cona. Here to oppose yet another attempt on 47 to restrict us. Maybe your presentation today will clarify some of the questions I have and I hope they will. However, I think there's a couple things that you're putting this bill before having the impact economic impact study completed. It was just like a couple of weeks ago that I completed a survey online. So I think that data needs to be before the public and before you, before you can take any action on this. I know this is just a starting point, you're probably, according to your presentation, I looked at the prints of the slide. It looks like you're a six to eight month process probably unless it gets delayed further but I think there are several things that you got to consider in this bill. One, how did you come up with ten grand as a penalty? That's absurd. It's absorbent. It's just unrealistic. I think it's just an attempt to punish those of us that are operating legitimately and have been under 108 for several years now. We've paid our taxes. We've paid the state taxes. It's going to go up to 18.5% because the governor's signing a bill come next year. Tourism is down significantly from what was in the past. I think those of us that operate, a hosted Airbnb, are suffering because of the lack of income because tourism is down and yet you want to continue to punish us. Just stop this nonsense, put this bill aside, and do the right thing. And that is let those of us that are legitimately operating, continue to operate under 108, and go after those that are illegal, and not complying. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Ms. Burns, you may proceed. You'll have three minutes. Thank you. I'm Carol Burns from Kona. Short form on this is this bill is just wrong. It's a wrong time to put it forward. It's a betrayal of the confidence of both the council, which voted to sideline this bill until the economic impact study was done and that betrayal of the trust of the people who've worked with this council and the previous council on the previous bill, meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting to discuss all the permutations. It's just wrong and I hope the council will vote it down today. After the broad opposition to bill 121, the County commission, the economic impact study to determine the scope and size of the industry as well as the likely effects of the new legislation. And we deserve to get the effects, the results of that study before moving forward with any new legislation. The bill is overly broad, the $10,000 fine is totally absurd. That would be like a kid kicked his ball into my yard and I shot him for trespassing. Please, this is just crazy. So the legislation requires homeowners, property owners to disclose all of the unpermitted improvements to their properties and requires the planning department to revoke their registration if If there are any unpermitted improvements by the county's own estimate, 2,600 families will be swept up in these two sections. And as of today, it takes nearly two years to obtain and close one of these permits. I have a friend with plenty of money, know-how, did a lot of the work himself, took him three years to build a house. So, you know, we can't expect that these things are gonna be expedited in any meaningful way. We need to of course include the AG people in this and this is not included. It just goes on and on. I'm a retired person with a small pension from a county health department and a small social security and this is a significant part of my income. And it's just really not correct to have constant pressure to get these things done. I've been paying taxes every month for years and years. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Thank you so much. Chair, your next testifiers are via Zoom. Stephanie Donoho to be followed by John Casey, both testifying on Bill 47. Stephanie, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much. Stephanie Donahoe with Kojala Coast Resort Association. We testified in writing in support of bill 47. As we see this as a measure, to make certain that everyone operating within the short-term vacation mental sphere is registered with Hawaii County, that Hawaii County knows where those short-term vacation rentals are located, that they know that they are adequately paying TAT and GET, and that they are a safe environment for our visitors. The Cohella Coast Resort Association conducts an economic impact report of our members every two years. And in previous testimony, I have shared copies of that report with all of you. In 2024, when Hawaii counties transient accommodations tax line item in the budget was $24 million, I know that our members on the Kohala Coast, the hotels and the time shares paid $17 million of that $24 million. Leaving only $7 million. Granicus, which is one of the data aggregators who helps cities and counties and states around the globe collect and enforce transient accommodations taxes, says that there are numerous, I mean numerous time short-term vacation rentals on Hawaii Island that are not paying their transient accommodations taxes currently. With a balance of only seven million, I know that of the 9,000 transient accommodations rentals on Hawaii Island that there are some that are not. This bill is a registration requirement for businesses. The fines that a number of the testifiers are talking about are to the hosting platforms. And those hosting platforms do need to be held accountable for putting online those transient accommodations rentals that are illegal. We're asking for equity in taxation, we're asking for equity and enforcement when we do an improvement to a hotel or a time share. We have Hawaii County directly involved building inspectors that have to come out to make sure the work is adequate. And we're asking for the same rules to be applied to everyone in the accommodation sphere. Thank you so much for considering this measure and I appreciate the opportunity to testify. Mahalo. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, next testifier is John Casey, testifying on bill 47 before coming back to Kondo. John, if you could unmute your mic and reintroduce yourself as you begin, you'll have three minutes. Hi, hello, everyone. John Casey, live in South Captain Cook. Normally, I'm there in person, I've been gifted to speak with you five different times. Today this bill came up so fast. I couldn't make my way up there. I live on Island half for years. I've owned and operated in Airbnb. I am not Hawaiian, but I can tell you I'm a loha. The Hawaiian Islands have blessed my heart, my family and friends for over 50 years. We just completed a $600,000 project on our home. Use the majority of Hawaiian family and friends and businesses in our area. And I can tell you they're very happy with us as we're very happy with them. I'm opposing Bill 47. I also oppose the green fee and the other taxes that are going on. There won't be TAT and other GET taxes and we keep oppressing our tourism that are coming in here. We say that we love the tourists for their money but we are not happy with their island presence and that will continue to disappear as I see on a daily basis. So I hate to use the word oppose and it seems like I've opposed a lot of what's been going on there. I'm just saying that with this, also adding to my concern on this bill was how quickly it came up. And the possibility that this bill may not require hearings from both the planning commission could be enacted in its few as four hearings, two at the community level until two with the full council. me this, this kind of accelerated process is like hiding something, it's troubling, it's problematic, big words I haven't used in a while. Mowing the most concerning provisions is a requirement for operators to publicly register, which I can get that. I'm registered, I pay my taxes. But with fines up to $10,000, look, tourists don't want to travel and get stuck in hotel zones anymore. That's a whole different generation. They want to be out, they want to be a part of the island, they want to experience the low-haw, not the oppression of it. This seems designed to enforce yet to be defined rules without any data just to find the need for set sweeping regulation. We respectfully ask the council to just slow down, slow the process. It's the same thing I've said the last five times on other bills. Please slow down, wait for the impact studies, and based on any decision, in fact, fairness and genuine engagement, we can do this together. I feel like I'm being treated like a criminal. Like I'm doing something wrong. When I'm telling you, my family friends, my Airbnb people that come here, they love me. They love me so much. They love us, they love the islands, and our businesses that surround me, they love us as well. So I appreciate your time, and I also know you're not making large money, serving our community, but I appreciate you doing that. Hope you listen to us. Thank you so much. Mahalo. Could I ask William Burns and Alaina Wiley to come forward both to test by on bill number 47. Mr Burns, when you begin, please introduce yourself. You'll have three minutes. We'll see when you're ready. Hello, I'm William Burns, so I'm a little allowed, sorry about that. Thank you for all being here and what you do for the community. I'm here in opposition to 47. There are a couple of reasons for that. Mostly, a lot of the things that people have already said. It felt like this is really being done very quickly. The fact that normally you would have two years after a bill failed with 121. Heather is shaking her head now, but that's one of those things that I was aware of. The other thing was that there was a commissioned economic study, and I really would advocate for that to be finalized and considered before anything is done put in stone like this. The thing that bothered me the most in reading over the materials was the $10,000 fine. Most of us are operating under good faith. This is not something that we're trying to pull something over on the county. We pay all the taxes that are supposed to be there and the kind of thing where there is a possibility that there would be inspections that would show up something that perhaps we didn't even know about. And all of a sudden there's a $10,000 fine and then additional fines while it's being, while we're not paying the fine. It just seems very, very retro. The presumption of guilt instead of just saying, okay, if there's a problem with any of the things that should have been handled in terms of permits, say, okay, we'll take care of those. Give a grace period so that there would be time to fix anything that needed to be fixed rather than having something against us like this. And it really should be, there should be a time that the people should be able to have a chance to fix everything. That's all that I have for right now. Thank you for considering delaying this until all of the answers are, all the questions have been answered. