I support the moratorium and think it should be much longer. I do not see how you can in good conscious have this moratorium lifted in 2 or 2.5 years when you are basically trying to reduce existing, legal vacation rentals with the second bill.
That seems very strange to me.
First I would like to comment on PSLU-28. I don’t believe this measure is consistent with our Maui island plan because it does not seek to “manage” visitor, part time resident, and resident ratios. Instead of managing visitor accommodations as the B&B and STRH ordinances do, it simply places a moratorium on a portion of Maui’s visitors. because the largest increase in The three groups that the island plan seeks to manage are the part time residents, who are being counted as visitors. Nothing is being done to stop the tsunami of home sales for use as second homes.
While I don’t favor more hotels, I don’t believe that tearing apart an ordinance that is working well to manage one sector of our visitor industry and a moratorium on permits will address the growth issues that Maui suffers from. The largest growth has come from new residents moving to Maui and the second largest growth has been by part time residents and all of these residents depend on the taxes and revenues generated by the visitor industry.
PSLU-34
I would urge this committee to file PSLU 34 and use the input from this meeting to come up with a better proposal to meet the stated goal of creating affordable housing for residents. I do have some suggestions for ways to actually create some resident housing opportunities, but unilaterally taking away a vested property right is not a good plan for achieving this goal.
Committee chair gave a brief historical overview of the properties that would be affected by this measure. But I am afraid this history did not go back far enough to tell the whole story of these properties. The properties in the Apartment districts that would be impacted by this bill are buildings that were built in the 1960’s 70’s and 80’s and were built specifically for transient accommodation uses and this land use right has been instilled in these properties for 30 to 50 years. They did not gain Transient use from the 2014 codification of the minitoya opinion. These properties were specifically endowed with transient use rights when they were built and those rights were affirmed in 1989 and 1991 in ordinances 1797 and 1989. Prior to these dates the apartment district contained an express permission for transient uses.
But in 1991 a prohibition on transient uses for newly built buildings in the Apartment district and these buildings were expressly restricted “long term residential use”. And this is my first suggestion for finding resident housing. All buildings in the apartment district are required to to be used for long term residential use, but the majority are currently being used as second homes. The County could make an effort to ensure that these buildings are not being used as second homes and are used exclusively for resident housing, either as homeowner or long term rentals.
A second suggestion I have is to put together a program to offer to condo buildings where short term rental use is allowed by code to voluntarily opt out of short term rental use in exchange for a lower property tax rate. I know there are some buildings where some number of the owners would prefer there to be no short term rentals. If these owners voted to change their CC&Rs to forbid short term rental, they might welcome a tax abatement.
Finally I would suggest a program where new short term rental home permit applicants could bypass the 15 year ownership requirements and established caps by offering a short term rental condo as an affordable rental. For example, the owner of a $5million house could be permitted to operate it as an STRH by purchasing a vacation rental condo and offering it thru the County to a low income qualified tenant at an affordable rent. One short term rental eliminated in exchange for a high end property becoming a regulated STRH.
I hope the Council will listen to the vast majority of testifiers today and will file this measure.
Ordinance 1989 removing transient accommodation use from being expressly allowed in the Apartment district:
Time share units, time share plans and transient vacation rentals are allowed in the hotel [and apartment districts] districts.
Footnotes of Ordinance 1989 making clear that transient uses may continue in buildings built prior to 1991:
SECTION 11. This ordinance shall take effect upon its approval; provided that this ordinance shall not apply to building permits, special management area use permits, or planned development approval which were lawfully issued and valid on the effective date of this ordinance.
PLSU-28 we need a moratorium.
I support PLSU-34 phase out vacation rentals in apartment districts, it should be for residents to rent.
