I am a resident and also ST rental owner. We pay very high taxes to own a ST rental. Also, visitors pay very high taxes for the privilege of renting a vacation rental. When all those taxes disappear, who will pay them? Also remember, when international travel is allowed again, people will have choices, and as Maui has become VERY expensive, they will go elsewhere. And that means lost jobs, lost tax revenue, lost income for locals. This ST rental business supports a lot of locals, don’t forget that!
This bill will do nothing for affordable housing. It will cause taxes on residents to be raised to make up the shortfall for the 17 percent the county and state take from visitors. Where's the replacement income to come from? Resident taxpayers.
My hale on the island of Molokai that is located at the Wavecrest Resort . It has been zoned for short term since it was built over 50 yrs ago. My ONLY income for my small business-mortgage recovery from forbearance since travel stopped from Covid-19 that put my mortgage in the RED ($20,000 still behind) Also, I provide WORK for the Molokai people such as help cleaning before and after guests-upkeep and supplies from other stores on Molokai.
As far as long term -it's Section 8 on Molokai and major problems with renters and property damage.
Owners purchased for this specified zoning - many law suites against the state thinking they can just CHANGE laws to fit their agenda.
The apartments that were on the list should continue to operate as such if on the list BY THE LAW of deed transfer as a short term complex.
Instead the state should spend our TAT tax money to build apartments for long term renters or homeless.
Eliminate ALL AirBnB's ... STOP the condo-ization of ag land and "ohanas' ... keep the long term rental housing stock on Maui. Eliminate ALL fractional home ownership ... STOP all REIT's. and we will have long term rentals for the local population again ... ONLY YOU ... can prevent homelessness
I strongly oppose as this measure is almost tantamount to expropriation
The condo owners having acquired the properties at fair market value with rights to rent will see the value reset to not being able to rent which is about half all the while paying the extra high property tax
Not acceptable
This is almost communism where the government seized property..
Hana Kai Maui has been operating as a ‘condo-tel’ since 1971. For the past 15 years we have employed 12-15 people on a year-round basis. We hire employees, not contract labor. Minimum wage for a permanent employee at Hana Kai is currently $17.00 / hour. In this case it would not make sense to offer 19 long term rentals at the cost of 15 local jobs.
Hana Kai Maui contributes approximately $300,000 in General Excise and Transient Accommodation taxes on an annual basis and combined property taxes in 2021 of $96,000.
This property is not suitable for long term rental. Our 70’s wood buildings, and our remote, windward, oceanfront location add to the extremely high cost of upkeep and maintenance on the property. We are the only property in Hana with an on-site Wastewater Treatment Plant (WTP) which requires a licensed wastewater operator on staff. In 2019, as a requirement of the Department of Health, Hana Kai replaced our WTP. The average cost per unit to pay for new system is over $450 per month for the next 10 years, not including upkeep and repairs which are constant in our salty location. For these reasons, maintenance fees at Hana Kai are among the highest on Maui making affordable long-term rentals in this location impossible.
Hana Kai Maui has operated in good faith and in a responsible manner within the community for many years. We often house artists, performers, judges, etc. for community events free of charge. We not only accepted the mandate to replace our WTP system, we went above and beyond by installing a system that would produce the best quality effluent in order to be good stewards of Hana Bay now and into the future.
The owners of Hana Kai Maui ask the County of Maui to reconsider this legislation and understand that Hana Kai, and many other condominiums with similar circumstances will not achieve the goal of affordable housing they are seeking and in fact will harm the local communities they are trying to help.
We agree that there is a need to block the development of new short-term rentals on Maui, especially without increasing infrastructure. We agree with a moratorium on new short-term rentals in residential districts and agree and support development of alternative revenue sources, such as agriculture on Maui and throughout Hawaii.
Respectfully submitted,
Susie Pu
General Manager
Hana Kai Maui AOAO & Hana Kai Maui Resort, LLC.