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Miss Wiley, you may proceed. Please introduce yourself. the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask the committee to ask to establish a priority lien on someone's primary residence. Both of these seem extremely excessive. If this bill were to pass as is, there will undoubtedly be many residents that will not know they have to register. I say this because I know two separate senior households that had affordable rentals. And we're not aware of the property tax implications of doing so. When I learned about these implications, and shared the information with them, they both realized they could not afford to lose their homeowners classification and cap. As the small amount of money they earn from opening their homes to everyday people was not anywhere near what the increase in taxes would be. They both ceased to operation and were sad that they could no longer host visitors who are unable to afford the high cost of hotels here. I urge you to wait until the economic impact study can be reviewed, strike subsections E and F and section 641 and consider a significantly smaller fine for an initial violation, perhaps under a thousand dollars. Thank you again for your time today. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair, your next two Zoom testifiers are Trey Livingston to be followed by John Hall. Trey, if you could unmute your mic, you'll have three minutes to provide your testimony on Bill 47. If you could just reintroduce yourself as you begin, please. A lot of council members, my name is Trey Livingston. I'm the president of the West Why Association of Realtors. I'm testifying on behalf of our 965 members. We respectfully oppose the introduction of Bill 47 due to the timing of its introduction in relation to the ongoing economic impact study. We strongly support data-driven policy that's shaped through open dialogue with all the stakeholders, housing advocates, property owners, tenants, operators and realtors. We believe it's critical to wait for the results of the county's economic impact study on short-term vacation rentals before moving forward. That study, expected within the next 60 days, was authorized to examine the widely held but unverified belief that eliminating STBIRs will automatically increase the long-term housing availability and affordability. Acting on that assumption now without solid data, risks, unintended consequences, it may not solve the housing challenges we all want to address. We urge the council to defer any action on this bill until the study's publicly released. It's intended to provide the kind of objective insight we need to guide thoughtful, balanced policy making. Moving ahead with mandatory registration fines and housing regulations before reviewing that study feels premature. It could also erode public trust, especially after two years of highly charged debate over the short-term rental policies. We'd like to see more clarity and stronger safeguards around how the registration data will be used. Given the concerns we've heard from the community, we think those concerns are understandable and deserve thoughtful attention. So today we respectfully ask the council to, number one, table bill 47, until the economic studies completed and reviewed. To continue to open data driven process with broad stakeholder input and three ensure future generations, sorry, future regulations balance the goals of housing access and affordability with fairness, economic health and property rights. In short, we support effective enforceable policy, but not policy that gets ahead of the facts. Thank you very much, and the opportunity to testify. Thank you so much. Chair, your next Zoom testifier is John Hold testifying on Bill 47 as well. John, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes. Hi, this is John Hall. I'm testifying on bill 47. And I am opposed at this time because like so many others, I think we should see the economic impact study. I can tell you the impact, the economic impact will be on myself. I'm a senior, I have a lot of health problems. Right now, this is my only income. I have one rental in my home. I'm having a number of health problems and this is something that I'm able to do and Outside of this right now. I'm kind of reassessing what else I might be able to do The $10,000 fee is exorbitant That's more than my annual profit. I'm really just making ends meet even barely right now. And given the, given the, what the past bills have contained, I feel that my, my relationship to our local government is I just feel like a criminal for trying to do something creative that contributes to other people. Short-term rentals aren't essential service. In the Maui fires, we housed over a thousand people in short-term rentals, and if we didn't have those, where would we be for those people who needed housing? A lot of my guests are locals and from other islands or Hawaiians from the mainland during Mary Monarch. And the type of hosting that I do isn't anything like a hotel and that's what people like about it. It's not just a hotel environment, it's a place where they can feel at home. So I feel the fines are just exorbitant. That would that would destroy me if I got fined with that for some detail of compliance that I'm not able to meet. So at the age of 52, I bought my first house. It's the house I could afford. It's very nice. I've put a lot of work into it. There might be some details on the property that are not going to meet your standards, but my guests love it. I have 4.97 on Airbnb and you know I live in this constant anxiety that if there's some future requirement you create that I can't meet then my whole world collapses. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm having a lot of breathing difficulties and memory problems and I just don't know what I would do aside from this. And to have to be pushed out on a technicality for the first five years, I made no profit whatsoever. It all went back into improvements. And I had my first profitable months last August. And then this just this April, which is just leaving now. So when I put all that work and time in my savings and my wages into this business. I wasn't investing for quick profit. I was investing in the coming 15, 20 years, unless I died before then. But- I'm so sorry, but your time is up, so we're going to have to move on to our next testifier. Thank you so much. Could I ask Chris Adir and Martino Wing to come forward, both to testify on bill number 47. I miss Adeguer, you may proceed when you're ready. Please introduce yourself. You'll have three minutes. You turned it off to press that button again. Thanks. There you go. Yeah. Oh, press it again. Is red is on. Okay, thank you. I, red is always off to me. My apologies. So my name is Crescidaire. I live in Hulu, Loha. And I just wanted to come here and speak with you today and help you to understand what it's like for a local family. My family and I have lived here for six years and if everything goes right, we hope that we can make Hawaii our permanent home and this is where we will die. My husband and I, we fall in love with this place and this is everything that we had ever wanted. But we cannot make things work for us without the short, the hosted rentals that we have today. With this registration, we would have to go through and prove like everyone that all of our properties were completely 100% compliant. All of the permits were as Hawaii County has them according to some information that I came across four and ten properties here are not properly permitted. I've just recently gone through this process. It took almost two years to go through an as-built permitting process. That was not in any delays on our side. We had everything done before the permit was even applied. It was all completely administrative delays. And the only reason we were able to get it closed even in that time frame is because we worked and struggled very hard with the planning department to get that resolved. resolved. So I think that if we go through and say that there is going to need to be a registration and prove that every one of the current properties is completely 100% compliant, then we're going to have to change that planning process for in 10. That's 40%. It also would not allow this to happen on agriculture land if somebody could get me that exact number. I believe it's in the 90% of our island. So a number of you, 100% of your constituents would not be able to operate. And that might be the plan. That might be exactly what you're wanting, that you're wanting the Kohala Chamber or the Kohala Hotel Association to have all of the tourist income and none of it to go to any local families. So what we're advocating for is that we please sit and listen, sit back and listen to the economic impact study of the, you know, that we have already requested and paid for. Let's look at that before we decide to vote on anything that has to do with this. