Off the News: Long road for short-term rental law

The city’s progress on creating better controls over short-term vacation rentals is turning into a longer- term process.

What might’ve been a new law crafted by mid-January, now likely will be pushed back another four months — due to lawmaking procedures, a sparser holiday calendar for meetings, and the city Department of Planning and Permitting’s own stumbles. Most recently, DPP submitted the wrong version of Bill 41 to the City Council for consideration. Here’s hoping more time on this complex issue will result in a better law to keep illegal vacation rentals at bay.

Bailing out of Waianae rental project

Property management generally hasn’t been a strong suit for government. Privatization of the management duties has been the go-to solution for a number of low-income rental projects over the years.

The latest entry may be the much smaller, 72-unit Kulia I Ka Nuu in Waianae, and in this case, the whole project is being sold by the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. under a 75-year lease. Let’s hope the new owners of what is much-needed units for low-income tenants can keep it going well.