This bill is going to raise taxes on all Maui residents to make up for the multi-million dollar shortfall in MCTAT taxes that visiting guests provide. Use those taxes to effectively build affordable housing. I will never rent my condominium long term, so Maui will not gain and additional property and instead will lose all the taxes my unit generously provide Maui County. Proponents have no idea the losses this will produce for EVERYONE -- owners, Maui residents, Maui County government, holidaymakers, many support jobs . . . this is a lose-lose proposition.
This bill will be devastating to STR owners and not create new low income housing. Maui county will lose millions in TAT taxes, which will have to be recovered by taxing Maui residents and reducing services. How is that possibly good for Maui residents. This bill is only good for the big multinational hotel chains. I would like to see an investigation into hotel owners lobbying for this bill and who is getting paid off.
My husband is born and raised on Maui, I have lived here since I was 21. He is 75 and I am 67. We have been married for 0ver 43 years. For the first 20 years we both worked three jobs. Five years ago we sold a house in Pauwela to a local family and purchased a condo at Kamaole Sands. We purchased this with the express purpse of using it as a vacation rental.
Owning this vacation rental has been interesting. We basicaly clear about $2000 a month from this endeavor. We work very hard at this, including cleaning the unit ourselves. We are definielty not wealthy. We bought this condo to help us during our retirement with the idea of moving into the unit eventually. Having a little more reality of condo life, we have decided that we really do not want to live in a condo. This will mean we will eventually want to sell this condo or give to our children.
The people who stay in our condo rarely cook their dinners at the condo. They pretty well cook or eat breakfast and then eat out for lunch and dinner. They enjoy all the tours and various fun things Maui allows. We connect with each of these renters, We educate them on numerous things that in turn make them great visitors. Alot of these folks are return visitors to our unit.
I would like to ask the committee members if any of their friends or family have come to Maui and stayed in vacation rentals as they are more affordable. The folks who use are unit are usually very sweet families, who just love Maui.
Just wanted to give you a local owner's perspective.
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.
We purchased a condo in Luana Kai in April of this year. We had to take out a large HELOC on our primary residence in Seattle to cover the down payment and closing costs. It was a big financial risk for us, but one we were willing to take, knowing that short-term rental income could offset our monthly expenses moving forward and help us pay down our mortgage over the coming years. We hope to retire in Maui one day.
If the Phasing Out of Transient Accommodations in the Apartment District legislation is passed, it will pull the rug right out from under us. There is no way we ever would have purchased this unit if we thought we would be unable to rent the unit on a short-term basis. How would we be able to vet a long-term renter from Seattle? How would we be able to be responsive landlords for maintenance issues? Our current property management company is not designed for long-term rentals.
Moreover, our understanding is that eliminating the revenue generated from short-term rentals would negatively impact the Affordable Housing Fund.
This proposal is short-sighted and punitive to owners like us. Please reject it.
As homeowner of a Maui condo, employers, and taxpayers, we are sincerely concerned about what this will do to the island's economy. On our short-Term rentals alone we pay close to 20k/year each in TAT/GET and property taxes. If we assume that 75% of the 7000 Condos are also paying similar taxes that would mean a potential long-term loss of over 60 million of lost tax revenue as these are slowly converted over.
For owners that rent out their Condos, it also provides many jobs from the cleaners that clean them, to the property managers that manage them, to all the ancillary business they support such as landscaping, food and beverage, and maintenance.
Condos bring different types of guests to our islands. These guests tend to be more self-sufficient, purchase groceries in the stores, frequent many of the tourist locations and shop locally, helping support local businesses.
Furthermore, most of these condos would be out of reach financially for the residents of Hawaii this bill is trying to address. My maintenance and utilities alone are almost $1000 per condo, before any mortgage payments. This is not in the realm of “low-cost” housing. Affordable housing is not just a Hawaii problem it’s a nationwide problem, and beachfront property (which many of these condos are) worldwide have prices that are continually increasing and would not be appropriate low-cost housing options. These condos are also generally not designed or built to be full-time residents, with a shortage of parking and storage.