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Miss Wing, you'll have three minutes. Please introduce yourself. You may proceed. My name is Martina Wing. I live in Caluacona, and I'm in strong on position to build 47. Dear council, county council, words matter. And I wish for you to understand the outrage I feel about sitting here again. It is crystal clear that Mrs. Kimball and Mrs. Kirchowitz continued the work to forward a bill that will not only undermine, but potentially the destroy the opportunity of much needed income. For the sake of being professional, but simultaneously demonstrate my outrage, I want you to add to every sentence in my testimony today, Dullarduteef. If it's not clear to you and others, America is in a class war, the 1% versus 99%. The current CEO of the abuser that occupies the White House demonstrate this every day. This fraud even says, I don't know when asked if he has to uphold the Constitution. Do process is being ignored. Project 2025 is being implemented as I speak with one of the main goals to have women back in the kitchen. There's plenty of information not to be educated on. Mixing the Bollikashi around must deal in others, America is in a very bad spot. We all live through a period of great uncertainty. For the last two and a half years at every hearing testimony was submitted that clearly painted the picture that the community does not want legislation. That would take away our income. Last year we had a small win when this council decided to pause Bill 121. You, the council, said that we wait until after an economic study was completed. Now I'm sitting here, the economic study is not done and you think you can move forward with a new bill. Consequently, a bill, a bad bill, with lots of flaws. Terrels will hurt our economy. The state legislator just raised the T8 to 11 percent. This will have another effect on travels to Hawaii. Canadians are not coming anymore. Other countries have travel warnings thanks to the absolute delusions of the current-demanded US president. The electorate has been awakened, have been to all the local protests, I encourage everyone to spend an hour of your time to make your voice heard regarding all the issues that we face as citizens. Anyone who wants to be electable has to work towards the goal to end the class war. You, Mrs. Kimball, end it. Your work has clearly shown you want local families to suffer and to lose their income mining loaded. For all others, Mrs. Kagiwada, Mr. Onishi, Mrs. Kani Ali Ikhlinefelder, Mrs. Galimba, Mrs. Villegas, Mr. Inaba and Mr. Hustis, you have the great opportunity to vote down any legislation regarding vacation rentals at this point. Vote it down. Clear the table. Work on more important projects. Gather good data and pick it up and choose your... Thank you for your testimony. You said time to really work for us. Thank you. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you so much for your testimony. Chair at this time. Your next testifier is via Zoom. Claudio Roer testifying on Bill 47 to be followed by Geneva Jackson here in the Heavol chamber. Claudio, when you begin, if you could just reintroduce yourself, you'll have three minutes. I'm going to use my own timer. This is an ADA accommodation. It will be great. Thank you. It started. We appreciate it. No, I'm sorry. I am going to use my own timer. Please don't give me 30 minutes warning. This is an ADA accommodation request. Thank you, Ms. Roy. Claudia Roar, I live in Hilo, Hawaii. I do run a bed and breakfast. This bill does not affect me as much as others. But Bill 47 goes too far a field of what is reasonable, and the terms are unpalatable and hard to swallow to an industry that can barely calculate their rates to cover inflation. They're continuously increasing property taxes sewer bills electricity water and the cost of supplies and repairs or find time to file monthly G.E.T. and T.A.T. reports to the state property, to the state tax office, and to HTAT. If you want people to sign up for a chapter six registry, you should make it free and a one time event until the applicant ceases to operate. I believe now to maybe it should be private used by government. Walk before you run, the current STBR regulatory and enforcement scheme have been flawed in a need of revisions since ordinance 2018. 114 was passed. The current STVR regulatory and enforcement scheme does not require that STVR operators advertise and require that only single families as defined by the code can make reservations. Nor does the zoning code prohibit the use of all way nooks and living rooms as sleeping accommodations beyond the five bedroom limit for property. current STBR regulatory and enforcement scheme allows STBRs to stack vehicles 3 deep and back out onto our roadways in violation of the zoning code 25-4-51-54. And apparently, The planning department has a policy and practice of allowing SCVRs to expand their single family dwellings and amend their annual non conforming use certificates to cover expanded operations of five bedrooms without any notice to their neighbors or changes in the required parking spaces and closing the planning department has no authority under the charter to enforce our tax laws plan and simple the planning department has an important but limited jurisdiction and should concentrate on that. More funds should be allocated to the real property tax office to pursue violators of the property tax code and to H.C.A.T. Thank you so much for your testimony. Ms. Roy, I have asked the county for a B.D.A. You appreciate your testimony. Our next testifier here in the Heelow Chamber is Geneva Jackson. Geniva when you begin you'll have three minutes to provide your testimony on bill 47. Please reintroduce yourself as you begin. Oh, there it is. The mic is on. Hello, hi, my name is Geneva Jackson. I am testifying against bill 47. We own a vacation rental. Today I am sitting before you as a volunteer for my community of Hawaiian acres. Having hand shoveled three full loads of rock today. To support my community and our roads and our community. I am only able to do this because I have a vacation rental that affords me the time to be able to do this for my community. Things that are in this bill that. Don't make sense to me and that I don't understand that have already been repeated by other people today are that we are waiting for the impact study. So I'm not too sure why there is a vote being pushed forward. Before this impact study I understand in about 60 days it will be available. So I would think that at least you forgo the vote until we actually see the study and can have an educated guess on that. I also want to just point out the fact as Miss Roar just stated we do already pay a registration fee. I my understanding was that was a one time fee, but it seems that that is an annual fee and now it's going from us being a unhosted to $250. If I was a host, did I be $100? I don't know why we're penalizing us for not being on the property and being self-sufficient and available for guests who generally are booking these homes to spend time with their entire family on their home versus a hotel or somebody monitoring what they're doing. Like we have an outside shower, I don't wanna be there and have my guests be taking a shower and we happen to be walking past or weed whacking I think that's a little invasive or intrusive why am I being charged for that. Something that I would post to the county and the state for that matter is actually please create an oversight committee. It seems that there are very many dollars that are coming in from all these STVRs and NUTS so forth. What are these fees actually covering for all of us? I would like to have the county actually present to all of us what these fees are covering. Is it helping our roads? Is it helping our children? Is it helping the schools? What is it that's helping us in our rentals, scenarios? Thank you. What are the benefits to paying these things? Obviously doing businesses the benefit and being legal and legitimate. It also does kind of make us a target because our information is out there for being legal. I pose to you to please put together an oversight committee. Please make it so that our businesses, which are enabling us to be self-sustainable in our Hawaii Island and put our money back into our island, we don't live off Island, we live here. So perhaps this is targeting unresidential guests or owners rather, but please consider an oversight committee and give the ability for all of us to know what our protections and our benefits are. Thank you very kindly. Thank you so much for your testimony. Mr. Herceles, are those all the testifiers on Zoom and any other site outside of Kona? As far as now? I apologize for that. We do not have any further test of fires at any of your remote sites or via Zoom. Thank you so much. Then I would ask Mr. Joshua MacGamrita to come forward. Please testifying bill number 47. When you're ready, please introduce yourself. Proceed. you'll have three minutes. Well, my name is Joshua Montgomery. I'm a farmer here in Kona. Fresh never got copies of all the opposition letters from the prior prior stuff. I gave some to James at a meeting last week. So those are all the hard copies from everything to date and opposition. I can't help but notice there was only one person's here speaking in support of this bill today and that was the Kohala Coast Association who seems to be very concerned about paying taxes, which is really funny considering that the people who own that are people like Isadora Sharpe, Rob Walton, Michael Dell in four seasons case, it's owned by a cascade group out of Washington which is owned by Bill Gates who pays an effective tax rate of 18% on $100 billion a year. If the owners of the Hotel Association are so concerned about taxes, perhaps they should have their owners pay their damn taxes. I'm a little worked up today because I feel like I'm under assault from the government at every step. On the way down here, I got into an altercation with a bunch of ICE agents who were hanging out at the bottom of my street with assault rifles harassing employees in my neighborhood. And I got to give them a piece of my mind and tell them what I really thought about them. And for all those in the public who are concerned about the weapons being dangerous, there are no dangerous weapons. There are dangerous men. And when you confront those ICE agents behind their masks that they're unwilling to even show you their face, you'd be surprised at how wide their eyes get open as they get fearful of you despite their fact that they're the ones holding assault rifles. The ports are shut down, there's no more products coming in from China. International travel has stopped. We're having a labor shortage because the ICE agents are harassing our employees. They just raised taxes on us. And now we have this bill coming back to the table yet again. We spent two years fighting this bill. Many of the people behind me have been here to testify five, six, seven times. And I'd like to point out that Councilor Kimbo, to my knowledge, has never held a town hall where we can have a back-to-back public dialogue about this bill. It's always in this format where the public has three minutes to complain about it. And we get whatever the Council proposes. So, this know, this process is broken. We have an economic impact study that's supposed to be on its way, right? We don't need a new bill that finds homeowners $10,000 for failing to register. And tying the permitting status of a property to their ability to run a vacation ground, which is what this bill does. It says, everybody has to register and tell us about all your unpermanent improvements. And if you have any, right, the planning director can find you $10,000 in remove your registration. So you're asking people to disclose it, and then you're gonna take away their livelihood when after they disclose it, right? In an environment where according to the mayor's working group, four in 10 properties on the big island have significant unpermitted improvements. 