I am the owner of a rental unit at Kamaole Sands. If one looks at the history of Maui, it will be readily apparent the benefits of vacation visitors to the island. The number of businesses which have closed and unemployed residents which resulted from the loss of visitors during the Covid pandemic should show the many benefits of the huge influx of dollars on the Maui economy. I hope you will consider the benefits of visitors, not just the problems. Thank, You, Lois Koenig
Without going into details....majority of the comments from others have repeated my same reasons to oppose PSLU-67 CC 21-67.
*Provides jobs; business opportunities for many local residents (allows us to stay & live on our home land. Provides a way to home ownership)
*Pays one of highest, if not the highest tax rate (contributors to our county tax base)
*Less crime when occupied (zero to no strain on our police resources)
*MEETS THE NEEDS OF TODAY'S TRAVELER'S (live like locals; supporting non-profits, small businesses, educated on "local-ways" by the home managers/owners)
Lastly - every industry has a few bad "sheeps"; don't punish the flock.
Leave the caps as-is.
p.s. My ohana, now in it's fourth generation of successful Maui residents making a living in the Tourism Industry.
We are Dolores & Bill Voerg owners of a condo at Kihei Akahi,Kihei Hi. We have owned our unit since 1987.without the rental income we receive to pay the taxes, maintainence fees , insurance, utilities, etc. we would not be able to afford to keep our unit.
Please do not put any further restrictions on this type of properties in Maui. Mahalo.
Dolores & Bill Voerg
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing to Oppose the lowering of the Cap on STRH. My sole employment, as a housekeeper, is at Kihei Oasis (a legally permitted STRH). I am a 69 y/o, 30 year Kihei resident, on Social Security. I NEED this extra money, to supplement my SS, in order to remain in Hawaii!
I have been employed by STRH property, Kihei Oasis, since 2013. The property is owned by a local resident, who works right alongside the rest of us. The property adheres to ALL permit requirements, and has NEVER had a complaint from a neighbor.
I ask that you consider all of the "LOCAL" people this, legally permitted, property sustains. There are no "Mainland" people, or funds, involved! Additionally, considerable attention is paid to maintain the standards required for a permit. These people went to the "trouble" to get "legal" permits in the past. I have been here long enough to remember when the majority of Short Term Rentals were done illegally! Because the "hoops required" to obtain a permit were SUBSTANTIAL. You made it hard for them .... They followed your requirements ...... Got those permits! Had to get financing, set up their small businesses, etc. NOW YOU WANT TO TAKE "SOME" AWAY?!?!?
Please, do not lower the cap on STRH. Don't take permits from those who adhered. Look to our future, not take from the past. Existing STRH is providing valuable employment for myself and MANY OTHERS who might be homeless otherwise.
Short Term Vacation Rentals are a vital part of the Maui tourist industry and are essential to owners of these facilities. I strongly support continuing short term rentals as long as they are done legally and follow the appropriate guidelines. I believe that a the large resort hotels are the source of any over use of Maui resources and they are continuing to be approved and expanded which is causing a great stress on all of the utilities, roads and communities on the island. These large developments need to be capped NOT small short term vacation rentals.
Aloha and Mahalo for your ongoing efforts of thoughtfulness for Maui. My wife and I have owned our home on the Westside since 2009. Our neighborhood is single family homes. We love Maui and all that it has to offer. I have been involved through most of our time in Maui with the the issues surrounding STVR's. Our owners by in large do not want STVR's. There have been efforts by some in our community to obtain permits; however, they have been rejected by their neighbors through the permitting process. With that said, there are some owners who rent illegally. Some, but not all, of those who rent can be disruptive to the community's desire to have quiet enjoyment of their properties.
My wife and I are supportive of the committee's desire to limit additional permits for STVR's.
Thanks to the short term vacation rental opportunity, it was 30 years in to our marriage when we were finally able to explore Maui for the first time. It was the most memorable vacation. There was a guest book in the condo which we ended up reading the entire book filled with joy and happiness from past travelers from all over the world. This is the reason why we started our own vacation rental in Maui with a hope and passion to share the beauty and our love of Maui with many others.