We purchased our Condos in a complex that was set up and built for short-term rentals. It even has a property management office onsite. While the proper zoning may not have been there in the 80’s when it was built, it was certainly the intent. Changing the zoning now will have a significant impact on our overall property value, reducing it but still keeping it out of reach for those seeking affordable housing. Furthermore, it will likely choke sales as most owners would see it as now more profitable to rent than sell, and you’d only see sales on death or critical life events, ourselves included.
We strongly encourage you to reconsider the greater impact this change will have on the Hawaii Economy, and find other ways to find affordable housing. This is not the answer and would instead take away jobs from many of your residents that need this housing to begin with.
We are owners of a legal short term rental. The property tax we pay for TVR classification is almost double what we would pay otherwise. The revenue loss to Maui from phasing out transient accommodations would be substantial. This lost revenue will have to be made up somehow. Additionally the short term rental ecosystem generates significant jobs for Maui, including cleaners, managers, and repair people. Finally, we supply each guest with a list of small local restaurants and businesses. A visitor to Maui staying in a short term vacation rental seems much more likely than a resort visitor to get out into the community and spend at local businesses. Whereas resorts want their guests to spend every dollar on their grounds.
My wife and I are Canadian “snowbirds.” We have been coming to Maui for over 40 years, always in the same condo complex. We retired 13 years ago and since then our average stay is about two months. During our stay we rent a car from a local company, do our grocery shopping at local stores, and gon Scuba diving with local operators.
We read with alarm about the desire to eliminate temporary vacation rentals within the hotel zone. If this happens then we will no longer be able to afford to come to Maui. We can’t afford the big luxury hotel chain room rates, compounded by their lack of in-room cooking facilities which would force us to eat many of our meals in their expensive restaurants.
If this passes then we will be forced to move our winter get-away to Mexico or the Caribbean, taking a few thousand dollars with us. I suspect that this will also be true for many of the seasonal friends that we have met here.
Yes, it will be “Aloha” in the “goodbye” sense.
Let me introduce myself. I'm a breast sonographer at Maui Medical group in Wailuku. Im the person who helps diagnose your mother, your auntie yourself for breast cancer. I'm the only tech on island that specializes in Breast ultrasound.
i've lived here since 2014, 7 years. I finally bought my STR at Maalaea yacht marina in 6/2019. i bought there because it was cheap but also a leasehold which gave it a high monthly expense $1200 hoa and leasehold payment a month. i bought the property as a STR to help with my retirement. it's too expensive to live there as a long-term resident. i totally remodeled it using my firends (locals) set up tax account have an accountant who helps me pay monthly tat and GET. My cleaner is amazing with 3 kids and a husband in which they support themselves by cleaning condos. loss of units affects them tremendously
I survived the pandemic. I only had 3 months of my unit on market before it hit. And now they are telling Maaleaa yacht marina is not on the minatoya list, and I can't rent it. MYM was told we only have to get it rezoned corectly and that will be taken care of. in the meantime, the county has told us we can no longer rent, oppistie of what the aggreament that was mad earlier in the year to us. we are coming up on high season and i cannot rent my little one-bedroom condo. I pay thousands of dollars to Maui county every month and year to rent. use the money for AFFORDABLE Housing.
Next when this hurdle is jumped then I have to deal with the county shutting down our local STR to sattisfy the hotel industry. Please help me overcome these hurdles. I feel helpless after being able to finally purchase and remodel a unit totally on my own as a single woman. i was able to get local bank loans to support me, they are covering me because i can make some sort of income in the long run. it not even aloat but enough to make my life easier
Aloha,
First of all I want to let you know that I love Maui and I respect Hawaiian culture and traditions !
But I strongly oppose to this proposal.
I am an owner of one bedroom short term vacation rental condo since 2018.