40% of the properties have an unpermitted bedroom, an unpermitted kitchen, an unpermitted building. Right? Is particularly problematic. You're threatening thousands of families. It's about 2,600 if you take that. Thank you for your test from when you Mr. Montgomery. This needs to be voted down. We can start this process after you get your economic impact study. Thank you for your testimony. Are there any additional testifiers for today's meeting? Are you done? Vice Chair Glemba, those are testifiers we have for now. Thank you. Mr. Clerk. I have a point of information. Mr. Clerk. If information is brought to the council, is everyone's bolster to see the copy? Generally. Does that seem like a more of a personal interaction with Mr. Onishi. Whether or not he solicited it. I just didn't think so. I just wanted to make that clear. Okay, just from recollection, I believe if information is about the council, each member is supposed to be given the same information. That's what I remember if it's better for you. If it's better for you. You'd be blunt and ask all of that. I think it will be good because then we all have the same thing. Your point is well taken that generally people come to bring since the council they should bring enough copies for everybody in one further record. You're absolutely correct. Beautiful. Thank you. I thought are these circumstances maybe be better if we didn't do that? Yeah. Gotcha. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, maybe that would be a lot of trees. Thank you very much. Clerk. Let's see. Could you read the first item? I'll just confirm that there isn't any testimony for Bill 45. Hearing none, Bill 45 minutes. Chapter 14, article 14 dash 65 with a way County code 1983 2016 edition as amended relating to designated exceptional trees. Amends a task spec. Keynote and location of the sectional trees listing for the Chinese Weeping Canyon to 2 dash 2 dash 2908 KW Avenue introduced by Conmember Onishi. Motion to approve bill 45 and move to the full council with a positive recommendation. It's been moved by Councilmember Onishi and seconded by Councilmember Vegas to approve Bill 45 and send to Councilmember Ounichie. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is just housekeeping and basically we have to change the TMK number. happened was it was printed with the wrong number where it's supposed to be 292-2-29 colon 0, 8. It had 28. So what happened was when the owner checked about the tree, they found out that the TMK number was wrong, so they have to do this correction. And also by doing this correction, they found out for Kilauea Avenue, the Kauke wasn't above the eye, so we had to add in that. So I'm just asking for your support, and this is something really simple and just had to do some corrections. Thank you. Any discussion, council members? Seeing none, I will have to make a point to go see the Chinese Waping Banyan. It sounds beautiful. All in favor of proving Bill 45 and sending to council of the favour of recommendation. Please say aye. Any opposed? We have nine ayes in favour of sending Bill 45 to Council of the favourable recommendation. Is there any additional testimony for Bill 47? Hearing none, Bill 47 demands chapter six of the Hawaii County Code in 1983. Edition, excuse me, is in the committee. The committee is in the committee. The committee is in the committee council with a favorable recommendation. Second. It's been moved by council member Kimball and seconded by council member Carco Witts to approve bill 47 and forward to Council with a favorable recommendation Councilmember Kimball. Thank you chair and I do have a brief slide presentation so I ask for a little bit of leeway on the time limit but wanted to start by thinking Council of R. Kirkwitz and her team over there in District 4 for continuing to work on this lengthy project. And also... to start by thinking Council Member Kirkwitz and her team over there in District 4 for continuing to work on this lengthy project and also send a big big mahalo to our staff and LRB particularly Jacob Perry who has really worked very closely with us to really refine the language on Bill 47 and really could not have done it without his help so I want want to mahalo him as well. Scott, do we have slides ready to go? There we go. Fantastic. All right, so here we go with an introduction to Bill 47. Oops, my forwarding is not working. Where am I pointing it, Scott? Fala, okay, thank you. All right, so this is primarily for council member Nishi and council member Houston. Just a very brief history. So of course, Bill 108 was the first major regulation related to short term vacation rentals. Primarily regulated, unhosted rentals, set up areas where they're permitted, not permitted, created standards of operation and a registration process, all of that. There was always an understanding with Bill 108 that at some point in time we'd have to come back and apply the same sort of strategy towards hosted rentals so we had everything operating under the same sort of statute. So in 2023-2024, Councilmember Kirkwitz and I introduced Bill 121, which was this comprehensive proposal. It had everything under this on it. It had a registration process. It made changes to the permitted areas. We proposed some changes to how certification rentals had to be owned, there were standards of operation, there was an amnesty program for real property tax and hosting power compliance. It was a lot and I think it was confusing to the public, it was confusing to some members of the council and it was just really hard to settle on a final version. In addition, there was sort of an understanding that if we were gonna make any changes to the land use code and where short term vacation rentals, trans vacation rentals were permitted, then we really needed to have a financial impact study. So that was approved as resolution 556. That is ongoing and we expect to have those results, preliminary results this month and then final results presented to the Council in June. So I want to kind of take all the way back to the beginning of this conversation. Why do we want on the register TBRs? That is what Bill 47 does. And what I have here is from the 2023 housing fact book from you here, oh, and that the chart there shows the different counties, state of Hawaii and the different counties, and what proportion of their housing market is in transient accommodation rentals. You'll see that we're third there on the list after Kauai and Maui, but we're well ahead of major cities like LA, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, other tourist destinations in terms of the percentage of housing that is in short term or transient vacation rentals. This is primarily, these numbers are unhosted. Okay, I want to be clear about that. On the other side of this slide here, of what you have in front of you, are three examples of different studies, peer-reviewed studies published in major journals, defining some of the impacts of the percentage of vacation rentals on the overall rental rates and home cost rates in immunosuppality. So I encourage you to look at the Eurohero study that is available on this and I can provide links to all of those peer-reviewed articles as well. So just looking here in the county of Hawaii right now, if you look at the chart, the light orange bar there is the number of trans-eification rentals that we have currently registered in our system. It's about 4,000 of those those, those are all gonna be un-hosted rentals because we only register and regulate un-hosted rentals at this time. The U Hero Report from 2023 indicated that we had just about 65,000, little less than that, operating vacation rentals in the county. So there's a disconnect between what we have registered and how many are operating. Now some of those are gonna be hosted rentals, perfectly legal, no problem. Some of those are gonna be bed and breakfasts, perfectly legal, have their permits, no problem. There's gonna be a percentage of those that are illegally operating unhosted rentals and we have no way of knowing what that percentage is. In 2024, so that represents about 7.2% of our market in May 2024. You're here to produce another report. We had about 7,200 vacation rentals according to their numbers operating, jumping up to 8.4% of the total housing market. We don't have new data from you, Hero, for 2025 yet. We should get that May, June. But we have been working with a few vendors that basically scrub the Airbnb, the RBO, bookingcom, all of the hosting platforms that list and advertise vacation rentals to get numbers from them. Between all the vendors, the lowest number we got for unique individual listings was about 9500, 9500. The highest number we got was something like 11,000. So at that 9,500, that's 10, little over 10% of our market, housing market at 11.5. It's 12.3. If you sort of anticipate in the last year we have the same level of growth in housing overall. So those numbers, take them with a grain of salt, but I'm trying to represent a bit of a trend here. I also, there's a wide variety across the county in terms of the percentage of the market that is in vacation rental. Again, these are unhosted. For example, your district council member Vegas, nearly 17%, Kailuacona, same thing with La Kailuac, 17%. But other areas like volcano, you're at 10. Hilo is 1.7. So vast, vast differences across the county, but you can also see that reflected, I think, in housing prices and rents. The other thing that I wanted to present since this came up at the budget hearings is the enforcement and the, in particular, the STVR enforcement account. And so, a little bit hard to see, I think, from the distance of our chairs here, but the story that I'm trying to tell that Bright Purple line is the balance in that short-term vacation rental fund. And you can see when we first started the program with Bill 108, there was a huge influx because everybody registered there that's first year. And then we've gradually drawn down on that fund. And from about 2020 to 2021 fiscal year, we've been operating basically at a loss. So if we make the assumption that the trends continue about the number of attrition out of the program and