Instead of the fruit platter at the hotel, our guests explore local farmers markets to enjoy locally grown produce. Instead of lunch or cocktails served by the pool, our guests explore local restaurants, food trucks, and happy hours. Instead of dining out, our guests explore local stores to cook with local fresh ingredients. We now have many repeated guests, and some guests even get involved in the local volunteer activities because they grow to care about communities.
Short term vacation rentals can offer unique experience nothing like the commercial resort hotels can offer. It’s important that people understand that there is more to it than just letting people stay in our home to make money. It involves kindness, politeness, caring of resident neighbors, respect for rules as well as local people and cultures, and gratitude which is all the best form of humanity. As owners, it is our opportunity and responsibility to promote it in order to contribute towards community health and growth.
Bylaws and regulations could weed out owners who are not prepared to adhere to bylaws or rules. We already heard from our guests worrying about not being able to stay in our condo anymore. Instead of banning all together, could you please look for the ways to save the quality of short term rentals in Maui?
Dear Committee Members,
We are an Owner/Operator of a Condo in Kahana and I am the Board President of the board of a local AOAO. Our complex employs many different folks to manage, repair, clean and support the guests that come to our location. It would be a shame to limit the ability to keep those folks from enjoying the employment that has recently started again. Our workers have suffered for over a year trying to find ways to support themselves while the Pandemic was in force. They have paid that price, why would you consider limiting them from having a chance to recover and to make an honest living. We are a supporter of small businesses in our area and feel it is very important to support our local talented folks. Our recommendation is to oppose limiting Short term rental permits and we hope you will consider the many local property owners who oppose this proposal too.
Sincerely,
Ed Barclay
I am writing to support Amy Ramos in her opposition to imposing further reductions in short term rentals on Maui.
I have been a Maui resident since 1999 and have known Ms. Ramos for nearly 20 years. She is, and always has been, a hardworking, upstanding, mother of three young children. She treats her property, employees, and her short term visitors honorably and with integrity.
She pays her taxes and follows all of the stringent rules set down by Maui County in order to operate her small family business.
As Maui County citizens, we should be grateful to have folks like Amy as part of our community.
It stretches the imagination to think that the couple of hundred or so short term rental permits are the cause of over tourism in Maui County.
It is my honor to support Ms. Ramos and oppose this shortsighted and politically convenient bill.
As owners of an existing short term rental in West Maui, we oppose capping and/or removing existing approval for short term rentals. We are dependent on the visitors for continued viability of our property (apartment complex). At a minimum, existing approved properties should retain the approval and designation to include after sales - which may be the only reason individual purchasers would even consider our property.
i oppose this lowering caps presented in STRH's. I know plenty of local folks running successful vacation rentals. Lets face it your pandering to Hotels and politicians. Affordable housing is gone especially due to this pandemic and vacation rental never have and never will have a thing to with affordable housing. Shame on you for trying to destroy what small business left here. I am a tax payer and a VOTER.
Thank you for allowing the opportunity to testify on PSLU-67 related to STR caps. I have looked over the other testimony here and feel I don't need to write more, as I think the others opposed have stated the case with many valid points. I urge you to continue to support small business in Maui which are the cornerstone of Short Term Rentals.
Aloha,
Cynthia Richardson
Hm, the links to county communication, correspondence and legislation text seems to be broken? Makes it hard to know exactly what's going on, and seems a violation of the Sunshine Law. Please fix.
In any case, as a longtime Maui resident, real estate broker, and vacation rental owner, I OPPOSE any further restrictions on the usage of my very expensive private property.
I employ many local people to keep my vacation rentals up and running, in addition to substantially contributing to Maui County's tax base via property, GE and TA taxes. It fuels the local economy to have tourists here, and gives us access to way more goods and services than we would have otherwise. I know many kupuna who sustain themselves by legally renting their homes to visitors, and the passage of this law would in fact undermine local families' ability to profit from tourist lodging like the hotels are.
Unless you want to live in a police state, there's no way to keep people from vacationing here. I am disappointed that our government lacks the foresight to see the worldwide enthusiasm for Maui as a good thing, as something that supports and enhances our community. It is the opposite of ALOHA.