I personally think we should focus on cracking down and stopping illegal vacation rentals on the island and not punishing owners who happily obey all your laws.
I also would like you to know that I do not make any profit by renting my place, short term vacation rental does not even cover my costs.
And that's ok I did not buy my condo to make a profit, I simply love Maui and want to live with Aloha Spirit.
As a working class person with full time job, I come and stay in my place twice a year.
I proudly hire local contractors and businesses. Maui property management company represent me and rent my unit. Please think how this proposal will affect them since I will be forced not to use their services, if this proposal passes.
I pay all my taxes and bills on time.
As you know effective November 1st, 2021 County of Maui is implementing 3% County TAT, that's on top of 10.25% State TAT (House Bill 862, H.D. 2, S.D.2, C.D.1), which I understand.
County of Maui loss in revenue will be devastating if this proposal passes and it would not help affordable housing found.
My AOAO fees and property taxes are really high, but I am not complaining. I am hard working person, working 70 hours a week to make sure all my bills are paid on time.
I really don't see how this proposal will create long term affordable housing.
Maui will lose millions of dollars in TAT Revenue.
This proposal not only affects me and other owners, but many local businesses and County of Maui.
Please reconsider this proposal.
Mahalo for taking your valuable time and reading my letter.
We strongly oppose this bill. This will not solve the housing crisis. Vacation rental owners are not going to rent their units long term at a discount to market rates. They will more likely leave them vacant and visit for holidays, Maui and the State of Hawaii then loose out on millions in taxes. The GET tax will then need to rise to compensate, and low income people will be even worse off. The proponents of this bill have clearly not thought of the ramifications.
PSLU item 34, oppose
Mahalo for the opportunity to submit testimony.
412 Kahana
I am a resident and also ST rental owner. We pay very high taxes to own a ST rental. Also, visitors pay very high taxes for the privilege of renting a vacation rental. When all those taxes disappear, who will pay them? Also remember, when international travel is allowed again, people will have choices, and as Maui has become VERY expensive, they will go elsewhere. And that means lost jobs, lost tax revenue, lost income for locals. This ST rental business supports a lot of locals, don’t forget that!
This bill will do nothing for affordable housing. It will cause taxes on residents to be raised to make up the shortfall for the 17 percent the county and state take from visitors. Where's the replacement income to come from? Resident taxpayers.
My hale on the island of Molokai that is located at the Wavecrest Resort . It has been zoned for short term since it was built over 50 yrs ago. My ONLY income for my small business-mortgage recovery from forbearance since travel stopped from Covid-19 that put my mortgage in the RED ($20,000 still behind) Also, I provide WORK for the Molokai people such as help cleaning before and after guests-upkeep and supplies from other stores on Molokai.
As far as long term -it's Section 8 on Molokai and major problems with renters and property damage.
Owners purchased for this specified zoning - many law suites against the state thinking they can just CHANGE laws to fit their agenda.
The apartments that were on the list should continue to operate as such if on the list BY THE LAW of deed transfer as a short term complex.
Instead the state should spend our TAT tax money to build apartments for long term renters or homeless.
Eliminate ALL AirBnB's ... STOP the condo-ization of ag land and "ohanas' ... keep the long term rental housing stock on Maui. Eliminate ALL fractional home ownership ... STOP all REIT's. and we will have long term rentals for the local population again ... ONLY YOU ... can prevent homelessness
Mahalo for the opportunity to submit testimony.
I strongly oppose as this measure is almost tantamount to expropriation
The condo owners having acquired the properties at fair market value with rights to rent will see the value reset to not being able to rent which is about half all the while paying the extra high property tax
Not acceptable
This is almost communism where the government seized property..
Andre Guéziec
Hana Kai Maui
on hana bay
11/02/2021
To whom it may concern:
Hana Kai Maui has been operating as a ‘condo-tel’ since 1971. For the past 15 years we have employed 12-15 people on a year-round basis. We hire employees, not contract labor. Minimum wage for a permanent employee at Hana Kai is currently $17.00 / hour. In this case it would not make sense to offer 19 long term rentals at the cost of 15 local jobs.
