Dear Maui County Council Members,
If I may respectfully suggest....build affordable housing if that is the issue, using employees who live on Maui, and pay a living wage. Other states have a lottery and billions of dollars have been given to whatever the state wants to fund. That may include: workforce housing, education, and infrastructure.
Thank you.
Basic Economics: The Director of the Department of Finance has already warned the County Council that this move “would possibly lead to a negative revenue change at about $23 MILLION per year.” Overall, RAM has determined that these impacted properties represent upwards of $74 Million in property tax revenue per year (that is about 8.7% of the entire budget!). Eliminating this much revenue would make it hard for the county to maintain current services, and it would jeopardize the county’s bond rating.
It Will Defund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan: The 2021 Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan calls for the county to: (1)“Increase funding into the Affordable Housing Fund to $58 million annually;” and (2) For the County to use its bond rating to borrow against the increased Affordable Housing Fund as a means to fund infrastructure updates to support affordable housing development.The TVR Phase Out Bill would make both of these goals virtually impossible! Hawaiian Community Assets, the authors of the plan, agree with this assessment.
The Bill Does Not Create Long-Term Affordable Housing Opportunities for Residents: TVR use in the subject condominiums is an incentive for investment purchasers to seek out and purchase these aging condominiums instead of other residential properties on the island. If there is no difference between the permitted uses allowed in an aging 1 bedroom condominium in Kihei or a 3 bedroom home in Waihee or Makawao, but the prices are comparable, an investment purchaser might as well buy the 3 bedroom home that would have been more suitable for one of our residents. Also, even if these properties lose TVR use, they are generally not the type of housing our residents need, and they will likely not sell at rates many of our residents can afford. The subject properties are all 30+ years old, primarily built and designed as TVRs, largely located in the sea level rise exposure area, and have aged infrastructure that has been used hard for many years. That means they have minimal parking, minimal storage, high maintenance fees, high special assessments, high tax assessments, and are in the areas most susceptible to climate change. Given the current prices of comparable non-TVR units and the average monthly maintenance fees of these units, few (if any) can be expected to sell at “affordable” or even “workforce” rates.
This Bill is a Huge Gift to the Hotel Industry: Eliminating TVR use in the subject condominiums only benefits the hotel industry, as it will be eliminating their only real competition while negatively impacting county revenue and affordable housing development. With no competition, the hotels will maximize their capacity and realize huge gains in revenue. Naturally, much of this revenue will go back into advertising Maui as a destination, thereby increasing the numbers of tourists visiting the islands. Throughout the pandemic period, the County of Maui already demonstrated great preference for the hotels and resorts, and this further gift of eliminating their competition almost entirely is alarming and arguably inappropriate.
Legal Challenges: Many property owners have already contacted RAM and expressed their intent to take legal action against the County of Maui if their property rights are abridged. Though HRS Section 46-4 ostensibly provides the counties authority to phase out “nonconforming” uses in the Apartment zoning districts, it is difficult to classify TVR use as “nonconforming” for these subject properties. TVR use is expressly permitted in the language of the comprehensive zoning ordinance, and has been stated as expressly permitted in several pieces of legislation over the past 7 years. TVR use has been conducted in the A-1 and A-2 districts by thousands of property owners, throughout hundreds of buildings, over the course of decades. It is unclear if impacted property owners would win a legal challenge against the County of Maui, but it may cost our county a lot of money and time to find out.
Living in a mixed rental and owner occupied dwelling for years, I feel we should not phase out TA. The revenue generated by this base would adversely affect our tax base that would have to be made up elsewhere, likely from residents
Aloha :
What I cannot understand about this proposal is why the County would want to house local people in tiny units where the buildings are more than 30 years old, where the infrastructure is failing and the AOAO fees are rising steadily to fix that infrastructure. These fees will not be going down but only rising in years to come. Do local people want to be responsible for these high fees and pay high prices for their housing. In addition, these units were not built for full time family living with no storage space and minimal parking.
Also, I fail to understand how the county can afford to lose millions of dollars in Property tax revenue as these TAVR's are such a huge source of income for the County and the TAT is income for both the state and the County.
How will the state make up this income? Will it have to increase property taxes to full time residents exponentially?
Building affordable APPROPRIATE housing for local residents is the issue that should be considered not how to get rid of tourists who support the economy.
Of course the tourists will just keep coming in increasing numbers to stay in the hotels that are taxed so low.
Aloha Planning and Sustainable Land Use Commission,
If there's one thing the tsunami of visitors that has arrived in 2021 has shown us is that there is such a thing as too much: too many people, too many cars, not enough residents to care for all of the visitors and fill all of the job openings necessary to keep the tourist machine running.