also assume that our operating costs will be the same, which they will not. So that's fundamentally fall out there. It's going to start costing more, as salaries go up, things like that. But if we were just to keep the operating costs at the level, they are now to ensure enforcement, ensuring cost compliance with the existing law, we will probably run out of money in that fund in eight years, as we gradually draw down. So the key take home there is that purple line. So the objectives of Bill 47 are fairly straightforward. It is just a registration bill. It is going to help us identify the actual number and locations of TBRs across the county. This is information that we currently don't have. We only have those who have legally registered with the county. By having everyone register, comparing with data from the hosting platforms and comparing with data from a consultant that will provide us an analysis of the listings, we will be able to identify illegally operating TVRs and these will primarily be folks that are operating unhosted rentals in residential and agricultural districts that did not get a non-conforming certificate. Those are the folks that we're really trying to address with Bill 47. It will also allow through this registration process the ability to ensure compliance with the transient accommodation tax and RPT laws because this is going to go through finance and they'll have the first review of it. Just pertaining to that last slide, having an annual renewal fee will make sure we have, well, it enables us to ensure that we have current up-to-date information about how to reach the owners, how to address any issues, but it will also provide us that sustained revenue for enforcement. you'll note that the annual renewal is $100 for hosted, 250 for unhosted. The reason for the difference is we just actually spend more of our time and money on enforcement with unhosted rentals than we do with hosted. Most times hosted, no problem, but we still need to maintain the program. Just a brief overview, unlike Bill 121, Bill 47 actually emends chapter 6, which is related to businesses. It provides a process for registering transient vacation rentals. This includes the STVRs that are established under chapter 25. It also creates the registration process and reporting process for hosting platforms like Airbnb, the RBO, et cetera. The registration process will be managed and implemented by the finance department. This is a change from Bill 121, which was all going to resided planning. However, there is still gonna be at the enforcement piece and we'll take advantage of the fact that the appeals process already exists in planning. So folks have any disagreement with the planning director's decision regarding any compliance components, the due process that's afforded through the appeals process will still be available. Just to give a sense of what the workflow will be when Bill 47 passes. So a ten-symptication rental owner would go online. They'd have an interface where they create a password and input all their data like the address, the transient vacation, sorry, their TAT number, their GET number, they would upload any documents. As mentioned, they would have a document that they signed saying that their facility meets health and safety requirements that would be in affidavit. Once they hit submit on that button, they will automatically be issued a TBR number. So upfront, the presumption is that everything is going to be correct. And then use the same interface to renew and make any changes to information. This registration then goes to finance where they make sure that they are current with their TAT payments as well as their real property tax payments. It will then be reviewed by planning and hopefully everything will be good. Planning will be only comparing this to the land use law, Chapter 25, so ensuring, for example, that it is not an unhosted rental in a residential area without a non-conforming use permit. If planning does find any issues with the land use component, they will issue a notice of violation. Of course, the planing, the owner would have the opportunity to appeal that violation. and then if that there's no appeal or the appeal is unsuccessful, the hosting platform will be notified to remove the listing. Similarly, we will also be getting information from the vendor that will be reviewing the hosting platforms and providing this with regular updates so that we can compare the registered TVRs against what is being listed on the hosting platform sites. There was mention several times in the testimony today about the $10,000 fine. That is if you continue to operate after the planning department notices that there is a problem with your application and the appeals process has been completed. That fine number is consistent across all three other counties. So we're the only one that doesn't have that fine level. Who registers? Everybody that is operating a transient accommodation rent for 180 days or less, sorry less than 180 days. There are some exemptions and the exemptions in HRS 237D are included in a communication in your packet so that's communication 236, sorry no 236.1 and I wanted to make sure you that, because we only just reference the exemptions. So that would include, for example, college students renting that are enlisted in school. Anybody that receives lodging as payment for their employment or part of their employment that would include lodging for nonprofits, military personnel, active duty. In addition to those already excluded per the HRS, that people that are under month's releases, subject to the landlord's tenant code are also exempt, rentals furnished to healthcare workers employed within a medical facility in the county are exempt but in breakfast establishments that are permitted by the county code chapter 25 will be deemed registered and so will not have to re-register but they will be issued a TBR number just so that we can have consistency across the numbering system for all types of vacation rentals. And then STBRs currently registered with non-conforming user certificates or otherwise under Chapter 25, they will also be deemed registered and just be subject to the annual renewal fee. The hosting platforms will also have to register with the county and provide us with monthly listings from their site. Just want to really clearly state what Bill 47 does, establishes what's needed to register, creates an annual renewal requirement, sets forth fines if there's a failure to register and defines those conditions where the Planning Department would cancel a registration. What is this not do? It makes no changes to where TBRs are permitted. That's the LENU's code in chapter 25 so we don't touch that. We don't make any changes to the standards of operation. We don't make any changes to the real property tax code and there isn't the creation of visitor destination areas in Bill 47, which was part of Bill 121. So we're hoping, you know, we're introducing this now. We're going to get that study, like I said, in June. Once we have that study and have the registration process established, we're going to put out an RFP for some compliant software that was already in the budget. We discussed that line item during the budget hearings. If, depending on the outcome of the study and some court cases that are still active, maybe July, we might have some additional land use amendments. We do know we still need to do some cleanup there. August, September, those would be reviewed by the Planning Commission and come back to Council at the end of the year. This is probably a pretty aggressive timeline in terms of how we could actually get things done. But we're not looking at making any land use amendments until we have that study. That I think concludes my presentation and happy to take any questions after Council member Kirkwitz has her opportunity to say her piece. But you know, the real, I just want to just hit it out. We're really looking to address folks that are these unhosted rentals. They're not providing housing to our community that have been operating illegally already under Bill 1A8. This registration process will allow us to do that and look for everybody's support as we move forward. Oh, there. We're going to get the video from Hilo? Chair, do you see me or hear me? We can hear you. Oh, no, we can see you. Council member Kirkwoods. Chair Kirkwoods. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I don't have a presentation. I think Council Member Kimball did a really excellent job walking us through the legislative history and what's being proposed here. I did take some notes as testifiers were offering comments on the legislation I wanted to address some of that right now. Again to emphasize bill 47 establishes a simple registration process for vacation rentals in our. And this ensures that we have an accurate understanding of where and how many rentals are operating on the island. The registration process is purely informational. This is not a regulatory measure. Again, emphasizing no changes to rural property tax code, no changes to zoning, land use, and we are not introducing operational standards for vacation rentals. All of that was contained in bill 121, and we are not doing that. Somebody mentioned that 47 would restrict their ability to operate. This bill is not restricting anyone's ability to operate a vacation rental. We are merely asking that you register your status as an operator. We are not requiring building permits. There were some comments that were made about building permits. We are not requiring that. We are not telling you what kind of visitor accommodations you can or cannot offer. We are simply asking for a site drawing to understand what on the property is available for visitor accommodations. You know, I was the council member that introduced the resolution directing the Department of Research and Development to do an economic impact analysis of VKC rentals here on Hawaii Island. That study is ongoing. And in speaking with the consultant, it became very clear that having registrations within our county would be a critical tool that would complement the economic study that is ongoing. I think by knowing the location and the distribution of VRs, we can make data driven decisions about things like visitor destination areas, and where we might want to make changes within our code, such as real property tax relief for those that are operating vacation rentals in their primary home. And if we need to work with state legislators to make adjustments in Hawaii Revise statutes regarding hosted rentals on agricultural lands. Looking for my colleagues support on this, you know, straightforward measure so that we can get an accurate understanding of where VR's are on Hawaii Island. It's a better balanced tourism impacts, preserve our residential areas. Because at the end of the day, like a lot of folks have said, they're using VRs as a tool to help make ends meet. And so we want to make sure that we are taking that into consideration and advancing policy that is balanced. And thank you, Chair. I yield. Thank you. Council Member Eishi. Thank you, Madam Chair. Planning Director, Jeff Darrell, can you please come up please. Thank you. Good afternoon. Aloha. Jeff Theroux with the Planning Department. Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. I'm going to need you to help me in educating me on what's been happening in the past years, because I remember before I left in 2016, we had this in front of us at Council. My concern was about these hosted or un-hosted vendors was that my cook was about part gain. Right? Because I was hearing a lot of complaints about cars being part in all different areas within the community. So I know part of the requirements was you needed to have a special AMA B&B about having a one-stop per room that's registered, right? And it also had to provide, I think, was a handicap stop. But it didn't go farther enough about having that host having parking for their vehicles. And so some of the complaints was that those hosts would park within the community. So from there after I left because we didn't get to even settle that, right, and after they did something, but to my understanding, parking was not addressed to it. But can it give me history? Because I'm hearing mixed information or concerns from the residents who has these activities. And then also within what the council members had done in the past, where I think up to like draft five and then I guess they got tableed so if you can help educate me on what's going on and how the department feels about all this. Sure Vice Chair I'll try to do my best. This has been ongoing for since Bill 108, which is now within our zoning code under 25, 416. That is focused on short-term vacation rentals which are considered unhosted. So in that particular situation and unhosted dwelling only requires two parking spaces because you're renting out the entire dwelling. And that's similar to our code when somebody builds. Bill 121 was going through different versions. I don't recall where we left off, but again, it was to focus on parking for each individual room. I believe it was focused on our section in the zoning code 25451 and subsection 8, which was adopted previously regarding, I believe the concerns that you're raising, that there was a lot of issues coming up in urban areas where people were renting out rooms, and there wasn't enough parking, they were parking all over. So that particular section says that the parking requirements for a single family dwelling, a double family dwelling or two plex that are occupied for any period of less than 180 days, one space for each rented bedroom in addition to one space for the dwelling unit. If the dwelling unit, if the rooms in the dwelling unit are rented individually or two spaces if the dwelling unit is rented as a whole. So it's reflecting that particular type of parking calculation. But then, okay, so now with the testimony that we got to, so this bill basically is to get everybody registered. But don't the planning department or with property tax already have that in place? We have the current process in place which is strictly focused on short term vacation rentals or unhosted rentals. This particular bill is focusing on all rentals, both un-hosted and hosted. And again, looking at the timeline that Councilmember Kimbo brought up, is that this is going to be in a series of actions that happen. First introducing this bill, waiting for the economic study and then eventually also incorporating changes in the zoning code that will specifically identify all of the additional planning information relating to hosted as well as unhosted rentals. Because then, what I was on account, so again, when there was a complaint about a neighbor with the A, B, and B. I would notify planning, planning would get their investigator to look online first, like the websites to make sure that they were registered and so forth, right, with the county and also, I guess, with that organization. And if they weren't, then if folks would set out a notice stating that you need to get registered, you need to cease, right? Is that correct? Yes, but again, our authority for doing that is focused on short-term vacation rentals, which are strictly unhosted, but not hosted. So the way we look at hosted dwellings at this time or hosted rentals is what we refer them to. Is somebody is allowed to rent a single family dwelling? Let's say you yourself own two homes. You can't live in both of them. You can rent out the entire home or you could rent out, let's say you live in there and you have three extra rooms. So you're able to rent out the additional rooms as long as you maintain the definition and consistency of a single family dwelling. And where we get called in to complaints is when somebody creates multiple dwellings they'll end up putting in several kitchens in the unit and creating several dwelling units, or they'll rent it out to much more people than they're supposed to be within a single family dwelling, therefore overwhelming the surrounding properties. Okay. You know, during that time when I was on the council and I was with my district, it was an A, B and B. Council member Onishi, is this about this particular bill? Yeah, yeah, because of like the registration. So what I'm trying to get to is back then back in like 2014, 16, there was some type of registration because when the complaint came out, I went to planning their investigator, they do the investigation to make sure that they were registered. Right. Also, I checked with property tax to make sure that they were paying their property tax. And he said because it was hosted, half of the home was determined homeowners, and the other half, which they were renting out, was being taxed at the higher rate. So basically, what I'm saying is that from back then, it was already being monitored, right, and being reported. So what I cannot see is we're going through this holding again where there is something to me was in place back then. So unless they're upgrading the way the system is, right, and just to make sure that they like they say they need to know where these short term vacation rentals are, right? But I don't know maybe two or three years ago you folks passed something where they had to register, right? At one certain time. They had a like director. Didn't you folks have at one time where they had to register by a certain period of time? Yes, that's what I had spoken to originally which was Bill 108. Yeah, and that was strictly focused on short-term vacation rentals which are unhosting. Right. What happened probably about 2016 or so was when the whole discussion started, right? We started looking, you know, the mayor was saying, I wanna do something, we're getting a lot of complaints from communities where there was these influx of short-term vacation rentals. When we were looking at doing all of it at once, hosted and un-hosted, as we were starting the process and going through it, we realized pretty quickly that it was just too heavy of a lift. So we focused on the ones that were having more issues because nobody was living in the house to monitor the activity. At least in the hosted, you had someone living there that was. So to manage the place. So we're at that time now that we're looking at bringing in everything. So we're looking at adding in the hosted component. So chair, so basically back then, hosted already kind of had something, right? That they could monitor. Then the non-hosted was coming back in, what, 2008, 18, yeah. So that's what I'm trying to get. So, yeah. So I just think you're more clarification because of what we watch. So, so the concern that I'm hearing, so they worried about when they have to, well, and a lot of I think that people that testified are already registered. So would they have to re-register or they're all good? Maybe if I could ask Council member but then no your your department is going to do the enforcement. So have you folks had the discussion on the enforcement how you folks going to do the enforcement? We currently have been doing the enforcement, so it would be very similar to the current enforcement that we do. And then so, basically, if they're registry, they're all good. Only those who are not registered will fall into this situation. As mentioned, through the presentation, this is, there's a little bit of a difference. There's gonna be an annual fee that occurs, but you're right, the main thing, what happens is planning gets a complaint. First thing we do is we look on the internet for advertising. Because in the bill or in the law now, it says that if they are advertising, that's pretty much the evidence to show that they are operating. And so we can issue, first we issue a courtesy letter and then if they're not able to come and work with us to get registered or shut down then we Issue a violation. Okay, and then at the time I Am going to let your timer went off. So I'm going to let I believe Okay, thank you I'm going to go over now. Thanks. Thank you Council member V. Agas. Thank you. Thanks for putting together this presentation. Thank you also for constituents that should have to testify. I am going to call out the hypocrisy with a number of the testimonies because I know for a fact that the properties they're speaking of and some of the dwellings that are utilized for short-term vacation rentals are actually intended to be farm dwellings for workers on farms. So I'm going to point out that hypocrisy and that right-ignation I call baloney on that for the record. You know, it's very obvious here to me that besides Waikolo village, Kyloa Kona, it's no secret is the highest percentage of vacation rentals. We also have some of the highest rents and housing prices on the island. I appreciate the data that's being presented here by a number of different papers. I love that they were certified and peer reviewed as well. You know, it just seems common sense. Of course, housing prices and rental prices are gonna go up in a place if you can get $10,000 a month for a short-term vacation