Time to craft new vacation rental policies

Whatever anyone’s particular stance on vacation rentals might be, there ought to be agreement on the facts. And the facts reveal the abject failure of efforts to ban vacation rentals outright in the past, and the futility of such initiatives going forward.

Technology has made it all but impossible for the city to enforce the ban that’s been on the books — ineffectually — for more than 25 years, since a moratorium on new permits for vacation rentals was enacted.

Web-based networks such as Airbnb.com and Vacation Rentals By Owner (vrbo.com) and their affiliated smartphone apps make it easy for property owners and their would-be vacationers to connect privately.

So it’s hard to imagine how the city could enforce the existing ban any better, or even as well, as it’s done in the past.

The result is obvious: The vacation rental "industry" — its lack of oversight makes it more like a black market — has mushroomed to the point where communities have changed. Their permanent residents, who deserve some measure of control over their own living conditions, are powerless to act against it.

The Honolulu City Council has essentially skated on its responsibility to push through reasonable regulations for legalized rentals, a politically contentious issue that most elected leaders have worked assiduously to avoid. Their lack of sustained commitment to this issue can be tolerated no longer, and with the next election nearly two years away, a window of opportunity has opened.

Clearly, a new regime for regulating vacation rentals must be devised to give scofflaws a pathway to legal status without penalty — yes, a form of amnesty, but one that emphasizes strict rules about how these accommodations should be maintained and supervised.

It’s the supervision that’s the key. Strong preference should be shown to permitting rentals with a live-in manager: the classic "bed-and-breakfast" arrangement. These would be run principally by local homeowners who have entered into this business as a means of supporting themselves. It’s much easier for the city to hold the hoteliers accountable for the conduct of their guests when they are on premises.

But as these landlords already have the opportunity to realize rental income by taking in long-term tenants, the city must at least claim through taxes a fair share of the profit these people get from the much more lucrative potential a tourist clientele offers. This won’t solve the shortage of long-term rentals on the market, but some might be disincentivized from entering or staying in the visitor industry, preferring the relative simplicity of housing more permanent tenants.

Admittedly, what tourists may prefer are the transient vacation units, the unoccupied homes owned by out-of-state investors or owners who live elsewhere in Hawaii. And the permits that were on the books at the start of the moratorium in 1989 have dwindled in number. There’s reason to discuss ways to reinstate those to the same level originally permitted, setting the bar high on the provisions that should be required to protect neighbors from disturbance.

Overall, however, the city is in the position, and holds the responsibility, to set the policy, and a plan that favors B&Bs is a better way to go. It must not be the goal of government to invite the sale of even more homes to investors who will make money with little accountability for the behavior of their guests.

Honolulu Star-Advertiser tourism writer Allison Schaefers last week chronicled the magnitude of Hawaii’s problem in a series of stories about the impact of the vacation rentals operations on communities such as the North Shore and Kailua in particular. These had been local bedroom communities until, as one resident described, they were turned into resorts.

The stories also outlined the difficulties inherent in enforcing the current system for the insufficiently staffed office of city inspectors. Illegal rentals can fly under the radar because the law now requires the inspector to catch someone staying less than the legal minimum rental term of 30 days. And landlords can hide an illicit paper trail by double- or triple-booking guests for the same 30-day period.

It would be much better to give the businesses a chance to get right with the law with a sensible set of requirements to control disturbances to the community. And once the system is in place, violators should be prosecuted with stiff fines, not the pennies-on-the-dollar settlements struck in recent years.

Honolulu is not the only city where this is becoming an issue — there are moves in other cities to make rules more stringent, efforts that have drawn a pushback from the industry.

Given Oahu’s close living quarters, though, the problem is more acute here than in most other places. Letting things fester through continued inaction will do a disservice to visitors and kamaaina residents alike.