“This is a very big deal, this bill. The passage of Senate Bill 2919 is going to change Hawaii for the better.”
With those words, Gov. Josh Green on Friday signed into law a bill that would give counties the authority to control the time, place, manner, and duration of land uses — particularly transient accommodations including short-term rentals.
The measure passed its final Senate floor vote on Wednesday by a 22-3 vote. The three no votes came from Big Island Democrats, Sens. Lorraine Inouye, Joy San Buenaventura and Tim Richards. The only Big Island senator who voted in favor of the bill was Dru Kanuha, the Senate majority leader.
The senators who cast nay votes cited what they believe will be unintended circumstances of the new law, which would give counties authority to regulate — or ban — certain rentals of up to 180 days. Both Inouye and San Buenaventura cited the need for six-month rental accommodations for the traveling nurses who are vital to the Big Island’s health care needs.
While Green has declared the state’s shortage of affordable housing an emergency, he acknowledged the Lahaina Strong organization — part of a movement arising in the aftermath of the devastating wildfires of last August that killed at least 100 people on the Valley Isle — for its activism that culminated in Friday’s bill signing.
“I’ll tell you, it is very rare that within one session, a movement takes on like this, becomes legislation and then cascades into activity,” the governor said. “… As we know, when 8,000 people had to be housed after the fire — and it was actually more than that, because many people went to their loved ones’ homes — we could barely find any short-term rentals that would take our local families at first. Even now, there are about 1,700 people in hotels. It’s unnecessary because we have so many units out there that should be rented to local people, that should be owned by local people.”
Green said that there are about 90,000 short-term rentals statewide and estimated that about 75,000 of them are operating illegally.
Noting the statewide average purchase price of more than $800,000 for a single-family home, Green said the inability of local working people to afford a home is a factor that gave rise to a trend of out-of-state owners buying Hawaii homes to market as short-term vacation rentals.
“Nobody can really afford that unless they are extremely wealthy, here, but lots of people across the globe can — and that’s what happens. So we’re going to address the 75,000 illegal short-term rentals in the coming years.”
SB 2919 aims to provide counties with home rule authority to see that vacation rentals aren’t allowed in communities that don’t want them.
“This bill empowers the counties — the mayors, the county councils and the people that are closest to each community to speak up and to decide what is appropriate use of housing, working together, and what is inappropriate,” Green said.
“To hear the people, to in the immediate moment pass a bill that is going to enable us to get housing back to families, local families, will make an immediate, positive difference for our state. “It was a disaster that set off some of this discussion, but it has been simmering for a very long time.”
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who spoke briefly during the bill-signing ceremony, said the legislation “is about returning neighborhoods back to our local residents.”
Green said his signing of new short-term rental laws and announcements on increased affordable housing are a part of his commitment to tackling the state’s affordable housing crisis and ensuring that every family has access to safe and secure housing.
“If, in the course of the next, say, two years or three years, as all the county councils move on this new provision, if they return those 75,000 illegal units of housing back to our people, we would start talking about a surplus of housing,” he said. “Can you imagine what that would look like? It would also immediately bring prices down to earth. And we are facing some pretty significant consequences in a year or so, when (the Federal Emergency Management Agency is) gone, when we don’t have extra support.
“We have to have these units back, sooner rather than later.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com
