Big Island lawmakers attempt to rein in short-term vacation rentals

A package of bills expected to be introduced before a Hawaiʻi County Council committee on Tuesday aims to crack down on the number of short-term vacation rentals on the island.

Crafted to address complaints about noise, parking and the loss of character in residential and agricultural areas of the Big Island, the measures also seek to increase the volume of long-term rentals while tamping down rising housing costs.

It’s a debate that has become increasingly urgent statewide amid high cost of living increases, fears that locals are being driven to the mainland by a lack of affordable housing and with thousands of fire survivors from the Aug. 8 Lahaina inferno still stuck in hotel rooms.

Bills 121, 122 and 123 are sponsored by County Council Chair Heather Kimball and Council Member Ashley Lehualani Kierkiewicz.

In her newsletter to constituents, Kimball said Hawaiʻi island was ill-prepared for the rapid expansion of transient accommodation rentals and online hosting platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo, which emerged in the mid-1990s.

Because owners know they can get three to four times more revenue by renting to tourists rather than locals, the trend has headed in that direction, according to Kimball and Kierkiewicz. A 2018 report by Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice backs that up, finding that in the two preceding years, the number of vacation rentals in Hawaiʻi grew by 35 percent, driving up housing costs.

Although the proliferation of short-term vacation rentals increases tourism spending and tax collection, “the benefits are far outweighed by the costs,” the report found.

“These units are changing the character of the island. They’re changing the island lifestyle,” said Kierkiewicz.

Hawaiʻi County took its first stab at regulating short-term vacation rentals in 2018 with passage of Bill 108. It limited the areas where “unhosted” rentals could operate to resort and commercial districts and implemented some operational standards.

Now the county is going after “hosted” short-term rentals, meaning the owner lives onsite or has someone else managing it from the premises.

“These bills attempt to strike a balance between allowing people to continue or start and operate transient vacation rentals on their properties while limiting the expansion of investor-owned TARs,” Kimball said in a recent interview.