Mahalo
Ui'lani Kapu
I strongly support both PSLU 28 and 34. I assume that visitors come to Maui to experience it’s peace and beauty. The more we build, the more we destroy the very thing people come here to experience. So many beautiful places that have been overrun with tourists and these places have started to implement procedures to protect and ‘clean up’ the impact of over-tourism. (Venice, Manchu Picchu, Barcelona, Santorini, Amsterdam, areas of Iceland, Mallorca, Kyoto to name a few). We are already experiencing a housing crisis for local residents on Maui which simply is not okay. Who will be able to work in the tourist industry if people cannot find or afford housing. This is an example of the proverbial ‘shooting yourself in the foot’.
SUGGESTIONS: implement a hefty tourist tax (money to be used to address issues resulting from over tourism, limit visitors per day (1 visitor per 25 residents), moratorium on building to accommodate visitors (if we limit the amount of visitors, there should already be enough accommodations), reduce the current number of visitor accommodations, LIMIT the number of vacation rentals so that there is more housing available for local residents.
There MUST be an honorable balance that we can strike so that local families are valued and protected as we share this island CONSCIOUSLY with visitors who want to enjoy this island.
Do NOT wait till it’s too late to do anything about protecting this beautiful island. The vision must go beyond ‘money in the pocket now’ at the expense of marring and destroying Maui in the future….PLEASE look ahead….
Papakea was approved and built as a resort. I am absolutely against any changes to the rental structure that has been in place since it was built in 1976-1977. The rental structure you propose will not help owners or long term renters. The purpose of the resort should be honored.
I support a moratorium on new transient accommodations. I support small, resident owned accommodations that help local residents and tax dollars stay in the state. And how can we justify new hotels when upcountry residents have been waiting for water meters for decades.
Aloha Council members,
I would like to support PSLU 28- I appreciate the moratorium because it creates the opportunity to re-align the vision for our island- We have limited resources, land, water, infrastructure , housing. Why the need for speed? The moratorium allows consideration of the long term quality of life over immediate financial gains. Think about it what will Maui look like, feel like and be in twenty years time at this rate? Once the building is done , the resources used, the numbers of visitor accommodation increased to an unsustainable number, it will be too late. It is now that we have the opportunity to plan, consider, balance, re-direct not later. Many voices speaking against the moratorium are focusing on immediate financial gain- that is not the place to come from. I would love an opportunity to see data on how many of the laborers and tradesmen on the large transient accommodation projects are imported from the mainland and outer islands. I think we would all be surprised by the numbers. We are no longer considering how to support our local families, and our local workforce. We are now importing lots of laborers and tradesmen doing the same jobs for these projects who compete directly with our own community. Not only for work , but also for housing. Is Maui here for the taking of the top percentage in the tourism and development industry who are benefitting greatly from this out of control building ? Please vote through PSLU 28, Mahalo
Private property is not only the foundation of prosperity but of freedom itself. The constitution protects private property under the 5th. & 14th. amendments.
The basic rights they recognized, beyond acquisition and disposal, were the right of sole dominion — variously described as a right to exclude others, a right against trespass, or a right of quiet enjoyment, which all can exercise equally at the same time and in the same respect — and the right of active use. This will seize these rights as well as the value of our property.
The county government’s assumed power to seize property thru the insidious method of overregulation, still seizes our property as in a dictatorial communist state.
I definitely agree that there is a need for affordable housing for the permanent resident. Taking property rights and value from existing home homeowners, I believe is not the correct path to go.
I would suggest to maybe enact a 1% tax on all vacation rentals dedicated solely to building affordable residential housing.
Aloha my name is Suzette Felicilda, born raised and kanaka maoli of Mala, Lahaina. I’ve seen too many changes and I don’t want more hotels and vacation rentals being built here-Maui and support a moratorium on building more visitor accommodations.