Median prices on homes has skyrocketed due to mainland real estate speculators being able to work remotely pricing local families and residents out of ever being able to own a home. Rents have skyrocketed in step with the cost of home purchase. Properties that were always workforce housing are being purchased and converted to vacation rentals. On West Maui to name a few, Napili Ridge and Kahana Manor always were workforce housing, a starter place for young people that fill so many jobs in tourism. My first place out of my parents house when I was 22 was the Kahana Manor. Recently a real estate speculator purchased 30+ apartments at Kahana Manor, so many friends losing their long time homes, and turned into vacation rentals. A home in Mahinahina that had 5 separate unit recently was given a STR permit taking away housing for 15 more people. Our housing is not a commodity to be sold to greedy real estate speculators that don't live here and don't give back to our community. Enough is enough! Vacation rentals should not be allowed in workforce housing. Our community needs places for young people and working families to live and live in dignity, not 5 people in a studio because that's all they can afford. Our elected officials need to represent the people of Maui not mainland investors that only seek to exploit a system that doesn't work for our residents. Please NO MORE VACATION RENTALS IN APARTMENT DISTRICTS. Please Council members, do what's right for our community and protect what housing we still have left for our community.
Please support a moratorium on new hotels. There are plenty of vacation rentals lining the west and south shores of this island, some in desperate need of repair and coastal retreat. As stated above we cannot even house enough workers to fully staff the hotels we already have.
Please do the right thing. Protect workforce housing by denying and revoking STR permits in apartment districts and please no more hotels!
Mahalo for your time,
Amy Stephens
Napili
On behalf of Maui PRMA, the Vacation Rental Trade Council under the Maui Chamber of Commerce, we would like to express our opposition to PSLU-28 and PSLU-34. PRMA, the Professional Rental Management Association, is a coalition of professional property management companies representing over 1600 legally zoned condominium vacation rental units throughout Maui. Our members are licensed in the State of Hawaii, engaged in the management of legal vacation rental properties, primarily condominiums, and comply with real estate license law and code of ethics. Our companies represent 216 years in business, employing nearly 200 employees and over 300 independent contractors and vendors and nearly all of our members have properties listed on the Minatoya list, some with a majority of their inventory on the list.
Since 2018, Maui’s vacation rentals have contributed $18.9 million towards affordable housing, more than all the hotels, all the homeowners and all other businesses combined. This year the legal short-term rentals generated $8.5M for the affordable housing fund.
PLSU-34 could potentially defund affordable housing for Maui County at a time when we need it most. The intent of this proposed phase out bill is to create affordable housing; however, most of these properties would not be affordable to rent. Many of these properties do not have storage, parking or ample space for children to play that would be appropriate for affordable housing.
This bill could result in a potential loss of $74M in Real Property Tax revenue for the county of Maui, and a loss of $69M in TAT Revenue for the State. The result will be an increase in taxes for Maui residents.
We are in agreement with RAM’s below proposed reasons for opposing these two bills:
1. Economic Benefit: The County of Maui has identified approximately 7,302 condominium units that have the ability to conduct TVR use under the comprehensive zoning ordinance's permitted uses for the A-1 and A-2 districts. Based on recent changes to our real property tax laws, these properties are generally placed in the short-term rental tax classification by default. These 7,302 condominiums represent approximately $74.7 million in annual RPT revenue overall. It makes no financial sense to eliminate such a reliable and substantial source of revenue for the county, especially at the risk of jeopardizing our bond rating.
2. Funding the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan: The Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan calls for the County of Maui to "increase funding into the Affordable Housing Fund to $58 million annually." Similarly, the plan calls for the County of Maui to use its excellent bond rating to borrow against the Affordable Housing Fund in order to fund other components of the plan. Eliminating TVR use from these subject condominiums would result in a possible loss of $74 million in annual revenue lost overall. Such a loss in revenue and reduction in our tax base would make it impossible to fully fund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan.
3. Eliminating TVR Use May Actually Jeopardize Long-Term Affordable Housing Opportunities for Residents: TVR use in the subject condominiums is an incentive for investment purchasers to seek out and purchase these aging condominiums instead of other residential properties on the island.
4. Empowering the Hotels and Maximizing Advertising Dollars: Eliminating TVR use in the subject condominiums only benefits the hotel industry, as it will be eliminating their only real competition while negatively impacting county revenue and affordable housing development.
5. Legal Challenges: Many property owners have already contacted RAM and expressed their intent to take legal action against the County of Maui if their property rights are abridged.
On behalf of PRMA, our members, employees and vendors, we ask that you please focus your attention on providing the housing we need, instead of looking for ways to punish property owners for doing what the County of Maui expressly allows them to do.
We welcome any discussion with you or a member of your administration and can be contacted at Mauiprma@gmail.com.
Mahalo,
John Kevan
Angela Leone
Co-Founders of Maui Professional Rental Management Association (Maui PRMA)
Please vote no on PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34).
This will not create sufficient numbers of long term housing supply on the island. The few that may result do not equate to the cost; lost commerce.
The revenue (taxes, local business commerce, and employment) relied upon today will dramatically decrease as vacation rentals are sold. Do not underestimate the impact to County appropriations if enacted.
If you've heard employers are hard pressed to find local employees due to inadequate housing - just wait to hear what these employers share when they experience no customers. The experience the island felt with the 2020 lockdown is a good indicator of how it will be when tourists quit coming due to unaffordable vacation lodging.
The Bill suggests there are 6000 STVR units in the proposed areas. It isn't hard to calculate, even with a reasoned phase out of a decade, the lost commerce impacts enacting this Bill would have.
Please vote no on PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34).
