Hawaiʻi County Council lawmakers are advancing a bill that would require rental properties to register with the county.
Bill 47 is a renewed effort by some council members to reform what the measure calls “transient vacation rentals,” or short-term rentals offered on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo.
Under the measure, properties would have to register with the county’s director of finance and provide information such as the location and number of units for rent. A registration fee of $250 for hosted and $500 for unhosted rentals would apply, and failing to register could result in a $10,000 fine.
Council members Ashley Kierkiewicz and Heather Kimball introduced the measure, which passed its first reading on Wednesday, and said it will help gather data about rental properties on Hawaiʻi Island.
The council, via a resolution, also hired a vendor to study the economic impact of the island’s rental units.
Advocates for the bill said the information from both could help inform policymakers as they consider changes to the county’s rental laws.
“We are expecting a draft analysis from the vendor by the end of this month or early June at the latest. In conversations with (the vendor) and understanding the number of folks that participated, it became abundantly clear that we need a really accurate assessment of who is operating and how and where before we make any other policy decisions, including regulations,” Kierkiewicz said during a council meeting on Wednesday.
In a recent webinar on the bill, Kimball said 4,800 short-term rentals are currently registered with the county’s Planning Department, although only unhosted rentals are required to register.
She said two to three times more short-term rentals are in operation, based on preliminary data from the economic study.
Getting them registered will help “truly understand the full nature of the landscape of short-term vacation rentals in the county,” she said.
But others, such as council member Rebecca Villegas, want the economic study to be completed before any policy changes are considered.
She said uncertainties about the exact registration process still remain, and that the registration could cause confusion about short-term rentals.
“This isn't with any intent to stop regulation of those businesses, but it is a dire request for us to follow due process and not put the cart before the horse, potentially opening ourselves up to more chaos and confusion and further muddying the water when it comes to our land use policies and where (transient vacation rentals) are allowed to operate,” Villegas said.
Bill 47 follows a package of bills the council considered last year to reform laws on rental units. The primary measure in that package was Bill 121, which considered implementing rental categories depending on whether or not the owners were present, changes to the length of stay considered to be “short-term,” as well as new fees, fines and operational rules.
Opponents saw the controversial bill as too much of an overhaul of county laws that would ultimately make it more expensive for homeowners to operate their rentals, which some said is a big part of the income they receive.
But Bill 47 represents a stepwise process to change short-term rental laws, whereas Bill 121 would have made sweeping changes all at once.