Mahalo,
Suzette Felicilda
Kanaka Maoli
Mala, Lahaina
Aloha mai kākou my name is Kahala Johnson, I am a Kanaka Maoli and Filipino resident of Maui whose labor has been exploited by the hotel industry in the past. I stand in strong support of PSLU-28 and the moratorium on hotels. Tourism has always been an unsustainable colonial business maladaptive to the future of Hawaiians and Filipinos on Maui. By placing us into a commercial relationship of abusive dependency on transient populations with no commitment to our communities, our ecologies, and our food chain supply systems, tourism parasitizes our people and land, gaslighting our experience of exploitation by paying lobbyists to testify how grateful we should be as its local hosts. And yet the labor of Hawaiians and Filipinos has always been harvested by the hotels, who exoticise and caricature Hawaiian culture while rendering the harms done to Filipina at the hotels invisible. Tourism, and the hotel industry in particular, is an outdated, unsustainable economy that will continue to exploit these communities on Maui. The moratorium is a step to halting that abuse where we can take time as a community to explore more sustainable options that center the needs of Hawaiians and Filipino/as, the people whose land and labor this archaic remnant of colonization is built upon.
Aloha Kakou my name is Kaipo Kekona born and raised here in Lahaina Maui. I am absolutely in support of PLSU 28 CC 21-280. I have had the pleasure of serving our communities not only Lahaina and Ka'anapali during the pandemic closure and have had numerous conversations with community members of all ages and heard first hand of their appreciation for the break we were experiencing from the overwhelming exploitation of the Island. This moratorium is much needed so we can begin the conversations on the reforming of our visitors industry. This conversation needs to be done. Clean environmental programs, micro plastic screening by all commercial ocean activities. The potential is huge we need the space and time for this to happen. The time requested in this bill is small and should be longer. Mahalo nui Kaipo Kekona
I believe that we the people of Maui County need to have a full discussion on both PSLU-28 and PSLU-34 as it relates to the goal set by the Maui County Council to have 5000 homes built in the next 5 years. I encourage the Maui Realtors Association and others to be part of that discussion. I think that the efforts of the Maui County Council to make this discussion possible should be commended. The question that I see is how do we take care of the housing needs for our low-income and moderate-income residents? Do we build new or do we repurpose what is already built? Let us talk without blaming or bad mouthing one side or the other.
Aloha Chair Rawlins-Fernandez and Members of the Committee,
My name is Jade Chihara and I am born and raised in Lahaina. Mahalo for proposing this moratorium on building new visitor accommodations. I feel that visitor accommodation of short term visitors has taken priority over the quality and wellbeing of the residents who live here long term. I appreciate this moratorium and support Chair Rawlins-Fernandez’s work on this matter.
I oppose any further restrictions from the legally existing transit accommodation in the vacation rental zones and what the zoning currently permits. No need for further changes just enforce the rules by making the various platform(Airbnb/VRBO) verify the accommodations on there sites are legal and paying taxes. In addition, the current legal transient accommodations provides various income for the people staying on Maui(cleaning services, property management services, restaurants, grocery store, diving shops, car rentals, tourism shops) for low to middle income resident on Maui. To deprive them of making a living is wrong. The council could better use the tax dollars the transit accommodations are generating to fund moderate to low income housing developments for the residents of Maui instead of approving these restrictions.
Mahalo for proposing this long-awaited and much-needed moratorium on building new visitor accommodations. Although most of the Maui Nui lāhui would advocate a longer term than this legislation proposes, we'll take what we can get and hope for future extensions, renewals, or broader moratoriums.
Although I'm in West Maui, where Kā'anapali and Lāhainā are quite negatively impacted by the extractive visitor industry, during Ka'apuni O Lono, I had the opportunity to speak with many moku districts who feel the same way about supporting a moratorium for their communities as well. The whole mokupuni needs a break from the unsustainable construction of more hotels and other visitor accommodation.
This is a terriable idea. It will only drive $$s to hotels owned by rich mainlanders. We should support properties like this, many of which are owned by locals.
PSLU-28cc
I support the moratorium and think it should be much longer. I do not see how you can in good conscious have this moratorium lifted in 2 or 2.5 years when you are basically trying to reduce existing, legal vacation rentals with the second bill.