As a property owner I think it's extremely unfair to change the allowed useage of property that was previously approved and developed for it's current occupancy use. We are providing a service to the island by providing temporary housing which reduces the demand for new hotels and resorts. Very unfair for taxpaying owners!
I oppose PSLU-34 CC 21-422 PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34)
I understand the housing issue, but reducing vacation rentals will ultimately harm locals. Short-term vacation rentals are a massive support to the Maui County, not only through TAT, but through jobs. Our short-term rental supports not only cleaners, but property managers and staff, maintenance people and other services.
Please do not take a short-cut that will ultimately harm our beautiful community.
This bill will hurt the economy of Maui. Maui can not exist alone by what you are trying to get passed. The bill will result in potential losses of nearly $74 million in Real property Tax revenue for the County of Maui. Also, a loss of $69 million in TAT revenue for the State, which will result in an increase of taxes for the Maui residents. It will be tearing down an economy that is working, so many huge losses. With that in mind, also with Covid, so much of Maui has been effected. Maui is just now getting back on its feet with tourism. Without revenue, it would make it a disaster, plus no investment in Affordable Housing, with increases of property tax which is already enormous. In a nut shell, It would lead to a negative revenue change, and hurting many many lives. We are talking about people here with families!! It is jeopardizing the county's bond rating which represent upwards of $74 million, leading to a negative change of about $23 million. Don't forget what Maui stands for, if this happens, it will dissipate its spirit, which I know many visit this beautiful land for this reason.
I oppose this piece of legislation. It will NOT cure the housing deficit that Maui county has. It will only create lawsuits from the owners and cost the county millions in legal fees PLUS reduced property tax revenues. Please vote NO on this bill. It will NOT reduce tourists, instead it WILL HARM current property owners.
Please do the right thing and Oppose the TVR Phase Out Bill and focus on legislation that will actually help improve Maui county tax base. The proposed TVR phase out legislation will not create affordable housing and it won't benefit anyone other than the hotel industry. RAM has identified several reasons why the County of Maui should not eliminate TVR use in these subject condominiums, and I agree with them. I hope you agree with this logic as well:
1. Economic Benefit: The County of Maui has identified approximately 7,302 condominium units that have the ability to conduct TVR use under the comprehensive zoning ordinance's permitted uses for the A-1 and A-2 districts. Based on recent changes to our real property tax laws, these properties are generally placed in the short-term rental tax classification by default. On 10/21/2021, the Director of the Department of Finance publicly stated that eliminating TVR use in these properties "would possibly lead to a negative revenue change at about $23 million per year." According to data provided by the Selected Real Property Statistics for Budget Consideration: FY 2021-2022, the average amount of revenue expected to be provided by each property in the STR tax class in 2022 is $10,241.00. Therefore, these 7,302 condominiums represent approximately $74.7 million in annual RPT revenue overall. According to Moody's, "the county's reliance on generally stable and predictable property taxes that are paid primarily by out-of-state owners of timeshares, vacation rentals and second homes'' is a significant factor related to our excellent bond rating. It makes no financial sense to eliminate such a reliable and substantial source of revenue for the county, especially at the risk of jeopardizing our bond rating.
2. Funding the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan: The Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan calls for the County of Maui to "increase funding into the Affordable Housing Fund to $58 million annually." Similarly, the plan calls for the County of Maui to use its excellent bond rating to borrow against the Affordable Housing Fund in order to fund other components of the plan. As discussed above, eliminating TVR use from these subject condominiums would result in a possible loss of $23 million in revenue annually, and upwards of $74 million in annual revenue lost overall. Such a loss in revenue and reduction in our tax base would make it impossible to fully fund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan, and it would jeopardize our ability to borrow enough money to fund various components of the plan. Please, do not defund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan before any housing is even made available. These impacted condominiums will not provide the housing our community needs, but they can fund the development of the housing our community needs. Hawaiian Community Assets agrees with this point, and so should you.
3. Eliminating TVR Use May Actually Jeopardize Long-Term Affordable Housing Opportunities for Residents: TVR use in the subject condominiums is an incentive for investment purchasers to seek out and purchase these aging condominiums instead of other residential properties on the island. If there is no difference between the permitted uses allowed in an aging 1 bedroom condominium in Kihei or a 3 bedroom home in Waihee or Makawao, but the prices are comparable, an investment purchaser might as well buy the 3 bedroom home that would have been more suitable for one of our residents. Also, even if these properties lose TVR use, they are generally not the type of housing our residents need, and they will likely not sell at rates many of our residents can afford. The subject properties are all 30+ years old, primarily built and designed as TVRs, largely located in the sea level rise exposure area, and have aged infrastructure that has been used hard for many years. That means they have minimal parking, minimal storage, high maintenance fees, high special assessments, high tax assessments, and are in the areas most susceptible to climate change. Given the current prices of comparable non-TVR units and the average monthly maintenance fees of these units, few (if any) can be expected to sell at "affordable" or even "workforce" rates.
