City needs better enforcement tools to control B&Bs and vacation rentals

At the prompting of numerous neighborhood boards, community organizations, and affected communities and neighbors, the Carlisle administration, through the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP), has submitted a new bill to improve the DPP’s ability to enforce the zoning code against illegal short-term (less than 30 days) bed-and-breakfasts and vacation rentals in residential-zoned neighborhoods. The bill would require legal short-term rental (STR) owners, those with nonconforming use certificates, to include their certificate number and tax map key on any advertising. These numbers are already public information. The bill also makes advertising for less than 30 days without a valid certificate prima facie evidence of a violation.

The DPP needs this tool because it has proven difficult for limited staff to spend the necessary hours and several visits to prove the illegal use and make the violation stick.

There are approximately 1,000 legal STR properties with valid certificates in residential-zoned neighborhoods, plus an unknown number of legal STRs in areas around Oahu already zoned for resort use. Legal properties with a valid certificate or resort zoning would be unaffected by this bill.

This bill, which Save Oahu’s Neighborhoods supports, would allow the DPP to differentiate between advertisements for legal and illegal operations. It is similar to a bill by the late Councilwoman Barbara Marshall in 2005 that was unanimously endorsed by the Planning Commission in 2008.

This bill is currently before the Planning Commission and is due for a vote Wednesday.

Many of the bill’s vocal opponents openly testify that they operate STRs without the necessary certificate or resort zoning. They insist on a new permitting process to allow them to turn over a new leaf and become legal — after years of flaunting the law.

But we just spent five difficult years considering a new STR permitting process, introduced into the Council in 2005 and going down in defeat in 2010. During that time there were mountains of research, dozens of meetings and hearings, hundreds of witnesses testifying and hour upon hour of people’s time spent.

The clear message that came out of that was that there is little confidence in any new permitting process before effective enforcement is tried and proven.

Yet the very people who espouse a new permitting process do not want effective enforcement, otherwise they would be supporting the DPP measure instead of fighting it. They also fought Marshall’s enforcement bill — and won that time.

There are many reasons, too numerous and lengthy to mention here, that this industry must not be allowed to flourish without restraint in our residential neighborhoods, so I take this brief opportunity to shed light on one of the most critical issues facing Oahu: affordable housing.

In 2002, the American Planning Association, which is a nationwide professional organization on land use and housing policy, completed its study entitled "Short-Term Vacation Rentals: Residential or Commercial Use?" by Nate Hutcheson. The section of the study under Affordable Housing states:

"A more insidious problem with short-term rentals is their impact on housing costs. When property owners decide to increase their rent stream with short-term rental agreements rather than renting by the season or year, they essentially ‘squeeze’ the supply of housing, pushing up the demand and, subsequently, the cost."

With the astronomical rental prices on Oahu, we should be looking for ways to increase the supply of long-term rental housing instead of converting homes into hotel rooms in our neighborhoods.

The DPP’s enforcement bill will help do exactly that: Return residential-zoned property to residential use.

Larry Bartley is executive director of Save Oahu’s Neighborhoods.