Hana Kai Maui contributes approximately $300,000 in General Excise and Transient Accommodation taxes on an annual basis and combined property taxes in 2021 of $96,000.
This property is not suitable for long term rental. Our 70’s wood buildings, and our remote, windward, oceanfront location add to the extremely high cost of upkeep and maintenance on the property. We are the only property in Hana with an on-site Wastewater Treatment Plant (WTP) which requires a licensed wastewater operator on staff. In 2019, as a requirement of the Department of Health, Hana Kai replaced our WTP. The average cost per unit to pay for new system is over $450 per month for the next 10 years, not including upkeep and repairs which are constant in our salty location. For these reasons, maintenance fees at Hana Kai are among the highest on Maui making affordable long-term rentals in this location impossible.
Hana Kai Maui has operated in good faith and in a responsible manner within the community for many years. We often house artists, performers, judges, etc. for community events free of charge. We not only accepted the mandate to replace our WTP system, we went above and beyond by installing a system that would produce the best quality effluent in order to be good stewards of Hana Bay now and into the future.
The owners of Hana Kai Maui ask the County of Maui to reconsider this legislation and understand that Hana Kai, and many other condominiums with similar circumstances will not achieve the goal of affordable housing they are seeking and in fact will harm the local communities they are trying to help.
We agree that there is a need to block the development of new short-term rentals on Maui, especially without increasing infrastructure. We agree with a moratorium on new short-term rentals in residential districts and agree and support development of alternative revenue sources, such as agriculture on Maui and throughout Hawaii.
Respectfully submitted,
Susie Pu
General Manager
Hana Kai Maui AOAO & Hana Kai Maui Resort, LLC.
This bill is going to raise taxes on all Maui residents to make up for the multi-million dollar shortfall in MCTAT taxes that visiting guests provide. Use those taxes to effectively build affordable housing. I will never rent my condominium long term, so Maui will not gain and additional property and instead will lose all the taxes my unit generously provide Maui County. Proponents have no idea the losses this will produce for EVERYONE -- owners, Maui residents, Maui County government, holidaymakers, many support jobs . . . this is a lose-lose proposition.
This bill will be devastating to STR owners and not create new low income housing. Maui county will lose millions in TAT taxes, which will have to be recovered by taxing Maui residents and reducing services. How is that possibly good for Maui residents. This bill is only good for the big multinational hotel chains. I would like to see an investigation into hotel owners lobbying for this bill and who is getting paid off.
There should be more thought given to the consequences of changing short term rentals.
My husband is born and raised on Maui, I have lived here since I was 21. He is 75 and I am 67. We have been married for 0ver 43 years. For the first 20 years we both worked three jobs. Five years ago we sold a house in Pauwela to a local family and purchased a condo at Kamaole Sands. We purchased this with the express purpse of using it as a vacation rental.
Owning this vacation rental has been interesting. We basicaly clear about $2000 a month from this endeavor. We work very hard at this, including cleaning the unit ourselves. We are definielty not wealthy. We bought this condo to help us during our retirement with the idea of moving into the unit eventually. Having a little more reality of condo life, we have decided that we really do not want to live in a condo. This will mean we will eventually want to sell this condo or give to our children.
The people who stay in our condo rarely cook their dinners at the condo. They pretty well cook or eat breakfast and then eat out for lunch and dinner. They enjoy all the tours and various fun things Maui allows. We connect with each of these renters, We educate them on numerous things that in turn make them great visitors. Alot of these folks are return visitors to our unit.
I would like to ask the committee members if any of their friends or family have come to Maui and stayed in vacation rentals as they are more affordable. The folks who use are unit are usually very sweet families, who just love Maui.
Just wanted to give you a local owner's perspective.
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.