Even if this bill passes, it will just make my vacation rentals more valuable, so I guess it's a win-win for me. Sadly it's not a win for all. Please consider that when you vote on this bill, and also consider enacting positive, non-restrictive legislation that will bring much needed JOBS to our community. That's what we need most of all.
I am writing to oppose this legislation. I own a vacation rental on the west side of Maui. I am a legal and licensed rental and pay a monthly TA tax return and a quarterly GE tax return, not to mention the annual property taxes. While I understand the full time residents’ frustration at vacation rentals, please understand: thousands of legal vacation rentals on Maui are in oceanfront condo complexes that’s have been rented to tourists since they were built. Ours included. We were built in 1979 and have been renting short term since the very beginning. We are not taking away rental properties from permanent residents. We are providing tens of thousands of dollars to Maui Co annually, not to mention jobs for our housekeepers, groundskeepers, handymen, repairmen, the works. We lost almost $30,000 last year due to cancelled reservations, all while still paying our mortgage, taxes, HOA dues and property taxes with zero revenue from rentals. Limiting vacation rentals at this time would be catastrophic for Maui’s already struggling economy. We’ve all been through enough and deserve to continue running our businesses the way they have always been run. Mahalo for your time.
Dear Committee Chair Tamara Paltin and Planning and Sustainable Land Use Committee Members,
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on PLSU 67. We do support caps, we support managed STR home numbers in Maui County, and we support regulation.
As indicated in the 6/4/21 report from the Planning Department, many folks testified about the caps and the need for more information in order to make an informed decision on what to change them to.
We want to support the item but when looking at the numbers in the proposed ordinance we just want to make sure that any and all current permits, including the ones that may be under renewal are included in the counts in the cap plus pending applications. We don’t want the cap to be set below the number of people already operating legally.
The permitted STR homes are a legitimate part of our visitor industry. This ordinance and permitting system has proven to be crucial in how we keep these numbers managed. Right now they equal less than half a percent of Maui’s households.
The caps that were set for Short term rental permits in each area of the island were not set arbitrarily. They were carefully set after a comprehensive study in 2005 showed where the existing single family homes were being used for short term rental uses. As recommended by the Maui Planning commission, this study should be updated to determine if the existing permitted short term rental homes are meeting the current demand. Because if the caps are set artificially low, then the demand will be met by unpermitted rentals and the State and County will lose out on the significant taxation generated by legal short term rental homes.
The STRH original caps have already been reduced from 48 to 30 in Hana and from 88 to 55 in Paia Haiku. There certainly is no benefit to lowering these caps any further. The permits that have been granted in the past 3 years have only been granted to families who have owned their Maui homes for many years and where the availability of a short term rental home permit has provided the only means to keep the home in the family after life events have required the property owners to move, or leave their properties to their children after death.
We also recognize a very real issue that this does not address, which are the second homes in neighborhoods that appear as illegal vacation rentals. This continues to grow as Maui continues to be one of the hottest seasonal homes markets in the nation year after year. We have seen a record year of home prices increase and not a single one of them was sold as a short term rental home.
These homes can certainly look like they are vacation rentals when used by visiting friends and family, and these visitors staying in these homes contribute to our visitor counts on Maui. However these properties are not paying taxes at the rate legally permitted properties do, and do not pay GE or TAT taxes.
Rather than eliminating permits while we are still way below our cap, we should be focusing on how to eliminate the illegal vacation rental industry for good.
I have a permitted Bed and Breakfast in Makawao, and love being able to host 2 or 3 visitors, teaching them about how to be environmentally aware of our precious resources, and providing a stay that is low-impact on my neighborhood and on our island. I also employ a house cleaner, gardener, handy-person, etc, and always direct my guests to local, Makawao businesses to support.
I oppose to lower the caps presented in STRH’s at this time. More than half of these legal permitted homes are owned and run by local Maui residents and they follow all the strict rules and laws that are attached to the permits. The local Maui residents who run these small businesses contribute to the local economy and improve the Maui economy. If someone has a valid complaint against a STRH, they can either call the planning department or put in a request for service online with the property address that is causing a problem in the neighborhood. It’s very simple if folks just follow through. Please kindly vote against the Development Bill.
