• Vacation rentals Vacation rentals By Raymond Chuan When I read, this Sunday morning (April 4) the editorial as well as the front page story by Lester Chang, both about the crisis in housing, I was, for a moment, delighted.
• Vacation rentals
Vacation rentals
By Raymond Chuan
When I read, this Sunday morning (April 4) the editorial as well as the front page story by Lester Chang, both about the crisis in housing, I was, for a moment, delighted. But the euphoria quickly dissipated as I reviewed what has been going on the last four or five years. In fact, I am depressed! Depressed because the Council and the Mayor of both the current and past governments knew the problem, but did nothing. I mean nothing! zilch!
Member of the Limu Coalition presented, in the fall of 1999, to the County Council an extensively research report (prepared by resident volunteers, not by a consultant at $1,000 per page as the County would have done, had it been interested in dealing with the problem) detailing how many and what percentage of properties classified as homes in a residential-zone area (not Visitor Destination Area, VDA) had turned to high price vacation rental units in Ha‘ena. We showed how old neighborhoods were fast disappearing, these old neighborhoods including long time residents who had been long-time renters. Council members seemed to be interested. Several of them lamented how they knew a lot of the old families and how some of them had lived there as kids. Nothing happened. Nada!
At the conclusion of the General Plan Update, now three years ago, the Planning Commission instructed the Planning Department to proceed with “doing something about vacation rental in non-VDA areas” as a first priority in developing amendments to the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance. To date, not a single amendment on anything has been accomplished, or even suggested. The Deputy Planning Director at that time was apparently given the job of “doing something,” which turned out to be a series (I believe three) of community meetings, attended mostly by real estate people. That was that. Nothing else happened.
There was a time, prior to about 1996 or 97, when the North Shore had its historical rainfall that necessitated the closing of the Hanalei Bridge four or five times a year. Residents took it in stride. Chance to relax, because you couldn’t go to work or go anywhere anyhow. Businesses in Hanalei were starting to boom, even though some of the merchants had predicted that business would suffer when the massive tour boat business left Hanalei Bay. The bridge would close from time to time, but businesses continued to operate. Then came the Wake Up Call of May, 2002, when a heavy rainfall closed the Bridge for more than 24 hours; and the store owners discovered nobody came to work; and the whole of Hanalei Town shut down for the first time. The business owners discovered that working people no longer lived west of the Hanalei River! One weekend this past winter only one restaurant was open, all the others had sent their help home early because of rumor that the bridge would be closing. As it turned out, the Bridge didn’t close; and Bamboo Bamboo had the restaurant business all to itself for one day!
In the mean time the vacation rental business took on the next phase in which realtors were promoting how one could buy property in Ha‘ena and have it all paid off in five years. Part of the reason this could be done is that people took full advantage of the so-called Ohana House provision in our zoning ordinance — otherwise known as ADU, additional dwelling unit, originally intended to provide housing for elderly parents — by building second “hotels” on the same property in the guise of ADU’s, in Ha‘ena and Hanalei. At $5,000 and week and up ($15,000 for Christmas to New Year) no wonder one can pay off the mortgage so quickly. And new “single family residential” homes are being built these days that use up all the land area right up to the property line or shoreline set-back, one reportedly with eleven bedrooms and eight baths. You can get a pretty good feel for what the real situation is by cruising down Weke Road in Hanalei, for example, and count the six rental cars and twelve trash cans at some of the “residential” properties on both sides of the road. The Administration and the Council know all about these developments. For one thing, even if the Limu Coalition didn’t keep updating its reports, the various offices and agencies in the County certainly know what is going on because they had to issue various kinds of permits.
Yes, my friends and I are depressed. The good folks in our County government don’t have time to get depressed, because they are too busy attending summits of various descriptions, giving out money to consultants and having foto-ops to laud their accomplishments.
Depressed by Not Giving Up, Yet.
Raymond Chuan is a resident of Hanalei