That seems very strange to me.
Comments for PSLU- 28 and PSLU-34
First I would like to comment on PSLU-28. I don’t believe this measure is consistent with our Maui island plan because it does not seek to “manage” visitor, part time resident, and resident ratios. Instead of managing visitor accommodations as the B&B and STRH ordinances do, it simply places a moratorium on a portion of Maui’s visitors. because the largest increase in The three groups that the island plan seeks to manage are the part time residents, who are being counted as visitors. Nothing is being done to stop the tsunami of home sales for use as second homes.
While I don’t favor more hotels, I don’t believe that tearing apart an ordinance that is working well to manage one sector of our visitor industry and a moratorium on permits will address the growth issues that Maui suffers from. The largest growth has come from new residents moving to Maui and the second largest growth has been by part time residents and all of these residents depend on the taxes and revenues generated by the visitor industry.
PSLU-34
I would urge this committee to file PSLU 34 and use the input from this meeting to come up with a better proposal to meet the stated goal of creating affordable housing for residents. I do have some suggestions for ways to actually create some resident housing opportunities, but unilaterally taking away a vested property right is not a good plan for achieving this goal.
Committee chair gave a brief historical overview of the properties that would be affected by this measure. But I am afraid this history did not go back far enough to tell the whole story of these properties. The properties in the Apartment districts that would be impacted by this bill are buildings that were built in the 1960’s 70’s and 80’s and were built specifically for transient accommodation uses and this land use right has been instilled in these properties for 30 to 50 years. They did not gain Transient use from the 2014 codification of the minitoya opinion. These properties were specifically endowed with transient use rights when they were built and those rights were affirmed in 1989 and 1991 in ordinances 1797 and 1989. Prior to these dates the apartment district contained an express permission for transient uses.
But in 1991 a prohibition on transient uses for newly built buildings in the Apartment district and these buildings were expressly restricted “long term residential use”. And this is my first suggestion for finding resident housing. All buildings in the apartment district are required to to be used for long term residential use, but the majority are currently being used as second homes. The County could make an effort to ensure that these buildings are not being used as second homes and are used exclusively for resident housing, either as homeowner or long term rentals.
A second suggestion I have is to put together a program to offer to condo buildings where short term rental use is allowed by code to voluntarily opt out of short term rental use in exchange for a lower property tax rate. I know there are some buildings where some number of the owners would prefer there to be no short term rentals. If these owners voted to change their CC&Rs to forbid short term rental, they might welcome a tax abatement.
Finally I would suggest a program where new short term rental home permit applicants could bypass the 15 year ownership requirements and established caps by offering a short term rental condo as an affordable rental. For example, the owner of a $5million house could be permitted to operate it as an STRH by purchasing a vacation rental condo and offering it thru the County to a low income qualified tenant at an affordable rent. One short term rental eliminated in exchange for a high end property becoming a regulated STRH.
I hope the Council will listen to the vast majority of testifiers today and will file this measure.
Ordinance 1989 removing transient accommodation use from being expressly allowed in the Apartment district:
Time share units, time share plans and transient vacation rentals are allowed in the hotel [and apartment districts] districts.
Footnotes of Ordinance 1989 making clear that transient uses may continue in buildings built prior to 1991:
SECTION 11. This ordinance shall take effect upon its approval; provided that this ordinance shall not apply to building permits, special management area use permits, or planned development approval which were lawfully issued and valid on the effective date of this ordinance.
PLSU-28 we need a moratorium.
I support PLSU-34 phase out vacation rentals in apartment districts, it should be for residents to rent.
