Quote puts into perspective the motivation behind vacation rentals

‘People have worked out a way to actually pay their bills and get ahead for once. I don’t see how we can be treated as criminals when we are just trying to purchase property in Hawaii and have help paying for it.”

That quote from reporter Allison Schaefers’ story last week jumped out as bald, unguarded truth.

It was spoken by a women from Australia who bought a condo unit in Waikiki and is at odds with the building’s condo board because she is renting out her unit as a short-term vacation rental. The long-term residents of the building say she’s flouting the rules, and that allowing Airbnb-type short stays turns their building from a quiet residential place to, essentially, a hotel without hotel-level staffing to clean up the mess and keep the peace.

But back to that quote, which puts into words a belief held by many, and all the impact of that sentiment.

Hawaii has been marketed for so long as a place where everyone is welcome, as so blessed with abundance that, almost like magic, there’s a piece of these islands that every single person can call their very own. Sure, the ultrarich buy up vast acreages on neighbor islands and set up their own private retreats, but Hawaii is for everyone, a tropical version of the American dream. Even if you can afford only a studio apartment rather than a huge enclave, the belief is that you have a right to own that little piece of paradise and a right to figure out a creative way to afford it, even if it stretches existing rules a bit or bothers neighbors sometimes.

That desire to own a piece of Hawaii and to have help paying for it is connected to the “monster” house problem, too, although in many cases the goal is clearly not just to “get ahead for once,” but to maximize profits.

Again we come to that hard stop where the fantasy of owning a piece of paradise comes crashing into the hard rock of reality. The hard, small, ocean-surrounded rock of reality.

Then there are the homeless people who say they’re happy living on the beach and are unwilling to move inland into someplace more restrictive. That’s their corner of paradise.

Challenging the idea that people have the right to buy a piece of Hawaii and to then rent it out to as many paying customers as possible leads to all sorts of charges of exclusion and xenophobia, and if you can’t even talk about it, how can all the ramifications be understood? Credit to Mayor Caldwell and the Honolulu City Council for not only talking about it, but proposing measures to start reeling in what has gone on unchecked for too long.

If allowed to continue unchallenged, even with new fees and regulations in place, this will do more than obliterate the rental market for Hawaii residents. It will change the paradise that people want to call their own.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.