Sincerely,
A local Maui resident who works for, cares about and helps the people on Maui.
Dear Members of The Planning and Sustainable Land Use Committee,
Thank you for allowing me to address the proposal to decrease the limit on the number of STRHs allowed in various communities on Maui. I do not feel that doing so is in the best long-term interests of our community.
My understanding is that the main reason for the reduction in the number of permits allowed is in response to the crisis we are seeing on the island with respect to affordable housing. However, reducing the number of permits allowed will do little if anything to alleviate the affordable housing issue. STRHs represent a miniscule proportion of the islands housing stock and the intended consequence of decreasing the number of permits – this housing stock will now become long-term rentals – will have no meaningful overall impact.
The tax rate for STRHs is much higher than the tax rate of other taxable real property and this tax contribution is meaningful to the betterment of our island. I would argue that that the additional taxes from STRHs are a blessing and can be put to good use in the area of developing more affordable housing. Additionally, STRHs typically appeal to a segment of the visitor market Maui should be trying to attract as we seriously consider the future direction of our economy.
If the issue of reducing the STRH cap stems from conditions resulting from noise, parking on streets, etc. from the STRH’s operation then this needs be addressed via the current rules and regulations under the license to ensure that existing and potential STRHs do not upset the quality of life in the neighborhoods they are located in.
Aloha County Officials! Please consider the negative impact of the Global pandemic on owners who rely on the small support the vacation rental offers to pay the increased taxes we have to pay annually.
We have been vacationing on Maui since 1979. Every year another huge hotel going up. Time to limit!!
I can understand people not wanting rentals in residential areas. With the taxes paid into the state there should be plenty of money for roads and services!!!
I absolutely Opposed. What you’re doing is so wrong
I am the owner of a rental unit at Kamaole Sands. If one looks at the history of Maui, it will be readily apparent the benefits of vacation visitors to the island. The number of businesses which have closed and unemployed residents which resulted from the loss of visitors during the Covid pandemic should show the many benefits of the huge influx of dollars on the Maui economy. I hope you will consider the benefits of visitors, not just the problems. Thank, You, Lois Koenig
Without going into details....majority of the comments from others have repeated my same reasons to oppose PSLU-67 CC 21-67.
*Provides jobs; business opportunities for many local residents (allows us to stay & live on our home land. Provides a way to home ownership)
*Pays one of highest, if not the highest tax rate (contributors to our county tax base)
*Less crime when occupied (zero to no strain on our police resources)
*MEETS THE NEEDS OF TODAY'S TRAVELER'S (live like locals; supporting non-profits, small businesses, educated on "local-ways" by the home managers/owners)
Lastly - every industry has a few bad "sheeps"; don't punish the flock.
Leave the caps as-is.
p.s. My ohana, now in it's fourth generation of successful Maui residents making a living in the Tourism Industry.
We are Dolores & Bill Voerg owners of a condo at Kihei Akahi,Kihei Hi. We have owned our unit since 1987.without the rental income we receive to pay the taxes, maintainence fees , insurance, utilities, etc. we would not be able to afford to keep our unit.
Please do not put any further restrictions on this type of properties in Maui. Mahalo.
Dolores & Bill Voerg
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing to Oppose the lowering of the Cap on STRH. My sole employment, as a housekeeper, is at Kihei Oasis (a legally permitted STRH). I am a 69 y/o, 30 year Kihei resident, on Social Security. I NEED this extra money, to supplement my SS, in order to remain in Hawaii!
I have been employed by STRH property, Kihei Oasis, since 2013. The property is owned by a local resident, who works right alongside the rest of us. The property adheres to ALL permit requirements, and has NEVER had a complaint from a neighbor.
