Vacation rental bill good first step

Many houses have been operated illegally in Oahu residential areas as vacation units for more than two decades, but that could change with City Council approval of listed permits and fines against the renegades.

These enforcement tools would be an effective first step in bringing the activity under control on the island.

A proposal two years ago to legalize bed-and-breakfast operations on Oahu was defeated by a deadlocked City Council.

Both B&Bs, with the homeowner present, and "transient vacation units," entire houses for rent for less than 30 days, have flourished since 1989, when only owners of 141 B&B homes and 2,235 transient vacation units were grandfathered into the scene if they had been in operation for three years.

Both types of vacation units are advertised online, and the transient units generate about $65 million a year in business revenue on Oahu, according to a study cited by Angie Larson, president of the Hawaii Vacation Rental Owners Association.

Larson warns that the island would suffer if the association’s owners were forced to change the use of the residences, known in some areas as self-catering cabins or cottages.

The proposal is supported by the Carlisle administration.

The Honolulu Planning Commission heard much testimony from both sides about the proposal Wednesday and will resume the hearing Aug. 24 at the Mission Memorial Auditorium next to city hall.

The bill would require each transient cottage rental on Oahu to list its permit number, address and tax map key in any advertisements.

Those who don’t do that will face an initial fine of up to $1,000 and between $1,000 and $2,000 a day if the owner fails to abide by the requirement within seven days of the warning.

Critics of the proposal point out that Maui County adopted an ordinance in January 2009 requiring B&B and transient unit operators to post similar information on their ads, but few have done so.

Such operations on Maui may not have irritated neighbors as much as those on Oahu.

That level of complacency would be surprising in places like Kailua, where vocal opponents of the short-term vacation units have organized as Keep it Kailua, maintaining that their neighborhood has lost its residential character.

They would likely welcome a reason to reorganize as a posse to run down the violators online and provide information about insufficient ads to city officials eager to collect fines used to finance enforcement.

Charles Prentiss, chairman of the Kailua Neighborhood Board, pointed out in testimony that the proposed ordinance would have no effect on legal vacation cottage owners and "may improve their marketability by showing that they are government approved."

Again, getting a handle on the permitted versus unpermitted situation is step one. There is recognition that non-hotel visitor lodgings bring economic benefits to the state as well as to small-business communities like Kailua.

But its very size as an industry compels the need for stricter rules and regulations; once enforcement brings better order to the situation, step two might well involve easing of the legal moratorium with attendant conditions.

The City Council eventually needs to take up the issue of how to allow transient cottages that would not destroy the feeling of a residential neighborhood, if that is possible.

Since 1989, the number of legally permitted transient units on Oahu has dwindled to 875, and Angie Larson points out that fewer than 200 are outside Waikiki.

Back in the day, conventional wisdom would be that Waikiki should be where most, if not all, visitor accommodations should stay. But not anymore: Being limited to one Oahu area for lodging is no longer enough for many of today’s sophisticated travelers.