4. Empowering the Hotels and Maximizing Advertising Dollars: Eliminating TVR use in the subject condominiums only benefits the hotel industry, as it will be eliminating their only real competition while negatively impacting county revenue and affordable housing development. With no competition, the hotels will maximize their capacity and realize huge gains in revenue. Naturally, much of this revenue will go back into advertising Maui as a destination, thereby increasing the numbers of tourists visiting the islands. Throughout the pandemic period, the County of Maui already demonstrated great preference for the hotels and resorts, and this further gift of eliminating their competition almost entirely is alarming and arguably inappropriate.
5. Legal Challenges: Many property owners have already contacted RAM and expressed their intent to take legal action against the County of Maui if their property rights are abridged. Though HRS Section 46-4 ostensibly provides the counties authority to phase out "nonconforming" usese in the Apartment zoning districts, it is difficult to classify TVR use as "nonconforming" for these subject properties. TVR use is expressly permitted in the language of the comprehensive zoning ordinance, and has been stated as expressly permitted in several pieces of legislation over the past 7 years. TVR use has been conducted in the A-1 and A-2 districts by thousands of property owners, throughout hundreds of buildings, over the course of decades. I don't know if impacted property owners would win a legal challenge against the County of Maui, but I have a feeling it will cost our county a lot of money and time to find out.
6. The trickle affect to the many local business' that support TVR units and their guests would be detrimentally impacted which in turn impacts the livelihoods of many Maui county residents.
Hopefully you can see that a TVR phase out is not a good idea and it won't help our community in the way this legislation claims it will. Please focus your attention on providing the housing we need, instead of looking for ways to punish property owners for doing what the County of Maui expressly allows them to do.
Maui council members,
I absolutely oppose this PSLU-34 CC 21-422 PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34)
This just is not the right way to address the low income housing shortage on Maui. When buying my condo a dozen years ago, I specifically looked for a property that was set up as a vacation rental property. I invested my retirement account in the purchase because we fell in love with Maui and all it offers. I couldn't afford the resort bill and did not like the tourist scene. The condo has been the way we get to enjoy Maui for extended periods of time and consider Maui our home away from home, as well as investing for retirement and expecting a return on that investment. During my ownership years I have paid all taxes even though I think we have been treated unfairly by categorizing vacation rental property with same designation as a resort. It was very interesting that property taxes went up 40% in a year that we were unable to even book visitors at all (covid) Through all of this I did not complain as I considered it a way I could help fund Maui to find some answers to affordable housing for residence. My condo is a studio condo in a complex in North Kihei, in essence a motel room with a kitchen. It was designed for vacation rental use, not as family housing. Booking my condo is a way for people to come visit maui and experience Aloha, as well as spend money in Maui businesses, without the huge bill a resort doles out. I do not agree with being lumped in with all the other condos affected by this bill. It is not an answer for the problem you say you are trying to solve. And I don't know how you can even consider this bill as a possible solution when there is a huge 300 + unit time share project going on a block away from my complex. I guess zoning residential stopped at my street corner, and gives the appearance that the big money resorts are being catered to, even though they use a lot more of Maui's valuable resources than a studio condo does, IE...lush green golf courses need water, electricity, ect.
Put your heads together and come up with a more viable plan for the problem instead of throwing honest hard working people like me and others under the bus, and changing the rules in the middle of the game! I love Maui just as much as you do, and want to see the problem addressed in a constructive way, but reducing tax revenues and owners property values and retirement accounts is not the way to deal with this problem.
Sincerely, Patrick Reichert
We are owners at Maui Sands Seaside and have leased our unit since 2005 with the plan to participate in a lease buyout if given the opportunity. We consider ourselves part-time residents of Maui; i.e. kama'ainas. While we recognize the need for affordable housing, we feel the proposal is not realistic in its expectations that waterfront condo units will actually be "affordable." Rather a more likely scenario is that wealthy off island buyers, who can afford to leave units to sit empty, will prevail. The loss of revenue to the island would thus be disastrous.
We need to do more to create affordable housing and we need money to do so. The County is already behind in allocating needed funds towards affordable housing projects.
This bill will effectively defund the County budget of more than $25M in property tax revenue per year, when these apartments are taxed under resident use versus short term rental use. There are no plans to generate the $25M in lost revenue in a different way.
The County has contributed less than $8M per year to the affordable housing plan, which has proved insufficient (the goal is $50M per year).
With this bill, we will find ourselves in a situation where we have thousands of condos that are not occupied because of the high maintenance costs to owners/long term renters (30+ years old buildings that need improvements, in areas exposed to shoreline erosion and high humidity) or because they are not suitable for long term use ( no storage, no parking, size limitations). And there will be even less money for affordable housing.
Let's not stop trying to find real solutions for affordable housing.
With the new project coming up in West Maui, is it legally possible that the market priced units are offered for sale to Hawaii State residents first, for a limited time (1 to 2 years).
Oppose - this is a gift to the hotel industry. Room rates would double for hotels while the thousands of individual homeowners of vacation rentals will be financially damaged. If you want more housing for locals - let builders fast track construction and development of new housing.
Attached are the testimony of Aqua Aston and Maui Condo and Home. Thank you.
Dear Maui County Council Members,
If I may respectfully suggest....build affordable housing if that is the issue, using employees who live on Maui, and pay a living wage. Other states have a lottery and billions of dollars have been given to whatever the state wants to fund. That may include: workforce housing, education, and infrastructure.
Thank you.