I ask that you consider all of the "LOCAL" people this, legally permitted, property sustains. There are no "Mainland" people, or funds, involved! Additionally, considerable attention is paid to maintain the standards required for a permit. These people went to the "trouble" to get "legal" permits in the past. I have been here long enough to remember when the majority of Short Term Rentals were done illegally! Because the "hoops required" to obtain a permit were SUBSTANTIAL. You made it hard for them .... They followed your requirements ...... Got those permits! Had to get financing, set up their small businesses, etc. NOW YOU WANT TO TAKE "SOME" AWAY?!?!?
Please, do not lower the cap on STRH. Don't take permits from those who adhered. Look to our future, not take from the past. Existing STRH is providing valuable employment for myself and MANY OTHERS who might be homeless otherwise.
I am: Kim Gleason - 152 Halona St. - Kihei, Hi
Short Term Vacation Rentals are a vital part of the Maui tourist industry and are essential to owners of these facilities. I strongly support continuing short term rentals as long as they are done legally and follow the appropriate guidelines. I believe that a the large resort hotels are the source of any over use of Maui resources and they are continuing to be approved and expanded which is causing a great stress on all of the utilities, roads and communities on the island. These large developments need to be capped NOT small short term vacation rentals.
Aloha and Mahalo for your ongoing efforts of thoughtfulness for Maui. My wife and I have owned our home on the Westside since 2009. Our neighborhood is single family homes. We love Maui and all that it has to offer. I have been involved through most of our time in Maui with the the issues surrounding STVR's. Our owners by in large do not want STVR's. There have been efforts by some in our community to obtain permits; however, they have been rejected by their neighbors through the permitting process. With that said, there are some owners who rent illegally. Some, but not all, of those who rent can be disruptive to the community's desire to have quiet enjoyment of their properties.
My wife and I are supportive of the committee's desire to limit additional permits for STVR's.
Respectively, David Zackrison
Thanks to the short term vacation rental opportunity, it was 30 years in to our marriage when we were finally able to explore Maui for the first time. It was the most memorable vacation. There was a guest book in the condo which we ended up reading the entire book filled with joy and happiness from past travelers from all over the world. This is the reason why we started our own vacation rental in Maui with a hope and passion to share the beauty and our love of Maui with many others.
Instead of the fruit platter at the hotel, our guests explore local farmers markets to enjoy locally grown produce. Instead of lunch or cocktails served by the pool, our guests explore local restaurants, food trucks, and happy hours. Instead of dining out, our guests explore local stores to cook with local fresh ingredients. We now have many repeated guests, and some guests even get involved in the local volunteer activities because they grow to care about communities.
Short term vacation rentals can offer unique experience nothing like the commercial resort hotels can offer. It’s important that people understand that there is more to it than just letting people stay in our home to make money. It involves kindness, politeness, caring of resident neighbors, respect for rules as well as local people and cultures, and gratitude which is all the best form of humanity. As owners, it is our opportunity and responsibility to promote it in order to contribute towards community health and growth.
Bylaws and regulations could weed out owners who are not prepared to adhere to bylaws or rules. We already heard from our guests worrying about not being able to stay in our condo anymore. Instead of banning all together, could you please look for the ways to save the quality of short term rentals in Maui?
Dear Committee Members,
We are an Owner/Operator of a Condo in Kahana and I am the Board President of the board of a local AOAO. Our complex employs many different folks to manage, repair, clean and support the guests that come to our location. It would be a shame to limit the ability to keep those folks from enjoying the employment that has recently started again. Our workers have suffered for over a year trying to find ways to support themselves while the Pandemic was in force. They have paid that price, why would you consider limiting them from having a chance to recover and to make an honest living. We are a supporter of small businesses in our area and feel it is very important to support our local talented folks. Our recommendation is to oppose limiting Short term rental permits and we hope you will consider the many local property owners who oppose this proposal too.
Sincerely,
Ed Barclay
Aloha Maui County Council Members,
I am writing to support Amy Ramos in her opposition to imposing further reductions in short term rentals on Maui.
I have been a Maui resident since 1999 and have known Ms. Ramos for nearly 20 years. She is, and always has been, a hardworking, upstanding, mother of three young children. She treats her property, employees, and her short term visitors honorably and with integrity.
She pays her taxes and follows all of the stringent rules set down by Maui County in order to operate her small family business.