rental property versus, you know, $2,500 or, well, now you can find a house to rent in my district, a little on a room to rent. According to this, and I'm just going to kind of throw out a couple questions. So it looks like approximately there's a potential of if unhosted, are included and registered, we could go from what's already like a 4,000 TBRs in the county up to 10,000. So there's the potential for an additional 6,000 hosted TBRs. May I respond, Chair? Please do. Yeah. So yes, there is the difference between what we currently have registered and those estimates that we have for 2025 that different some number of those is hosted rentals some number of those are unhosted operating illegally some number of those are bed and breakfast the answer to how many of each is the question we don't know the answer to okay I'd also want to to validate the fear and concerns of people who look at this and go, oh my gosh, this is potentially going to jeopardize my livelihood. I get that. I appreciate what's being stated here that nothing in this, you know, this claim that this is just a registration tool to know how many there are. I also want to appreciate the testimony at a time when we are living in a dystopian nightmare about a lot of things that are happening in the national level. But having been in office when Bill 108 was being passed, I do want to provide my own personal backing of that is not the intention and that has not been the intention of this. My district in particular was suffering from people identifying and commodifying the opportunities in District 7 specifically to come in and buy multiple homes in residential neighborhoods and turn them into vacation rentals which directly impacted property values, rentals, eliminated housing on our markets. Then you added COVID when people were moving here, site unseen, paying cash over asking value, and it's completely alienated, like the working class in the district. So that was the premise of Bill 108, is to limit the zones and the areas in which vacation rentals could be operated. And yeah, for the, you know, how to take an elephant one at a time, tackle the unhosted because that's where the complaints were coming from people who worked every day and had to listen to somebody on vacation playing in the pool till two in the morning next door, right? Very different energy when we go on vacation, which I love to stay in an Airbnb when I go and I love what it offers. Fortunately, part of our responsibility as policymakers is to try and create policies to enforce, to make policies that encourage and require people to not be assholes. Unfortunately, no matter what we do, a lot of times people still behave that way. And that's one of the challenges here is we can't. I mean, I'm dealing with this with the parking, they can conno. Anyway, I digress. My question becomes, and my concern then is, because I know I'm going to get a lot of questions about this, like currently, if you're a hosted vacation rental, just one more, if you're currently, if you're a hosted, you have a hosted rental on Ag property, you're fine. So I see people that are doing a hosted rentals on Ag are gonna be very, very leery about then registering for this because they've been covered under the other. Not digging down on the unhosted, has allowed a lot of people to utilize vacation rentals to the betterment. We know that ag doesn't necessarily pay for your mortgage on a farm. So I guess my question also becomes, if this is passed, does this open up currently unless it's a resort node, you cannot unless you originally got a non-conforming use permit, you cannot start a vacation rental in a residential area or other areas that's un-hosted. So I'm wondering, does this open up all the areas again? So everybody can come in and start creating. I'll yield now, but I just have a lot of questions, especially because of the variety of issues that land in my district, which is urban, but very rural at the same time with a lot of ag. Okay. I also remember cumulon. If I can respond to that quickly. So no, if the chapter 25 still applies, so if it's an unhosted rental, unless you have an existing nonconforming use certificate, you cannot start a new transient vacation rental that's unhosted on a post 1976 slot. sure that made it clear as mud, but that's when the land use law became the law at the state. And so anything that was created after that on Agland, you cannot have an unhosted rental. Now if you are, it's a hosted rental, the county planning department has always maintained that you can do that on agricultural land, unless it's in an additional farm dwelling that you would have had to create a farm plan for and sign an agreement that that was meant to be used for farm workers. So that's another piece of that 1976 piece, but I hope that clears up that question. Okay. And then if I have the floor a little bit longer to respond to Councilmember O'Neill, she's a question. We are proposing additional services than what is currently provided from the standpoint of the current process with respect to trans-efficient rentals is that it's a complaint driven process. And so we are not aware in many cases of the trans-efficient rentals that are out there that may be operating illegally per the existing code. And the registration process comparing that with the advertisements on VRBO and whatnot will allow us to use that. Let me just finish my time in the chat. I just wanted to kind of clarify. Basically, can we go over to Hilo? I still want to, what Miss Kimbo is asking are we responding back to my questions? Because I was talking to basically the planning director about my question, yeah, but that's it. Okay, yeah, let me just check with Hilo and then we can get back to you real quick. Is anybody on over? Would like to ask questions or comment in Hilo? It's clear to me I have no questions, thanks. Okay, Councilmember Onishi. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Director. So, some of the discussion that was given. So, we're talking about the fines again. Okay, so, they're really registered. They're all good. Now, it's those that are not registered. And there's a complaint that comes to your department. You folks investigate, then you folks send them a letter stating that you're in violation. You need to, I guess, get the proper due to proper procedures to get registered. Correct? It's basically like that. It's a little less dramatic on the first step. What we send the letter saying, we've received a complaint, basically saying you're operating a short-term vacation until please contact us so we can either set up a site inspection or provide us with information that shows that they're registered or and we basically are opening the door to be able to start communications to work with it. If that doesn't work then the next step is issuing the violation if we are able to show that it's valid. Right. And that's when the fines come in. Correct. But currently, they're different than this. Currently the fine schedule is different. Right. It's not yes. It's not $10,000. Okay. If this bill passes then it'll become $10,000. It could be. It could be that. And then that's like after like 30 days, 90 days, whatever the bill says. But again, there's still work to be done. That collaboration between Bill 6 or chapter 6 and chapter 25 in regards to that. Because you may, there's different types of violations. This one is for not register, right? We'll get complaints about different things as well. For register offenders. But basically this bill right in front of us is what I'm hearing from Councilor, is about just registration. That's what it appears, yes. Okay, Now, that's well. One of the questions is we talked about enforcement, about your manpower. And I guess in the past, the registration that Eiffel's got for these holes or unhosted, was Eiffel's had this amount of money, but maybe you can explain what's happening now and it's being predicted that we're gonna give an increase. Well, as again, one of the slides show the original increase in some minerals at the onset of bill 108 or when it got approved. That was crazy. It was like for one year or so because you had a period of time to register and everybody was registering as quick as they could to get in on that time. We had staff that I mean, every day we were at work trying to, and it didn't matter what your job was, somehow you were also trying to help out with the STVR registrations. But we got through it. And then once the initial year set up, then it balanced out. And it's just been continual registrations or mainly those and then enforcement. And so, you have an idea like per month, how many I guess holes or on-holes are being registered? It would would just be unhosted. I couldn't give you that. I mean, I would say it's probably in the area of 20 to 30 or maybe less, but it's not overwhelming. Okay. Yeah, we've actually started to see some changes. I'm not sure if this is, I'll just say it, that I guess with people that operate for a period of time, they start to realize now this really is in my cup of tea. I'm not built for doing short-term vacation rentals. And also it affected their tax base. And so we're starting to actually see requests for cancellations on a regular basis. OK, thank you. Well, I hope this helps clarify a part about the fines and the registration to the community. But what I'm worried about too, if we do too much restrictions or we make it really harder for them, they might decide, and we talk about affordable housing, we talk about in housing. It could become like Oahu is where now, they have in a lot of vacant homes and the county council is looking at now taxing them for being vacant. So I would not like to see that happen here. Like we go and force people to just don't do anything with their homes, right? And so there needs to be a fine line and I'm hoping with the department, with planning department and also with finance because finance seems like they're gonna be in charge of the registration keeping track of the TAT and all the taxes that they're paying. So I'm hoping that the manpower that you folks will have will be efficient enough to make this move moving forward and smoothly. But I owe thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Cunnelly-Klaiselder. Thank you. Good discussions so far. Director, a couple questions for you. Ready? Six, sorry, section six, dash four, one administrative enforcement. And if you can't answer, then I'll ask the makers that to answer because they wrote it. B, six, dash four, one, B in