• Vacation rentals Vacation rentals Vacation rentals take on many forms. Some are grand beachfront homes that go for thousands a week. Others are backrooms in homes that go for much less than a hotel room. Others are what would
• Vacation rentals
Vacation rentals
Vacation rentals take on many forms. Some are grand beachfront homes that go for thousands a week. Others are backrooms in homes that go for much less than a hotel room. Others are what would be ohana housing behind another home, often set up as a vacation rental to make ends meet, or to pay property taxes on the main home.
A quick Internet search shows there are hundreds if not thousands of Web pages that advertise, or tell of, vacation rentals on Kaua‘i.
The issue of regulating vacation rentals is coming to the forefront lately. This week Mayor Bryan Baptise, and Councilmembers Jay Furfaro and JoAnn Yukimura, made it one, the mayor at a press conference, and Furfaro and Yukimura at a special meeting in Hanalei.
All told, vacation rentals have sprouted up across the Island. A main complaint is that the conversion of vacation rentals has taken away a number of long-term rentals, acerbating the need for affordable housing, another issue, and one that has reached the critical stage.
Others are saying that vacation rentals are in operation in areas that haven’t been designated as visitor destinations in zoning plans. For instance, long term plans for decades have shown that Princeville is where visitor accommodations are on the North Shore, while the rural environment of the area past the Hanalei Bridge is to be kept from tourism development. If put together the number of vacation rentals operating from Hanalei to Ha‘ena would equal in room counts a small hotel.
Some vacation rentals, in fact some that have been operated for a long time, are being pulled off the vacation rental market due to their owners moving to Kaua‘i full-time, and to the homes being purchased for large sums of money by owners who don’t need the vacation rental income, or who have decided to just use the home as a second one.
This is a delicate issue, and one that could blow up as the Na Pali tour boat situation did at Hanalei in the 1990s. Regulation is needed, but only after a careful look at how this visitor industry side light is set up and how it operates.
Looking back, more should have been done about this situation five, ten, fifteen years ago.
It has been suggested that those rentals that have been operating for a set number of years or more by owners who have been paying the state’s tourism room tax would receive clearance.
Unfortunately for some that would eliminate their business.
While this idea is a starting point, testimony and study of all areas of this issue need to be completed before a resolution is set.