Aloha Councilmembers,
I oppose PSLU-34.
Basic Economics: The Director of the Department of Finance has already warned the County Council that this move “would possibly lead to a negative revenue change at about $23 MILLION per year.” Overall, RAM has determined that these impacted properties represent upwards of $74 Million in property tax revenue per year (that is about 8.7% of the entire budget!). Eliminating this much revenue would make it hard for the county to maintain current services, and it would jeopardize the county’s bond rating.
It Will Defund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan: The 2021 Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan calls for the county to: (1)“Increase funding into the Affordable Housing Fund to $58 million annually;” and (2) For the County to use its bond rating to borrow against the increased Affordable Housing Fund as a means to fund infrastructure updates to support affordable housing development.The TVR Phase Out Bill would make both of these goals virtually impossible! Hawaiian Community Assets, the authors of the plan, agree with this assessment.
The Bill Does Not Create Long-Term Affordable Housing Opportunities for Residents: TVR use in the subject condominiums is an incentive for investment purchasers to seek out and purchase these aging condominiums instead of other residential properties on the island. If there is no difference between the permitted uses allowed in an aging 1 bedroom condominium in Kihei or a 3 bedroom home in Waihee or Makawao, but the prices are comparable, an investment purchaser might as well buy the 3 bedroom home that would have been more suitable for one of our residents. Also, even if these properties lose TVR use, they are generally not the type of housing our residents need, and they will likely not sell at rates many of our residents can afford. The subject properties are all 30+ years old, primarily built and designed as TVRs, largely located in the sea level rise exposure area, and have aged infrastructure that has been used hard for many years. That means they have minimal parking, minimal storage, high maintenance fees, high special assessments, high tax assessments, and are in the areas most susceptible to climate change. Given the current prices of comparable non-TVR units and the average monthly maintenance fees of these units, few (if any) can be expected to sell at “affordable” or even “workforce” rates.
This Bill is a Huge Gift to the Hotel Industry: Eliminating TVR use in the subject condominiums only benefits the hotel industry, as it will be eliminating their only real competition while negatively impacting county revenue and affordable housing development. With no competition, the hotels will maximize their capacity and realize huge gains in revenue. Naturally, much of this revenue will go back into advertising Maui as a destination, thereby increasing the numbers of tourists visiting the islands. Throughout the pandemic period, the County of Maui already demonstrated great preference for the hotels and resorts, and this further gift of eliminating their competition almost entirely is alarming and arguably inappropriate.
Legal Challenges: Many property owners have already contacted RAM and expressed their intent to take legal action against the County of Maui if their property rights are abridged. Though HRS Section 46-4 ostensibly provides the counties authority to phase out “nonconforming” uses in the Apartment zoning districts, it is difficult to classify TVR use as “nonconforming” for these subject properties. TVR use is expressly permitted in the language of the comprehensive zoning ordinance, and has been stated as expressly permitted in several pieces of legislation over the past 7 years. TVR use has been conducted in the A-1 and A-2 districts by thousands of property owners, throughout hundreds of buildings, over the course of decades. It is unclear if impacted property owners would win a legal challenge against the County of Maui, but it may cost our county a lot of money and time to find out.
Living in a mixed rental and owner occupied dwelling for years, I feel we should not phase out TA. The revenue generated by this base would adversely affect our tax base that would have to be made up elsewhere, likely from residents
We should oppose changes that help rich mainlanders who own the hotels. This would harm locals like me who own the condos.
Aloha :
What I cannot understand about this proposal is why the County would want to house local people in tiny units where the buildings are more than 30 years old, where the infrastructure is failing and the AOAO fees are rising steadily to fix that infrastructure. These fees will not be going down but only rising in years to come. Do local people want to be responsible for these high fees and pay high prices for their housing. In addition, these units were not built for full time family living with no storage space and minimal parking.
Also, I fail to understand how the county can afford to lose millions of dollars in Property tax revenue as these TAVR's are such a huge source of income for the County and the TAT is income for both the state and the County.
How will the state make up this income? Will it have to increase property taxes to full time residents exponentially?
Building affordable APPROPRIATE housing for local residents is the issue that should be considered not how to get rid of tourists who support the economy.
Of course the tourists will just keep coming in increasing numbers to stay in the hotels that are taxed so low.
Thank you for reading this.
Aloha Planning and Sustainable Land Use Commission,
If there's one thing the tsunami of visitors that has arrived in 2021 has shown us is that there is such a thing as too much: too many people, too many cars, not enough residents to care for all of the visitors and fill all of the job openings necessary to keep the tourist machine running.
Median prices on homes has skyrocketed due to mainland real estate speculators being able to work remotely pricing local families and residents out of ever being able to own a home. Rents have skyrocketed in step with the cost of home purchase. Properties that were always workforce housing are being purchased and converted to vacation rentals. On West Maui to name a few, Napili Ridge and Kahana Manor always were workforce housing, a starter place for young people that fill so many jobs in tourism. My first place out of my parents house when I was 22 was the Kahana Manor. Recently a real estate speculator purchased 30+ apartments at Kahana Manor, so many friends losing their long time homes, and turned into vacation rentals. A home in Mahinahina that had 5 separate unit recently was given a STR permit taking away housing for 15 more people. Our housing is not a commodity to be sold to greedy real estate speculators that don't live here and don't give back to our community. Enough is enough! Vacation rentals should not be allowed in workforce housing. Our community needs places for young people and working families to live and live in dignity, not 5 people in a studio because that's all they can afford. Our elected officials need to represent the people of Maui not mainland investors that only seek to exploit a system that doesn't work for our residents. Please NO MORE VACATION RENTALS IN APARTMENT DISTRICTS. Please Council members, do what's right for our community and protect what housing we still have left for our community.