This is not the answer to the affordable housing issues in maui, but a gift to the hotel industry. I strongly oppose this
Dear Councilmembers,
We purchased a condo in Luana Kai in April of this year. We had to take out a large HELOC on our primary residence in Seattle to cover the down payment and closing costs. It was a big financial risk for us, but one we were willing to take, knowing that short-term rental income could offset our monthly expenses moving forward and help us pay down our mortgage over the coming years. We hope to retire in Maui one day.
If the Phasing Out of Transient Accommodations in the Apartment District legislation is passed, it will pull the rug right out from under us. There is no way we ever would have purchased this unit if we thought we would be unable to rent the unit on a short-term basis. How would we be able to vet a long-term renter from Seattle? How would we be able to be responsive landlords for maintenance issues? Our current property management company is not designed for long-term rentals.
Moreover, our understanding is that eliminating the revenue generated from short-term rentals would negatively impact the Affordable Housing Fund.
This proposal is short-sighted and punitive to owners like us. Please reject it.
As homeowner of a Maui condo, employers, and taxpayers, we are sincerely concerned about what this will do to the island's economy. On our short-Term rentals alone we pay close to 20k/year each in TAT/GET and property taxes. If we assume that 75% of the 7000 Condos are also paying similar taxes that would mean a potential long-term loss of over 60 million of lost tax revenue as these are slowly converted over.
For owners that rent out their Condos, it also provides many jobs from the cleaners that clean them, to the property managers that manage them, to all the ancillary business they support such as landscaping, food and beverage, and maintenance.
Condos bring different types of guests to our islands. These guests tend to be more self-sufficient, purchase groceries in the stores, frequent many of the tourist locations and shop locally, helping support local businesses.
Furthermore, most of these condos would be out of reach financially for the residents of Hawaii this bill is trying to address. My maintenance and utilities alone are almost $1000 per condo, before any mortgage payments. This is not in the realm of “low-cost” housing. Affordable housing is not just a Hawaii problem it’s a nationwide problem, and beachfront property (which many of these condos are) worldwide have prices that are continually increasing and would not be appropriate low-cost housing options. These condos are also generally not designed or built to be full-time residents, with a shortage of parking and storage.
We purchased our Condos in a complex that was set up and built for short-term rentals. It even has a property management office onsite. While the proper zoning may not have been there in the 80’s when it was built, it was certainly the intent. Changing the zoning now will have a significant impact on our overall property value, reducing it but still keeping it out of reach for those seeking affordable housing. Furthermore, it will likely choke sales as most owners would see it as now more profitable to rent than sell, and you’d only see sales on death or critical life events, ourselves included.
We strongly encourage you to reconsider the greater impact this change will have on the Hawaii Economy, and find other ways to find affordable housing. This is not the answer and would instead take away jobs from many of your residents that need this housing to begin with.
We are owners of a legal short term rental. The property tax we pay for TVR classification is almost double what we would pay otherwise. The revenue loss to Maui from phasing out transient accommodations would be substantial. This lost revenue will have to be made up somehow. Additionally the short term rental ecosystem generates significant jobs for Maui, including cleaners, managers, and repair people. Finally, we supply each guest with a list of small local restaurants and businesses. A visitor to Maui staying in a short term vacation rental seems much more likely than a resort visitor to get out into the community and spend at local businesses. Whereas resorts want their guests to spend every dollar on their grounds.
Mahalo for the opportunity to submit testimony.
Aloha!
My wife and I are Canadian “snowbirds.” We have been coming to Maui for over 40 years, always in the same condo complex. We retired 13 years ago and since then our average stay is about two months. During our stay we rent a car from a local company, do our grocery shopping at local stores, and gon Scuba diving with local operators.
We read with alarm about the desire to eliminate temporary vacation rentals within the hotel zone. If this happens then we will no longer be able to afford to come to Maui. We can’t afford the big luxury hotel chain room rates, compounded by their lack of in-room cooking facilities which would force us to eat many of our meals in their expensive restaurants.