As Maui County citizens, we should be grateful to have folks like Amy as part of our community.
It stretches the imagination to think that the couple of hundred or so short term rental permits are the cause of over tourism in Maui County.
It is my honor to support Ms. Ramos and oppose this shortsighted and politically convenient bill.
Respectfully,
Teri White
Kihei
As owners of an existing short term rental in West Maui, we oppose capping and/or removing existing approval for short term rentals. We are dependent on the visitors for continued viability of our property (apartment complex). At a minimum, existing approved properties should retain the approval and designation to include after sales - which may be the only reason individual purchasers would even consider our property.
i oppose this lowering caps presented in STRH's. I know plenty of local folks running successful vacation rentals. Lets face it your pandering to Hotels and politicians. Affordable housing is gone especially due to this pandemic and vacation rental never have and never will have a thing to with affordable housing. Shame on you for trying to destroy what small business left here. I am a tax payer and a VOTER.
Thank you for allowing the opportunity to testify on PSLU-67 related to STR caps. I have looked over the other testimony here and feel I don't need to write more, as I think the others opposed have stated the case with many valid points. I urge you to continue to support small business in Maui which are the cornerstone of Short Term Rentals.
Aloha,
Cynthia Richardson
Hm, the links to county communication, correspondence and legislation text seems to be broken? Makes it hard to know exactly what's going on, and seems a violation of the Sunshine Law. Please fix.
In any case, as a longtime Maui resident, real estate broker, and vacation rental owner, I OPPOSE any further restrictions on the usage of my very expensive private property.
I employ many local people to keep my vacation rentals up and running, in addition to substantially contributing to Maui County's tax base via property, GE and TA taxes. It fuels the local economy to have tourists here, and gives us access to way more goods and services than we would have otherwise. I know many kupuna who sustain themselves by legally renting their homes to visitors, and the passage of this law would in fact undermine local families' ability to profit from tourist lodging like the hotels are.
Unless you want to live in a police state, there's no way to keep people from vacationing here. I am disappointed that our government lacks the foresight to see the worldwide enthusiasm for Maui as a good thing, as something that supports and enhances our community. It is the opposite of ALOHA.
Even if this bill passes, it will just make my vacation rentals more valuable, so I guess it's a win-win for me. Sadly it's not a win for all. Please consider that when you vote on this bill, and also consider enacting positive, non-restrictive legislation that will bring much needed JOBS to our community. That's what we need most of all.
I am writing to oppose this legislation. I own a vacation rental on the west side of Maui. I am a legal and licensed rental and pay a monthly TA tax return and a quarterly GE tax return, not to mention the annual property taxes. While I understand the full time residents’ frustration at vacation rentals, please understand: thousands of legal vacation rentals on Maui are in oceanfront condo complexes that’s have been rented to tourists since they were built. Ours included. We were built in 1979 and have been renting short term since the very beginning. We are not taking away rental properties from permanent residents. We are providing tens of thousands of dollars to Maui Co annually, not to mention jobs for our housekeepers, groundskeepers, handymen, repairmen, the works. We lost almost $30,000 last year due to cancelled reservations, all while still paying our mortgage, taxes, HOA dues and property taxes with zero revenue from rentals. Limiting vacation rentals at this time would be catastrophic for Maui’s already struggling economy. We’ve all been through enough and deserve to continue running our businesses the way they have always been run. Mahalo for your time.
Dear Committee Chair Tamara Paltin and Planning and Sustainable Land Use Committee Members,
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on PLSU 67. We do support caps, we support managed STR home numbers in Maui County, and we support regulation.
As indicated in the 6/4/21 report from the Planning Department, many folks testified about the caps and the need for more information in order to make an informed decision on what to change them to.
We want to support the item but when looking at the numbers in the proposed ordinance we just want to make sure that any and all current permits, including the ones that may be under renewal are included in the counts in the cap plus pending applications. We don’t want the cap to be set below the number of people already operating legally.
The permitted STR homes are a legitimate part of our visitor industry. This ordinance and permitting system has proven to be crucial in how we keep these numbers managed. Right now they equal less than half a percent of Maui’s households.