Please support a moratorium on new hotels. There are plenty of vacation rentals lining the west and south shores of this island, some in desperate need of repair and coastal retreat. As stated above we cannot even house enough workers to fully staff the hotels we already have.
Please do the right thing. Protect workforce housing by denying and revoking STR permits in apartment districts and please no more hotels!
Mahalo for your time,
Amy Stephens
Napili
Dear Maui County Councilmembers,
On behalf of Maui PRMA, the Vacation Rental Trade Council under the Maui Chamber of Commerce, we would like to express our opposition to PSLU-28 and PSLU-34. PRMA, the Professional Rental Management Association, is a coalition of professional property management companies representing over 1600 legally zoned condominium vacation rental units throughout Maui. Our members are licensed in the State of Hawaii, engaged in the management of legal vacation rental properties, primarily condominiums, and comply with real estate license law and code of ethics. Our companies represent 216 years in business, employing nearly 200 employees and over 300 independent contractors and vendors and nearly all of our members have properties listed on the Minatoya list, some with a majority of their inventory on the list.
Since 2018, Maui’s vacation rentals have contributed $18.9 million towards affordable housing, more than all the hotels, all the homeowners and all other businesses combined. This year the legal short-term rentals generated $8.5M for the affordable housing fund.
PLSU-34 could potentially defund affordable housing for Maui County at a time when we need it most. The intent of this proposed phase out bill is to create affordable housing; however, most of these properties would not be affordable to rent. Many of these properties do not have storage, parking or ample space for children to play that would be appropriate for affordable housing.
This bill could result in a potential loss of $74M in Real Property Tax revenue for the county of Maui, and a loss of $69M in TAT Revenue for the State. The result will be an increase in taxes for Maui residents.
We are in agreement with RAM’s below proposed reasons for opposing these two bills:
1. Economic Benefit: The County of Maui has identified approximately 7,302 condominium units that have the ability to conduct TVR use under the comprehensive zoning ordinance's permitted uses for the A-1 and A-2 districts. Based on recent changes to our real property tax laws, these properties are generally placed in the short-term rental tax classification by default. These 7,302 condominiums represent approximately $74.7 million in annual RPT revenue overall. It makes no financial sense to eliminate such a reliable and substantial source of revenue for the county, especially at the risk of jeopardizing our bond rating.
2. Funding the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan: The Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan calls for the County of Maui to "increase funding into the Affordable Housing Fund to $58 million annually." Similarly, the plan calls for the County of Maui to use its excellent bond rating to borrow against the Affordable Housing Fund in order to fund other components of the plan. Eliminating TVR use from these subject condominiums would result in a possible loss of $74 million in annual revenue lost overall. Such a loss in revenue and reduction in our tax base would make it impossible to fully fund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan.
3. Eliminating TVR Use May Actually Jeopardize Long-Term Affordable Housing Opportunities for Residents: TVR use in the subject condominiums is an incentive for investment purchasers to seek out and purchase these aging condominiums instead of other residential properties on the island.
4. Empowering the Hotels and Maximizing Advertising Dollars: Eliminating TVR use in the subject condominiums only benefits the hotel industry, as it will be eliminating their only real competition while negatively impacting county revenue and affordable housing development.
5. Legal Challenges: Many property owners have already contacted RAM and expressed their intent to take legal action against the County of Maui if their property rights are abridged.
On behalf of PRMA, our members, employees and vendors, we ask that you please focus your attention on providing the housing we need, instead of looking for ways to punish property owners for doing what the County of Maui expressly allows them to do.
We welcome any discussion with you or a member of your administration and can be contacted at Mauiprma@gmail.com.
Mahalo,
John Kevan
Angela Leone
Co-Founders of Maui Professional Rental Management Association (Maui PRMA)
Please vote no on PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34).
This will not create sufficient numbers of long term housing supply on the island. The few that may result do not equate to the cost; lost commerce.
The revenue (taxes, local business commerce, and employment) relied upon today will dramatically decrease as vacation rentals are sold. Do not underestimate the impact to County appropriations if enacted.
If you've heard employers are hard pressed to find local employees due to inadequate housing - just wait to hear what these employers share when they experience no customers. The experience the island felt with the 2020 lockdown is a good indicator of how it will be when tourists quit coming due to unaffordable vacation lodging.
The Bill suggests there are 6000 STVR units in the proposed areas. It isn't hard to calculate, even with a reasoned phase out of a decade, the lost commerce impacts enacting this Bill would have.
Please vote no on PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34).
Mahalo, for taking my input.
