Stop the press: Could Maui reconsider plans culling its vacation rentals? This is another possible whirlwind change impacting visitors and residents alike.
Stop the press: Could Maui reconsider plans culling its vacation rentals? This is another possible whirlwind change impacting visitors and residents alike.
Spend another $300,000? Why? Isn’t that what they are paid to do in the first place???
Given the reported history of corruption in Hawaii, who’s getting the $300k to do the study? Or, should I ask; whose brother in law is getting the contract? And how much will the study overrun the budgeted 300k?
Mayer Bissen needs to be steadfast leader, not cower to a vocal, but small cadre of people that don’t represent the majority. Also, this undermines our faith in him as a leader, because he makes emotional decisions without a factual basis. Empathy is needed, reckless emotional reactions to circumstances & situations when we need strong leadership – we don’t.
No STRS with 1 or 2 bedrooms will help families of 4 or more. This was dumb to begin with. And don’t get me started on the math of loss of tax revenue subsidizing a multitude of programs & owner occupied property taxes.
Cooler heads prevail – and thank God it appears Mrs. Kama is that one head.
And the beat goes on . . . . If it hasn’t become apparent by now, HI gov’t , and Maui’s in particular, is being run by a bunch of amateurs. Like kids playing at war, they are clueless to the facts, the reality. Decertifying STRs is not going to solve, or even impact the housing crisis. It will put some people out of work, cost the owners some money, but people will still be unhoused. Isn’t it about time the Maui gov’t sat down and recruited some Professional help in developing a Plan on how the state/county can Effectively address the housing issue, not by their current ‘swinging at it like a pinata’?
We had a person with a masters from Berkeley in Long Range Planning who wanted to work on these challenges. He was a Planning Director in Fairfax California. The county declined to hire him after repeatedly applying. It was a big mistake, the municipalities don’t pay enough to attract qualified professionals. Even if they did, where would they live?
I’ll do the study for free right here:
1. A. How much $ is generated by these 7,000 STR’s annually?
B. How much tax is generated directly from the rentals, and how much do people staying in STR’s spen on Maui – groceries, restaurants, car rentals, activities, etc.
Ex: if average rental revenue is $5,000/month: 7,000 x $5,000 x 12 months =$420 mil in lost revenue.
Lost taxes = approx. 76 mil./year
If average spending by tourists staying in STR’s = $200/day, then $200/day x 365 days x 7,000 units = $511 mil that won’t be spent by tourists.
So the mayor wants Maui to have 1 Billion less revenue.
– how many people will have to leave Maui due to lack of jobs?
IDT one can count room rate revenue as a local economic benefit. It’s extracted revenue that goes off-shore to (mostly) foreign investors.
Tax Revenue: Yes
Visitor Spending: Yes
$300,000 for a study?? I’m still rolling on the floor laughing. I’ll do it for $20. It’ so obvious – look around, tourism is down, locals are getting laid off because there is much less business, unemployment is up, restaurants are already closing… real estate for sale has increased, and nobody wants (or cannot) to buy. And visitors to Hawaii are pissed off as they are no longer welcomed. In any event, too late, I’ve already booked by vacation elsewhere for 2024. Bye, bye.
Well, yes 300K, but in case you’re surprised, remember which party has been running the islands for decades? Yes, the one that’s consistently great at wasting other people’s money 🙂
Both parties are consistently good at wasting taxpayer money. The difference is that dems overspend on trying to be everything to everyone, but at least they are trying to help working people. The GOP overspends on helping their owners – billionaires and corporations, making an already bad inequality situation worse, and pays for it all entirely by increasing the deficit and debt. Working GOP voters don’t even realize that their share of the debt increased by more than the pittance of a tax break they got, and continue to vote against their own self interests. Maui’s housing problems really aren’t partisan in nature, and this bad idea can’t credibly be blamed on one party or the other.
I would love to see real life examples of individuals and families that dems have lifted out of poverty. Hawai’i tax rates are among the most progressive in the nation but no one really knows where the money is going. Judging by the record exodus to Mainland, certainly not to “help working people”. This whole vacation rental mess, brought on by you-know-who, is particularly detrimental to the hard working people and their primary or supplemental income.
As far as the old talking points from the media and politicians on the left about GOP, millionaires and billionaires, one look at OpenSecrets.org tells a very different story about fundraising data by each party and candidates. It’s a great eye-opener.
I guess the mayor’s “We’ll worry about the economic impact on Maui after we eliminate 7,000 STR’s later” comment isn’t going over well.
Plus you only have to look at Maui’s Passenger Counts to see that it’s running about 3,000 fewer daily arrivals which is about 30 to 35 percent fewer tourist than at this time to see that the negative messaging out of Maui is working.
Reminds
Me of the rash decision by the LT Governor demanding All tourists to leave Maui after fire then the Governor begging for them back 2 weeks later. I could say so much more. These people do not know how to manage.
Los Angeles Times journalist Hailey Branson-Potts had a great article on May 24 detailing the issues in the unincorporated beach areas of West Marin County as they attempt to deal with the impacts of limiting/banning STRs. An interesting note: they had a two-year moratorium recently on STRs which didn’t result in a single unit of affordable housing being built. Banning STRs does not solve the affordable housing crisis, and Maui County has done absolutely nothing on this front. Quit blaming the owners of these units for your mismanagement of issues critical to your constituency.
What !! The politicians are listening to the complaints, desires and wishes of residents and tourists! What A Concept!!!!!
The Civil Beat article said the $300,000 to fund the study was earmarked for the Maui Food Bank. I bet the food bank needs that money.
