Column: Allow vacation rental hosts to survive

I’m 78 years old, and what most people consider a little old aunty. I receive a pension of $109 a month and a small Social Security check. I’m house-poor. My vacation rental income is my retirement income.

I undertook an expensive remodel to a family home adored by five generations so that it could welcome guests from all over the world. It has accommodated dozens of guests who left with great memories of Hawaii and a desire to return. Ninety-nine percent of my ratings are “5 stars,” and I have no lodged complaints from my neighbors in our quiet neighborhood.

Because of the governor’s ban on tourism due to COVID and the city’s Ordinance 19-18 (Bill 89), visitors are being forced to stay in resort areas. It’s unrealistic to expect vacation rental hosts to rent on the limited basis allowed by 19-18 and keep the lights on and the taxes paid. I must find a way to survive or my home will be lost to the family.

I was absolutely amazed when I researched the economic impact of my vacation rental on Oahu’s economy. Two years ago, I spent $155,000 on everything from pool pumps, to plumbers, to electricians, to linens in Hawaii — significant support for our local vendors and small neighborhood businesses. I paid $32,000 in general excise and transient accommodations taxes. Guests stayed 279 nights in my home. With an average of nine guests per group, that’s 2,511 guest days. The average tourist on Oahu spends $201 per day. So 2,511 times $201 comes to a total guest spend of $504,711. That’s a total of $687,711 economic impact of one aunty’s home on Oahu’s economy!

Vacation rental visitors become regular patrons of local mom-and-pop stores, restaurants and small businesses, which bring in tremendous resources to our communities while adding revenue to our local tax base. Vacation rentals also offer families a clean home and more room for social distancing instead of crowded public spaces. Families can neither afford nor want to rent multiple rooms in lavish resorts. They look for local, authentic experiences and the space for private family dinners and bonding while playing and watching sunsets together. Vacation rentals mostly benefit local mom-and-pop businesses instead of big, mainland chain companies.

The “proliferation” of vacation rentals is due to the city’s own negligence in not doing its duty to enforce a law over the past 30-plus years. Vacation rental owners have for decades relied on the city’s “course of business” practice of nonregulation. People’s livelihoods are being destroyed by the new ordinance. Our unfriendly city, Honolulu, will tell potential visitors they can’t stay where they want to stay, which equates to telling them to go someplace else to spend their tourism dollars. This message is already spreading among people who might otherwise vacation here. These people would represent a huge economic loss for Oahu.

Ordinance 19-18 needs to be scrapped. It takes a shotgun to ALL vacation rentals, good and bad. An effective ordinance needs to target the real problems with vacation rentals: absentee investors, who many think are buying up affordable housing for vacation rentals; noise, parking, overcrowding and lack of inspection. Vacation rental owners are the best source of the information that goes into a good, fair, effective, enforceable law.

Please. Let’s talk.

Margaret L H Aurand owns a short-term vacation rental on Oahu.