the case of a hosted TVR, the owner and the host of a TVR are jointly and severally liable for all fines and penalties assessed under this article. Looking back at the definition of hosted refers to a TVR located on our property that is the principal home of a host. If I read those two correctly, then the principal home of the host would be the owner. So saying that we're going to be finding potentially the owner and the host seems redundant. The definition says that a host it refers to a TVR located on a property that is the principal home of the host. So he's living there. They may not be the owner. The owner could be living somewhere else. That was one of the issues that came up when we were discussing originally, like people that did purchase multiple homes, we were concerned that all they were doing was getting somebody to live in the home and then host it. But that's kind of a little, that's why it wasn't covered under our enforcement or our bill. So at this point it will be, but yeah, the host and the owner can be different. Okay. Section 6-45, registration number 7-B. I was just reading HRS 237-D, where you have a certificate of registration under the HRS. My question is, do we not double check the HRS registration? Is that still applicable? Does it happen? Because from a reading of 237D, you have to, as a transient vacationer, you have to apply with the state. There's some bulky language in there, but I mean they have to. So we're not crisscrossed with the state and what they have registered and what we do or don't. This might be a good question for the maker. Okay, yes please. So with the state you don't register by TMK or property. So if you're an owner that has five Trans-Infacation Rentals you will have a TAT number but will not be associated with individual properties. So that would be the difference between this registration where you're going to register each STBR. The state also does not share the registration information with us. That is a failure on the state's level in a few different ways. Oh, I also read in there, if you have to register one time with the state, you don't necessarily have to register if you gain more short term vacation rentals, which is interesting in the same language. So they have some issues within the state law they need to address, that would be helpful. Okay, thank you, thank you. And then the registration fee under that same section, 6-45-10-250 or 500 in the case of a hosted or unhosted TVR respectively. I just want to make sure that means what I think it means that doesn't need to be clear. Two fifty four, hosted, five hundred four, unhosted. Maybe to the makers just making that crystal clear. To be clear that is also just the initial registration fee. That's not the annual renewal. OK. Six dash four, six failure register pay a civil fine of $10,000. So it was not an up to. It's a straight shot. Is that right? That is what it says. That is what it says. According to the presentation, it's consistent with the other counties. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Then violation and penalties are the very very very end of the ordinance. So this one you'd be paying a civil fine for each day in the violation if the violation persists. Is it fair by may interject that applies to hosting platforms not to the TABRs? So that that would be like if there was a violation by Airbnb or VRBO. Okay, I got you some different, different altogether. Not applicable to the previous sections for hosted unhocid. Okay. Okay. I yield for an alter? Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Council Member Villegas? Yes. Coming back, some of the other things that testifiers had asked about was waiting until we got the economic report from the economic survey. What's it called? Economic review? Impact study. Economic impact study. Which, you know, that question pops up to me too, but I also see that you're looking for alignment for getting that information, having people registered and moving forward. So I get that part. I also get the fear and I get the concerns from community. So I had to move forward with an equitable reflection of what's happening. You know, I also have the pleasure of not running for office again. So all the people that came for me in the last round, you know, I anticipate there being a lot of real estate, people that work in real estate, property management, having issues. I mean, if I could just break this down and the legal ease wasn't so concerning that there's some shall or if or what not here is, I mean, it makes sense to me to have everybody registered. It makes sense to know what's going on. I get that. On the other hand, I also understand the testimony of people who, one of the testifiers mentioned, you know, in agricultural areas. Not all of the shelters, I'll call them, are permitted or that are, you know, structures that are currently under the government's, the people that serve in governments scrutiny and approval. So I also hear the rights of people to get to stay where they want to stay and rent what they want to rent if the market will bear it, then hey, you know, that liability lies between the person who rents the Airbnb and the person that owns the property. I see that as a separate liability thing. So does this remove the opportunity for people who are currently renting those kind of spaces from being able to continue to do so. I don't still remember CUMBLE. So the registration process for vacation rentals not included in the unhosted short-term vacation rentals only requires assigned affidavit that it meets health and safety requirements. Like it has a fire extinguisher that has two methods of egress. This kind of stuff you'd want for a visitor, right? It doesn't say anything about building permits. And this is enforced by the Planning Department who doesn't have anything to do with building permit enforcement. Okay. So I guess my final question would be for Department of Finance because I see see this heavy lift lending on them. Do we have anybody here from Finance? Yes, Deputy Finance Director is approaching. Thank you. Aloha, Malia. Well, well, you're a KKIDF Head and Director. Thank you for being here. Just kind of want to check in with you guys as much of punk, punk maintenance fund, Nalens with you and to add this other kind of lift, I just want to that you think that the department has the capacity and bandwidth. Thank you for that question. I think this is gonna be a different division, right? It's our TET and internal control division that would be kind of helping with this registration process. And I think currently we are down one person but we're hoping to fill that soon. So I think we could, we would be able to help with this registration in process in line with planning's help as well. Okay, thank you for your answer in that. I'm interested in looking forward to hearing from my constituents. But I want to put a call out to my constituents as well who don't work in the real estate industry and who may not own a short-term vacation rental. But the people who are looking for places to rent and places to live, specifically in District 7, because I think that needs to be taken into consideration not just the interests of those who are utilizing a residential space as a commercial activity. So I also wanna say that I appreciate appreciate the amazing work that the Koholy Coast Visitor Association does and the representations of their properties. This is not put together by them and I'm going to call that out. They also have their data pretty solid. And so I do want to validate the information that they bring have brought forward. And in a time when we're going to talk about equity, even if we're told not to, that is an issue as well. As much as I would like to see us transition away from tourism as our primary source of economic growth It's probably not going to happen the things that are happening are happening Not because of this legislation They're happening because of other things happening in our country right now and across the globe So just kind of want to call out those things on some perspectives there. I really, I do appreciate, I mean, this took a lot of a lot of doing in order to come at this another way. Somebody else had asked whether or not you know you had to wait two years to bring another piece of legislation. That relates to you have to wait till the next term, which are two year terms, but that's why this legislation, which is still quite different from the last one, so that could be argued. But that this encompasses a different angle. I think I can be okay with this today as long as this doesn't open up Pandora's box. So just anybody now can add an STVR and we accidentally end up undoing the boundaries and parameters that were created by Will Bill 108 to begin with. So I'll continue to kind of dig down in this. I don't think the fees based on what I know people are making in the short term vacation rentals. The hundred dollk, a couple hundred dollars a year are that extraneous. So I yield at this time. I'd like to call for the question. I know we have a couple people leaving. So do we need to get a second on that? Yes, I do. Second. It's been, is that Councilmember Kirkwoods? Yes, Chair. Thank you. It's been moved by Councilmember Kimball and seconded by Councilmember Kirkwoods that we call for the question. All in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? On the motion to call. On the motion to call for the question to vote to forward Bill 47, the Council for the recommendation. Council for Piusius, Councilor Rienava, Councilor Kagiwata. Aye. Councilor Kahnadi Klamfelder. Aye. Councilor Rikambal. Aye. Councilor Onishi. Nope. Councilor Viegis. Aye. Councilor Kirkowitz. Aye. the council with a favor recommendation Consumere Houston's customer Inaba customer Burkagiwada I customer Connelly Klein-Felder aye customer Kimball aye customer Onishi no customer Beiegas Hi. Consum. Councillor Kirkowitz. Aye. Wester Glemba. Aye. Wester Glemba, you have six votes in favor. One of polls, Councillor Onishi and two absent. Consumers, use to say, the motion carries bill 47. We forward to the council with a favor recommendation. Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of our agenda. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Jen, how do you feel like it's like for me the difference is it used to be back in the day if you were like renting to a traveler. or you just like met them and they rent it. But now it's using this billion dollar industry. So it's changed the dynamics. This is.