I’m a mainlander with no dog in this fight. I’ve visited the island every year since 1993 and I want the people of Maui to thrive and prosper. They need a balanced economy that does not depend so heavily on tourism. There have been few signs that the county has spent its energy and efforts to build local industries to create that balance.
Has the county worked to build affordable housing during the past 30 years?
Those are the issues the county needs to address now. Give the money to the food bank and show your people that government can solve problems, not just create more headaches.
The County gov’t has been ‘coasting’ on the tourist economy without trying to develop a truly self-supporting economy. Kind on like getting your monthly welfare check and watching TV. They don’t Plan, they just react, and rarely effectively. There is open, un or under utilized land that can be made available to build housing, just no one is doing it, and the gov’t is not trying to make it happen thru means available to it. One has to wonder what the elected officials actually deal with when the report to the office, if in fact they actually do that.
Hi, Kevin, The high point for building affordable, workforce homes in Maui was 1960. That is not a typo. Since then, it’s been in steep decline. All that time, STR owners have dutifully paid their astronomical property taxes, which account for 42% of the affordable housing fund. Other Hawaii counties and islands are doing better. I retired here and hoped not to have to devote much effort to thinking about politics. Alas, something has to change. The cronyism and incompetence in local politics is tragic.
For many years, my wife and I have escaped Canadian winters and spent around 10 weeks at a STR in West Maui. With the increasing crazy prices and this anti-tourist vibe, we have changed our next travel plans and will be going to a resort in Thailand instead. It’s clear that the local politicians have made vindictive, emotional (not fact / data based) decisions. Simple math tells you that hundreds of millions in spending and taxes in the local economy are at stake. Assuming many STR owners try to sell their investments, and property prices dip, it’s likely the purchasers will be affluent mainland retirees snapping up prime Maui real estate at a discount, and paying cash, and not local residents, many who will be unemployed.
This is so obvious, isn’t it? The deafening ruckus this has caused just proves how effective relating to people on an emotional level can be, no matter how irrational.
Also consider Tahiti. I’ve done research, wife and I are booking there rather than Hawaii, and planning to go for a much longer stay.
Go figure… Ready. Fire. Aim.
The mayor’s proposal seems like another Hawaii government official’s attempt to cater to locals, in a very small-minded way, to cement their base. That and attempt to cover up/overlook many years of policies that neglected their constituent’s needs (like housing) while they raked in the tourism-generated $$$ with reckless abandon. They should be trying to build more housing, and stop alienating visitors. N
Well said.
Exactly, build more affordable housing.
Margaret Thatcher said it best: “Socialism works, until you run out of other people’s money”
Tasha Kama, Chair of the Maui County Housing and Land Use Committee, is the one that is ordering this study. The committee has 4 members, and 3 of the 4 tend to be business-oriented, including Ms. Kama. Her quotes from the Civil Beat article do read like she is wanting to cut through the rhetoric and see real data on the impacts of this proposal.
My only concern is that Council Services are the ones conducting the study. They typically do admin work for the Council. I don’t know if there is proper, unbiased expertise in that department.
This does not “stall” the decision, as the bill is proposed to go into effect January of 2025, and Ms. Kama has indicated that the study and their decision would be completed by then.
Hi Pat.
Thanks. This will be interesting to watch play out to be sure.
Aloha.
The economics of the situation demand a more thorough study of the solution. Maui cannot afford to loose millions of dollars in tourist dollars.
And hundreds. of residents who have built a career based on tourism which pays their mortgage, rent and bills will leave.
Honestly, I think it was more about the increasing dislike of tourists and not about the housing crisis. After all, 7000 homes didn’t burn down around Lahaina. It’s just the same ploy of never letting a good crisis go to waste.
I get so confused . It seems like Hawai’i doesn’t want people to vacation there, they do want people to vacation there. We have been to Hawaii twice and loved it. Hotel prices jimp. Its like they want to make it to expensive. I just get mixed feelings about whether or not they want visitors.
Okay, let me help. HI is a tourist driven economy. They don’t have an ‘industrial base’ to fall back on, so Hi is primarily dependent on the billions of tourist dollars to support the state. Unfortunately for the HI residents (full time), they have to put up with the hoards of tourists that descend on them, clog the beaches, the roads, leave trash, etc. all year long. Also, prices in HI are high, for most everything, and jobs overall don’t compensate (low wages). So, the ideal situation would be for the tourists to fly to HI, drop their vacation money off, and leave. Problem solved, or would it?
Dennis D:
“Ideal” is just wire the money direct to the county and never board a plane.
A $300,000 study? Give me $25,000 and I will have it ready for you in 2 weeks, with time left over to get in a few rounds of golf!
Not sure how much this will impact the visitors who typically rent STVRs. This on again/off again approach is not likely to make people want to take a chance on losing money on airfare and lodging. Obviously the mayor can change his mind at a moment’s notice. Hopefully this ridiculous episode of knee-jerk reactions from the local and state law makers will stick in the minds of Hawaii residents the next time they go to the voting booth, although it’s obvious that people have very short memories when it comes to their politicians, so I wouldn’t count on it.
So they are going to waste $300,000 to study the effects of their decision when they should have thought about it before they came up with this ridiculous plan? More waste of taxpayers money! You get what you vote for and these politicians are at best inept and at worst corrupt.
If you cut short term rentals (vacation property). The cost of hotel room will most likely go up to the point no one will be able to come. Maui relies upon tourism.
And right now, with tourism slowing to a crawl on Maui, some hotels are cutting their prices to near STVR competitive rates.