As a property owner I think it's extremely unfair to change the allowed useage of property that was previously approved and developed for it's current occupancy use. We are providing a service to the island by providing temporary housing which reduces the demand for new hotels and resorts. Very unfair for taxpaying owners!
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. There are many ways to approach the issues of the community. This isn’t one of them.
I oppose PSLU-34 CC 21-422 PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34)
I understand the housing issue, but reducing vacation rentals will ultimately harm locals. Short-term vacation rentals are a massive support to the Maui County, not only through TAT, but through jobs. Our short-term rental supports not only cleaners, but property managers and staff, maintenance people and other services.
Please do not take a short-cut that will ultimately harm our beautiful community.
Mahalo,
Della Halvorson
This bill will hurt the economy of Maui. Maui can not exist alone by what you are trying to get passed. The bill will result in potential losses of nearly $74 million in Real property Tax revenue for the County of Maui. Also, a loss of $69 million in TAT revenue for the State, which will result in an increase of taxes for the Maui residents. It will be tearing down an economy that is working, so many huge losses. With that in mind, also with Covid, so much of Maui has been effected. Maui is just now getting back on its feet with tourism. Without revenue, it would make it a disaster, plus no investment in Affordable Housing, with increases of property tax which is already enormous. In a nut shell, It would lead to a negative revenue change, and hurting many many lives. We are talking about people here with families!! It is jeopardizing the county's bond rating which represent upwards of $74 million, leading to a negative change of about $23 million. Don't forget what Maui stands for, if this happens, it will dissipate its spirit, which I know many visit this beautiful land for this reason.
PSLU 34
I am in support of this bill.
Aloha Councilmembers,
I oppose this piece of legislation. It will NOT cure the housing deficit that Maui county has. It will only create lawsuits from the owners and cost the county millions in legal fees PLUS reduced property tax revenues. Please vote NO on this bill. It will NOT reduce tourists, instead it WILL HARM current property owners.
Please do the right thing and Oppose the TVR Phase Out Bill and focus on legislation that will actually help improve Maui county tax base. The proposed TVR phase out legislation will not create affordable housing and it won't benefit anyone other than the hotel industry. RAM has identified several reasons why the County of Maui should not eliminate TVR use in these subject condominiums, and I agree with them. I hope you agree with this logic as well:
1. Economic Benefit: The County of Maui has identified approximately 7,302 condominium units that have the ability to conduct TVR use under the comprehensive zoning ordinance's permitted uses for the A-1 and A-2 districts. Based on recent changes to our real property tax laws, these properties are generally placed in the short-term rental tax classification by default. On 10/21/2021, the Director of the Department of Finance publicly stated that eliminating TVR use in these properties "would possibly lead to a negative revenue change at about $23 million per year." According to data provided by the Selected Real Property Statistics for Budget Consideration: FY 2021-2022, the average amount of revenue expected to be provided by each property in the STR tax class in 2022 is $10,241.00. Therefore, these 7,302 condominiums represent approximately $74.7 million in annual RPT revenue overall. According to Moody's, "the county's reliance on generally stable and predictable property taxes that are paid primarily by out-of-state owners of timeshares, vacation rentals and second homes'' is a significant factor related to our excellent bond rating. It makes no financial sense to eliminate such a reliable and substantial source of revenue for the county, especially at the risk of jeopardizing our bond rating.
2. Funding the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan: The Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan calls for the County of Maui to "increase funding into the Affordable Housing Fund to $58 million annually." Similarly, the plan calls for the County of Maui to use its excellent bond rating to borrow against the Affordable Housing Fund in order to fund other components of the plan. As discussed above, eliminating TVR use from these subject condominiums would result in a possible loss of $23 million in revenue annually, and upwards of $74 million in annual revenue lost overall. Such a loss in revenue and reduction in our tax base would make it impossible to fully fund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan, and it would jeopardize our ability to borrow enough money to fund various components of the plan. Please, do not defund the Comprehensive Affordable Housing Plan before any housing is even made available. These impacted condominiums will not provide the housing our community needs, but they can fund the development of the housing our community needs. Hawaiian Community Assets agrees with this point, and so should you.
3. Eliminating TVR Use May Actually Jeopardize Long-Term Affordable Housing Opportunities for Residents: TVR use in the subject condominiums is an incentive for investment purchasers to seek out and purchase these aging condominiums instead of other residential properties on the island. If there is no difference between the permitted uses allowed in an aging 1 bedroom condominium in Kihei or a 3 bedroom home in Waihee or Makawao, but the prices are comparable, an investment purchaser might as well buy the 3 bedroom home that would have been more suitable for one of our residents. Also, even if these properties lose TVR use, they are generally not the type of housing our residents need, and they will likely not sell at rates many of our residents can afford. The subject properties are all 30+ years old, primarily built and designed as TVRs, largely located in the sea level rise exposure area, and have aged infrastructure that has been used hard for many years. That means they have minimal parking, minimal storage, high maintenance fees, high special assessments, high tax assessments, and are in the areas most susceptible to climate change. Given the current prices of comparable non-TVR units and the average monthly maintenance fees of these units, few (if any) can be expected to sell at "affordable" or even "workforce" rates.