Mahalo
Ui'lani Kapu
I strongly support both PSLU 28 and 34. I assume that visitors come to Maui to experience it’s peace and beauty. The more we build, the more we destroy the very thing people come here to experience. So many beautiful places that have been overrun with tourists and these places have started to implement procedures to protect and ‘clean up’ the impact of over-tourism. (Venice, Manchu Picchu, Barcelona, Santorini, Amsterdam, areas of Iceland, Mallorca, Kyoto to name a few). We are already experiencing a housing crisis for local residents on Maui which simply is not okay. Who will be able to work in the tourist industry if people cannot find or afford housing. This is an example of the proverbial ‘shooting yourself in the foot’.
SUGGESTIONS: implement a hefty tourist tax (money to be used to address issues resulting from over tourism, limit visitors per day (1 visitor per 25 residents), moratorium on building to accommodate visitors (if we limit the amount of visitors, there should already be enough accommodations), reduce the current number of visitor accommodations, LIMIT the number of vacation rentals so that there is more housing available for local residents.
There MUST be an honorable balance that we can strike so that local families are valued and protected as we share this island CONSCIOUSLY with visitors who want to enjoy this island.
Do NOT wait till it’s too late to do anything about protecting this beautiful island. The vision must go beyond ‘money in the pocket now’ at the expense of marring and destroying Maui in the future….PLEASE look ahead….
Papakea was approved and built as a resort. I am absolutely against any changes to the rental structure that has been in place since it was built in 1976-1977. The rental structure you propose will not help owners or long term renters. The purpose of the resort should be honored.
I support a moratorium on new transient accommodations. I support small, resident owned accommodations that help local residents and tax dollars stay in the state. And how can we justify new hotels when upcountry residents have been waiting for water meters for decades.
Aloha Council members,
I would like to support PSLU 28- I appreciate the moratorium because it creates the opportunity to re-align the vision for our island- We have limited resources, land, water, infrastructure , housing. Why the need for speed? The moratorium allows consideration of the long term quality of life over immediate financial gains. Think about it what will Maui look like, feel like and be in twenty years time at this rate? Once the building is done , the resources used, the numbers of visitor accommodation increased to an unsustainable number, it will be too late. It is now that we have the opportunity to plan, consider, balance, re-direct not later. Many voices speaking against the moratorium are focusing on immediate financial gain- that is not the place to come from. I would love an opportunity to see data on how many of the laborers and tradesmen on the large transient accommodation projects are imported from the mainland and outer islands. I think we would all be surprised by the numbers. We are no longer considering how to support our local families, and our local workforce. We are now importing lots of laborers and tradesmen doing the same jobs for these projects who compete directly with our own community. Not only for work , but also for housing. Is Maui here for the taking of the top percentage in the tourism and development industry who are benefitting greatly from this out of control building ? Please vote through PSLU 28, Mahalo
Private property is not only the foundation of prosperity but of freedom itself. The constitution protects private property under the 5th. & 14th. amendments.
The basic rights they recognized, beyond acquisition and disposal, were the right of sole dominion — variously described as a right to exclude others, a right against trespass, or a right of quiet enjoyment, which all can exercise equally at the same time and in the same respect — and the right of active use. This will seize these rights as well as the value of our property.
The county government’s assumed power to seize property thru the insidious method of overregulation, still seizes our property as in a dictatorial communist state.
I definitely agree that there is a need for affordable housing for the permanent resident. Taking property rights and value from existing home homeowners, I believe is not the correct path to go.
I would suggest to maybe enact a 1% tax on all vacation rentals dedicated solely to building affordable residential housing.
Mahalo, Marilyn McDonald
Aloha my name is Suzette Felicilda, born raised and kanaka maoli of Mala, Lahaina. I’ve seen too many changes and I don’t want more hotels and vacation rentals being built here-Maui and support a moratorium on building more visitor accommodations.
Mahalo,
Suzette Felicilda
Kanaka Maoli
Mala, Lahaina
Please build more affordable housing!