The caps that were set for Short term rental permits in each area of the island were not set arbitrarily. They were carefully set after a comprehensive study in 2005 showed where the existing single family homes were being used for short term rental uses. As recommended by the Maui Planning commission, this study should be updated to determine if the existing permitted short term rental homes are meeting the current demand. Because if the caps are set artificially low, then the demand will be met by unpermitted rentals and the State and County will lose out on the significant taxation generated by legal short term rental homes.
The STRH original caps have already been reduced from 48 to 30 in Hana and from 88 to 55 in Paia Haiku. There certainly is no benefit to lowering these caps any further. The permits that have been granted in the past 3 years have only been granted to families who have owned their Maui homes for many years and where the availability of a short term rental home permit has provided the only means to keep the home in the family after life events have required the property owners to move, or leave their properties to their children after death.
We also recognize a very real issue that this does not address, which are the second homes in neighborhoods that appear as illegal vacation rentals. This continues to grow as Maui continues to be one of the hottest seasonal homes markets in the nation year after year. We have seen a record year of home prices increase and not a single one of them was sold as a short term rental home.
These homes can certainly look like they are vacation rentals when used by visiting friends and family, and these visitors staying in these homes contribute to our visitor counts on Maui. However these properties are not paying taxes at the rate legally permitted properties do, and do not pay GE or TAT taxes.
Rather than eliminating permits while we are still way below our cap, we should be focusing on how to eliminate the illegal vacation rental industry for good.
I have a permitted Bed and Breakfast in Makawao, and love being able to host 2 or 3 visitors, teaching them about how to be environmentally aware of our precious resources, and providing a stay that is low-impact on my neighborhood and on our island. I also employ a house cleaner, gardener, handy-person, etc, and always direct my guests to local, Makawao businesses to support.
Thank you for considering my testimony.
Aloha,
Lucia Maya
808-866-8246
lucia@luminousadventures.com
Aloha Council members:
I oppose to lower the caps presented in STRH’s at this time. More than half of these legal permitted homes are owned and run by local Maui residents and they follow all the strict rules and laws that are attached to the permits. The local Maui residents who run these small businesses contribute to the local economy and improve the Maui economy. If someone has a valid complaint against a STRH, they can either call the planning department or put in a request for service online with the property address that is causing a problem in the neighborhood. It’s very simple if folks just follow through. Please kindly vote against the Development Bill.
Sincerely,
A local Maui resident who works for, cares about and helps the people on Maui.
Dear Members of The Planning and Sustainable Land Use Committee,
Thank you for allowing me to address the proposal to decrease the limit on the number of STRHs allowed in various communities on Maui. I do not feel that doing so is in the best long-term interests of our community.
My understanding is that the main reason for the reduction in the number of permits allowed is in response to the crisis we are seeing on the island with respect to affordable housing. However, reducing the number of permits allowed will do little if anything to alleviate the affordable housing issue. STRHs represent a miniscule proportion of the islands housing stock and the intended consequence of decreasing the number of permits – this housing stock will now become long-term rentals – will have no meaningful overall impact.
The tax rate for STRHs is much higher than the tax rate of other taxable real property and this tax contribution is meaningful to the betterment of our island. I would argue that that the additional taxes from STRHs are a blessing and can be put to good use in the area of developing more affordable housing. Additionally, STRHs typically appeal to a segment of the visitor market Maui should be trying to attract as we seriously consider the future direction of our economy.
If the issue of reducing the STRH cap stems from conditions resulting from noise, parking on streets, etc. from the STRH’s operation then this needs be addressed via the current rules and regulations under the license to ensure that existing and potential STRHs do not upset the quality of life in the neighborhoods they are located in.
Many thanks for your consideration,
Dean Trotzuk
Aloha County Officials! Please consider the negative impact of the Global pandemic on owners who rely on the small support the vacation rental offers to pay the increased taxes we have to pay annually.
We have been vacationing on Maui since 1979. Every year another huge hotel going up. Time to limit!!
I can understand people not wanting rentals in residential areas. With the taxes paid into the state there should be plenty of money for roads and services!!!