4. Empowering the Hotels and Maximizing Advertising Dollars: Eliminating TVR use in the subject condominiums only benefits the hotel industry, as it will be eliminating their only real competition while negatively impacting county revenue and affordable housing development. With no competition, the hotels will maximize their capacity and realize huge gains in revenue. Naturally, much of this revenue will go back into advertising Maui as a destination, thereby increasing the numbers of tourists visiting the islands. Throughout the pandemic period, the County of Maui already demonstrated great preference for the hotels and resorts, and this further gift of eliminating their competition almost entirely is alarming and arguably inappropriate.
5. Legal Challenges: Many property owners have already contacted RAM and expressed their intent to take legal action against the County of Maui if their property rights are abridged. Though HRS Section 46-4 ostensibly provides the counties authority to phase out "nonconforming" usese in the Apartment zoning districts, it is difficult to classify TVR use as "nonconforming" for these subject properties. TVR use is expressly permitted in the language of the comprehensive zoning ordinance, and has been stated as expressly permitted in several pieces of legislation over the past 7 years. TVR use has been conducted in the A-1 and A-2 districts by thousands of property owners, throughout hundreds of buildings, over the course of decades. I don't know if impacted property owners would win a legal challenge against the County of Maui, but I have a feeling it will cost our county a lot of money and time to find out.
6. The trickle affect to the many local business' that support TVR units and their guests would be detrimentally impacted which in turn impacts the livelihoods of many Maui county residents.
Hopefully you can see that a TVR phase out is not a good idea and it won't help our community in the way this legislation claims it will. Please focus your attention on providing the housing we need, instead of looking for ways to punish property owners for doing what the County of Maui expressly allows them to do.
Mahalo Nui Loa
Dennis Y. Kihei Garden Estates
Maui council members,
I absolutely oppose this PSLU-34 CC 21-422 PHASING OUT TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS IN THE APARTMENT DISTRICTS (PSLU-34)
This just is not the right way to address the low income housing shortage on Maui. When buying my condo a dozen years ago, I specifically looked for a property that was set up as a vacation rental property. I invested my retirement account in the purchase because we fell in love with Maui and all it offers. I couldn't afford the resort bill and did not like the tourist scene. The condo has been the way we get to enjoy Maui for extended periods of time and consider Maui our home away from home, as well as investing for retirement and expecting a return on that investment. During my ownership years I have paid all taxes even though I think we have been treated unfairly by categorizing vacation rental property with same designation as a resort. It was very interesting that property taxes went up 40% in a year that we were unable to even book visitors at all (covid) Through all of this I did not complain as I considered it a way I could help fund Maui to find some answers to affordable housing for residence. My condo is a studio condo in a complex in North Kihei, in essence a motel room with a kitchen. It was designed for vacation rental use, not as family housing. Booking my condo is a way for people to come visit maui and experience Aloha, as well as spend money in Maui businesses, without the huge bill a resort doles out. I do not agree with being lumped in with all the other condos affected by this bill. It is not an answer for the problem you say you are trying to solve. And I don't know how you can even consider this bill as a possible solution when there is a huge 300 + unit time share project going on a block away from my complex. I guess zoning residential stopped at my street corner, and gives the appearance that the big money resorts are being catered to, even though they use a lot more of Maui's valuable resources than a studio condo does, IE...lush green golf courses need water, electricity, ect.
Put your heads together and come up with a more viable plan for the problem instead of throwing honest hard working people like me and others under the bus, and changing the rules in the middle of the game! I love Maui just as much as you do, and want to see the problem addressed in a constructive way, but reducing tax revenues and owners property values and retirement accounts is not the way to deal with this problem.
Sincerely, Patrick Reichert
We are owners at Maui Sands Seaside and have leased our unit since 2005 with the plan to participate in a lease buyout if given the opportunity. We consider ourselves part-time residents of Maui; i.e. kama'ainas. While we recognize the need for affordable housing, we feel the proposal is not realistic in its expectations that waterfront condo units will actually be "affordable." Rather a more likely scenario is that wealthy off island buyers, who can afford to leave units to sit empty, will prevail. The loss of revenue to the island would thus be disastrous.
We need to do more to create affordable housing and we need money to do so. The County is already behind in allocating needed funds towards affordable housing projects.
This bill will effectively defund the County budget of more than $25M in property tax revenue per year, when these apartments are taxed under resident use versus short term rental use. There are no plans to generate the $25M in lost revenue in a different way.
The County has contributed less than $8M per year to the affordable housing plan, which has proved insufficient (the goal is $50M per year).
With this bill, we will find ourselves in a situation where we have thousands of condos that are not occupied because of the high maintenance costs to owners/long term renters (30+ years old buildings that need improvements, in areas exposed to shoreline erosion and high humidity) or because they are not suitable for long term use ( no storage, no parking, size limitations). And there will be even less money for affordable housing.
Let's not stop trying to find real solutions for affordable housing.
With the new project coming up in West Maui, is it legally possible that the market priced units are offered for sale to Hawaii State residents first, for a limited time (1 to 2 years).
Mihaela Stoops
Oppose - this is a gift to the hotel industry. Room rates would double for hotels while the thousands of individual homeowners of vacation rentals will be financially damaged. If you want more housing for locals - let builders fast track construction and development of new housing.