Amid months of passionate public testimony on the dire need of affordable housing, a largescale Napili house intended to be used as a short-term rental and possible pauses on visitor accommodation expansion to mitigate overtourism, the Maui County Council sliced caps on short-term rental homes but decided in a last-minute change to increase the proposed number allowed in South Maui.
The council recently voted 6-2, with one absent and excused, to amend a short-term rental cap bill, bumping up the number of rentals in South Maui from 45 to 46 to allow for the filing of a late application.
Then, council members voted 8-0 on second and final reading for Bill 69, which lowers caps on county permits allowed for short-term rental homes within Maui island community plan areas.
There are approximately 217 permitted short-term rental home operations in the county, according to the Planning Department. About 50 percent of those permits belong to out-of-state residents.
Lanai resident Tim Lara, the former Maui Democratic Party chairman who made a recent bid for the state Senate District 7 seat, testified at the regular council meeting Aug. 6 that he had just missed the short-term rental house permit deadline of July 1 and that he filed July 21. If approved, his Kihei-Makena short-term rental will be rented to Alaska residents who work for four to five months each year at his Hawaiian Paddle Sports ocean activity company.
Council Member Kelly King, whose residency seat is South Maui, proposed to amend the cap for Kihei-Makena because Lara’s application was in process. King has been a strong advocate for a pause on visitor accommodations, including hotels and short-term rental homes, in South Maui and in West Maui.
Her Bill 60 to place a moratorium on building permits for such lodgings rallied robust public support but a veto on the measure could not gain an override vote during the same meeting Aug 6.
Council Member Yuki Lei Sugimura and Council Vice Chairwoman Keani Rawlins-Fernandez each opposed the amendment to allow for the late application, pointing to inconsistencies represented by the change.
Sugimura said approving the tardy filing isn’t fair to other applicants and that council should apply balanced rules across the board.
Rawlins-Fernandez said the move sends a “hypocritical” message on transient accommodations.
“Together the council, we said that STRs have not been good for our county overall,” Rawlins-Fernandez said. “And so by giving special treatment to one person that we all know, we would be rewarding that behavior that we are saying we don’t support. Increasing STRs is eliminating homes that could be used for long-term rentals.”
“So what are we doing here?” she asked later. “Are we pausing or are we increasing or growing, not growing?”
Rawlins-Fernandez in June proposed a moratorium on visitor accommodations that would span the island of Maui until the council passes legislation implementing recommendations presented by a council-established Tourism Management Temporary Investigative Group, or in two years, whichever is sooner. The measure is under consideration.
Council Member Tamara Paltin said she doesn’t support the amendment but that throughout the discussion on the measure, she had deferred to area residents and representatives to derive caps for their communities.
“I stand by my plea last time — that if you have houses, rent them to local people, if you have businesses, rent them to local people — but I will defer to the area residency,” she said.
King during discussion pushed back against council members who said that Lara is receiving special treatment.
“I would do this, probably make this consideration for anybody in my community who had already invested in the permit process,” she said. “And I talked about that in the original discussion that we wanted to make sure that we weren’t harming anybody who had invested in the process already of trying to get a permit.”
Under the new ordinance, county permits for short-term rental homes on Maui island will be reduced from 30 to 15 for Hana, from 88 to 50 for West Maui, from 100 to 46 for Kihei-Makena (with no more than five in the subdivision commonly known as Maui Meadows), from 40 to 14 for Makawao-Pukalani-Kula, from 55 to 48 for Paia-Haiku (new permits may not be issued for properties in the special management area to avoid changes to the character of the region’s coast) and from 36 to six for Wailuku-Kahului.
Molokai has a cap of zero short-term vacation rental permits, and Lanai’s cap is under review.
Transient and visitor accommodations have long been debated, with resident testimony against the lodgings intensifying during the pandemic. Maui County is receiving among the highest tourist volumes in the state while social gatherings, small businesses and various activities remain under state and county capacity restrictions due to COVID-19.
During the same Aug. 6 meeting, the council voted unanimously on second and final reading to tighten rules on short-term rental homes and other transient accommodations in West Maui.
Bill 64 changes the Napili Bay Civic Improvement District from hotel to residential and apartment uses; any new hotel or apartment-hotel use after Aug. 6 must obtain a county permit. With the ordinance, the district building height limit is now defined as two stories and 30 feet, which includes all appurtenances such as elevator shafts, stairwells, vent pipes and antennae.
The Napili Bay Civic Improvement District’s use and development rules have gone for some time without updating, and for many years, short-term rental homes and such lodgings could operate without a permit under the hotel use allowed in the district.
The sweeping changes were spurred by strong public resistance to a 45-foot-tall Napili home constructed for short-term rental use. Testifiers came out in force over weeks, speaking out about the “monstrosity” and asking that fewer transient lodgings be allowed.
Stan Franco, housing advocate and Stand Up Maui president, said Thursday that he doesn’t support short-term rentals. He urged council and the administration to instead move on building affordable housing for residents and said he wants leaders to take action on portions of the comprehensive affordable housing plan.
“I would rather have long-term rentals for our people,” he said. “We have gone too far on the other side of the short-term rental business especially in our residential communities. It’s taken away from the housing needs of our people.”
* Kehaulani Cerizo can be reached at kcerizo@mauinews.com.
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