If this passes then we will be forced to move our winter get-away to Mexico or the Caribbean, taking a few thousand dollars with us. I suspect that this will also be true for many of the seasonal friends that we have met here.
Yes, it will be “Aloha” in the “goodbye” sense.
Be careful, stay healthy...
Bill Fane
Aloha,
Let me introduce myself. I'm a breast sonographer at Maui Medical group in Wailuku. Im the person who helps diagnose your mother, your auntie yourself for breast cancer. I'm the only tech on island that specializes in Breast ultrasound.
i've lived here since 2014, 7 years. I finally bought my STR at Maalaea yacht marina in 6/2019. i bought there because it was cheap but also a leasehold which gave it a high monthly expense $1200 hoa and leasehold payment a month. i bought the property as a STR to help with my retirement. it's too expensive to live there as a long-term resident. i totally remodeled it using my firends (locals) set up tax account have an accountant who helps me pay monthly tat and GET. My cleaner is amazing with 3 kids and a husband in which they support themselves by cleaning condos. loss of units affects them tremendously
I survived the pandemic. I only had 3 months of my unit on market before it hit. And now they are telling Maaleaa yacht marina is not on the minatoya list, and I can't rent it. MYM was told we only have to get it rezoned corectly and that will be taken care of. in the meantime, the county has told us we can no longer rent, oppistie of what the aggreament that was mad earlier in the year to us. we are coming up on high season and i cannot rent my little one-bedroom condo. I pay thousands of dollars to Maui county every month and year to rent. use the money for AFFORDABLE Housing.
Next when this hurdle is jumped then I have to deal with the county shutting down our local STR to sattisfy the hotel industry. Please help me overcome these hurdles. I feel helpless after being able to finally purchase and remodel a unit totally on my own as a single woman. i was able to get local bank loans to support me, they are covering me because i can make some sort of income in the long run. it not even aloat but enough to make my life easier
Mahalo
please help
Jill Olson
612-270-0487
Aloha,
First of all I want to let you know that I love Maui and I respect Hawaiian culture and traditions !
But I strongly oppose to this proposal.
I am an owner of one bedroom short term vacation rental condo since 2018.
I personally think we should focus on cracking down and stopping illegal vacation rentals on the island and not punishing owners who happily obey all your laws.
I also would like you to know that I do not make any profit by renting my place, short term vacation rental does not even cover my costs.
And that's ok I did not buy my condo to make a profit, I simply love Maui and want to live with Aloha Spirit.
As a working class person with full time job, I come and stay in my place twice a year.
I proudly hire local contractors and businesses. Maui property management company represent me and rent my unit. Please think how this proposal will affect them since I will be forced not to use their services, if this proposal passes.
I pay all my taxes and bills on time.
As you know effective November 1st, 2021 County of Maui is implementing 3% County TAT, that's on top of 10.25% State TAT (House Bill 862, H.D. 2, S.D.2, C.D.1), which I understand.
County of Maui loss in revenue will be devastating if this proposal passes and it would not help affordable housing found.
My AOAO fees and property taxes are really high, but I am not complaining. I am hard working person, working 70 hours a week to make sure all my bills are paid on time.
I really don't see how this proposal will create long term affordable housing.
Maui will lose millions of dollars in TAT Revenue.
This proposal not only affects me and other owners, but many local businesses and County of Maui.
Please reconsider this proposal.
Mahalo for taking your valuable time and reading my letter.
Sincerely Yours
Mariola Katryniok
mkatryniok@reyesholdings.com
We strongly oppose this bill. This will not solve the housing crisis. Vacation rental owners are not going to rent their units long term at a discount to market rates. They will more likely leave them vacant and visit for holidays, Maui and the State of Hawaii then loose out on millions in taxes. The GET tax will then need to rise to compensate, and low income people will be even worse off. The proponents of this bill have clearly not thought of the ramifications.