Aloha mai kākou my name is Kahala Johnson, I am a Kanaka Maoli and Filipino resident of Maui whose labor has been exploited by the hotel industry in the past. I stand in strong support of PSLU-28 and the moratorium on hotels. Tourism has always been an unsustainable colonial business maladaptive to the future of Hawaiians and Filipinos on Maui. By placing us into a commercial relationship of abusive dependency on transient populations with no commitment to our communities, our ecologies, and our food chain supply systems, tourism parasitizes our people and land, gaslighting our experience of exploitation by paying lobbyists to testify how grateful we should be as its local hosts. And yet the labor of Hawaiians and Filipinos has always been harvested by the hotels, who exoticise and caricature Hawaiian culture while rendering the harms done to Filipina at the hotels invisible. Tourism, and the hotel industry in particular, is an outdated, unsustainable economy that will continue to exploit these communities on Maui. The moratorium is a step to halting that abuse where we can take time as a community to explore more sustainable options that center the needs of Hawaiians and Filipino/as, the people whose land and labor this archaic remnant of colonization is built upon.
Aloha Kakou my name is Kaipo Kekona born and raised here in Lahaina Maui. I am absolutely in support of PLSU 28 CC 21-280. I have had the pleasure of serving our communities not only Lahaina and Ka'anapali during the pandemic closure and have had numerous conversations with community members of all ages and heard first hand of their appreciation for the break we were experiencing from the overwhelming exploitation of the Island. This moratorium is much needed so we can begin the conversations on the reforming of our visitors industry. This conversation needs to be done. Clean environmental programs, micro plastic screening by all commercial ocean activities. The potential is huge we need the space and time for this to happen. The time requested in this bill is small and should be longer. Mahalo nui Kaipo Kekona
Aloha mai, My name is Nameaaea Hoshino. I am in support of this bill.
I believe that we the people of Maui County need to have a full discussion on both PSLU-28 and PSLU-34 as it relates to the goal set by the Maui County Council to have 5000 homes built in the next 5 years. I encourage the Maui Realtors Association and others to be part of that discussion. I think that the efforts of the Maui County Council to make this discussion possible should be commended. The question that I see is how do we take care of the housing needs for our low-income and moderate-income residents? Do we build new or do we repurpose what is already built? Let us talk without blaming or bad mouthing one side or the other.
Aloha Chair Rawlins-Fernandez and Members of the Committee,
My name is Jade Chihara and I am born and raised in Lahaina. Mahalo for proposing this moratorium on building new visitor accommodations. I feel that visitor accommodation of short term visitors has taken priority over the quality and wellbeing of the residents who live here long term. I appreciate this moratorium and support Chair Rawlins-Fernandez’s work on this matter.
Mahalo,
Jade
I oppose any further restrictions from the legally existing transit accommodation in the vacation rental zones and what the zoning currently permits. No need for further changes just enforce the rules by making the various platform(Airbnb/VRBO) verify the accommodations on there sites are legal and paying taxes. In addition, the current legal transient accommodations provides various income for the people staying on Maui(cleaning services, property management services, restaurants, grocery store, diving shops, car rentals, tourism shops) for low to middle income resident on Maui. To deprive them of making a living is wrong. The council could better use the tax dollars the transit accommodations are generating to fund moderate to low income housing developments for the residents of Maui instead of approving these restrictions.
Mahalo for proposing this long-awaited and much-needed moratorium on building new visitor accommodations. Although most of the Maui Nui lāhui would advocate a longer term than this legislation proposes, we'll take what we can get and hope for future extensions, renewals, or broader moratoriums.
Although I'm in West Maui, where Kā'anapali and Lāhainā are quite negatively impacted by the extractive visitor industry, during Ka'apuni O Lono, I had the opportunity to speak with many moku districts who feel the same way about supporting a moratorium for their communities as well. The whole mokupuni needs a break from the unsustainable construction of more hotels and other visitor accommodation.
Fay McFarlane
Lāhainā, Hawai'i
We already have too many visitor accommodation. Stop building more!
This is a terriable idea. It will only drive $$s to hotels owned by rich mainlanders. We should support properties like this, many of which are owned by locals.