Hawaiʻi Island lawmakers are considering increases to wastewater service charges — including new, even higher rates specifically for hotels.
The proposed increases were introduced in a Hawaiʻi County Council bill, and would consist of small, annual increases over five years, starting in January. By 2031, charges for all users would go up to two to three times their current rates. The rate increases would help pay for maintenance and upgrades to the County of Hawaiʻi’s wastewater infrastructure.
In a council meeting this week, most of the discussion focused on the bill’s new category for hotels, which would be separated from other commercial users.
Daniel Girvan, the director of the county Department of Environmental Management, explained why the hotels have been singled out in the bill.
“Hotels … sometimes have restaurants, they have high-density of population, they have industrial-grade laundries to keep all of their linen clean,” he said during the council meeting. “By the time you receive all that wastewater, it is an unusually large volume and concentration of materials that we have to treat.”
Hoteliers and local leaders in the tourism industry opposed the measure.
Kekoa McClellan, advocating for the Hawaiʻi Hotel Alliance, called the new hotel category a “targeted super tax” that unfairly burdens hotels.
“Isolating our brick-and-mortar hotels with rate increases of more than 300% disproportionately burdens local properties that already contribute tens of millions [of dollars] through real property taxes and the county TAT [Transient Accommodations Tax],” McClellan said. “Meanwhile, short-term rentals escape this classification under residential rates … There are more short-term rentals throughout the County of Hawai'i than hotel units.”
Current non-residential users are charged a base rate of $54 per month per unit, and up to $9.50 per 1,000 gallons of water used. The measure would increase the base rate to $155 by 2031, and up to $18.75 per 1,000 gallons for those users.
Under the new hotel category, the monthly base rate would be $189, and the usage charge would be as high as $21.40 per 1,000 gallons of water used.
McClellan and other opponents want the council to defer the measure.
However, Girvan said the county conducted a rate study and found that the proposed increases take into account the resources needed to clean the volume of water used by hotels.
“I am sensitive to the idea that the price is higher,” he said. “What that really means is that for a very long time we have been undercharging for that grade of customer."
Single and multi-unit residential users, who are only charged monthly rates based on the number of units, would also see an increase in fees. They currently pay $52 per month per unit, but if the current proposal goes through, that would go up to $63 in January and $125 in 2031.
The council voted to resume the discussion on the bill on Sept. 15.
