Well, this paints an unpleasant picture, eh? (Hana: home, neighborhood)

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Sure. Fair enough.

Although I would point out that owner-occupied-operated really doesn’t often (if ever) result in *party mode* activity … and it does provide excellent operator income wholly at the local level. My daughter has operated her two STR units in the tri-plex for over six years without a single unpleasant incident of any kind. Occupancy rate has been over 90%. She and my granddaughter couldn’t survive in that home without this side business.

On more than 1 occasion I had to call police on people deciding to use the pool I had in Kailua as their own personal pool - the midnight+ loud stereos, etc - when I moved to Kahala I ensured my house was much more secure with gates and high walls.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

On more than 1 occasion I had to call police on people deciding to use the pool I had in Kailua as their own personal pool - the midnight+ loud stereos, etc - when I moved to Kahala I ensured my house was much more secure with gates and high walls.

Ugh. But were the interlopers B&B renters staying at an owner-occupied / owner-operated unit? I agree that remote operator units can be a problem.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

The housing shortage is so acute in the Colorado ski towns that Summit County has begun a new program of paying short term rental owners $13,000 (for six months) to convert their existing STR into long term rentals for local workers. There are a bunch of caveats for both the property owner and the renter, but it looks like a step in the right direction. I did some reading but couldn't find where the County was getting the money from.

[pj737]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

What do you object to about short-term rentals? The way they restrict inventory for long term residents and drive up pricing, I imagine.

Yes, that is one component but there is more. I don't know if it's just me but based on what I'm seeing in the news a lot lately, the natives are becoming restless. Relative low hanging fruit strategy to keep locals pacified is to eliminate all short term rentals from every residential neighborhood on the island. While I personally have no issues with short term rentals (and even less so with owners that host on site), I don't live next door to or near one. I can empathize with those that have to endure a constant stream of strangers coming and going next door. This would be particularly annoying if it was a quiet neighborhood - it would be undesirable for virtually everyone. I understand your daughter hasn't had any bad apples but not everyone has been so lucky. And unfortunately it doesn't take a lot of bad apples to ruin it for the majority.

In addition to having sympathy for those that have to deal with the "bad apple" visitors, we have a mostly incompetent government that is incapable of policing or enforcing any laws on the books in addition to collecting the applicable taxes from those that do rent short term. You have to make it ridiculously simple for the govt to do their enforcing and this requires a 180 day rental period. Any other "solution" will be unenforceable with what we have currently running the show at the capitol and city hall.

I don't think it's fair that a hotel operator should have to pay a property tax rate that is 4 times greater than someone who is renting out a home when it's the exact same type of customer and business. I'm assuming your daughter wouldn't be doing quite as well if her property taxes went up 300% and she paid 15% (to be increased to 18% shortly) in combined GET and TAT for every dollar she earns in rent. Maybe she would still do better than a long term rental but I would bet those additional operating costs would cut into most of the positive net income delta.

I think it's in everyone's best interest to see Waikiki flourish and succeed. It is a massive economic engine that employs tens of thousands of hard working locals. Only 1.5% of Hawaii's residents live in Waikiki yet it generates 9% of the state's entire GDP and 12% of all tax revenue. All this in a measly 3.4 square miles of the 10,900 square miles in Hawaii. We desperately need hotels and businesses to do well and constantly reinvest into Waikiki to make it a desirable destination. Forcing more tourists into Waikiki (and other resort areas) by eliminating short term rentals in residential areas ultimately generates more revenue for our city and state. Since our local people (and locals in other tourism hot spots across the world) are becoming increasingly anti-tourist, keeping the tourists in Waikiki as much as possible is a win-win for most, but not all. Your daughter should look into doing long term rentals. She may be surprised how well she does.

[Ruth4Truth]

Those are pretty scary numbers, OP; 345,000 tourists arriving in just one month this summer? 10 million per year???!!! That's beyond excessive. It's not sustainable. It wasn't sustainable when the amount was half that, or less. And the main road is so clogged with traffic, that locals can't use it for their day-to-day needs?

I hope they're able to come up with a workable solution. The situation sounds out of control.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Those are pretty scary numbers, OP; 345,000 tourists arriving in just one month this summer? 10 million per year???!!! That's beyond excessive. It's not sustainable. It wasn't sustainable when the amount was half that, or less. And the main road is so clogged with traffic, that locals can't use it for their day-to-day needs?

I hope they're able to come up with a workable solution. The situation sounds out of control.

Juneau, a town of 32,000 in Alaska with a small landlocked road system, has over 1 million tourists during a typical summer season. Basically May through September.

However, they're mostly arriving via cruise ship so aren't staying for long.

[riffle]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

Juneau, a town of 32,000 in Alaska with a small landlocked road system, has over 1 million tourists during a typical summer season. Basically May through September.

However, they're mostly arriving via cruise ship so aren't staying for long.

For that matter, the Iowa State Fair receives 1 million visitors over a mere 10 days on less than 500 acres of land. The germane point is that pedestrians standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a fairground (or cruise ship visitors on foot) are much different from rental cars on a narrow, curvy two-lane road which is also used by local residents to access essential services.

Tourism isn't inherently a problem, but I don't blame local residents for resenting additional tourists when the infrastructure isn't there to accommodate them. I don't know the legal ramifications, but perhaps the road to Hana could adopt a similar system to some national parks (such as Denali) where private vehicles are restricted for non-residents and shuttle buses used for visitor access?

[bus man]

Originally Posted by riffle

For that matter, the Iowa State Fair receives 1 million visitors over a mere 10 days on less than 500 acres of land. The germane point is that pedestrians standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a fairground (or cruise ship visitors on foot) are much different from rental cars on a narrow, curvy two-lane road which is also used by local residents to access essential services.

Tourism isn't inherently a problem, but I don't blame local residents for resenting additional tourists when the infrastructure isn't there to accommodate them. I don't know the legal ramifications, but perhaps the road to Hana could adopt a similar system to some national parks (such as Denali) where private vehicles are restricted for non-residents and shuttle buses used for visitor access?

Just widen the road and turn it into a four-lane expressway. Boom, problem solved!

Yes, of course I'm kidding. I've been on the Hana Highway, and I regard it as probably the most beautiful drive I've ever taken. And I know I'm not alone in this, which is why the road is so crowded. But for the residents who live along the route, the key to avoiding tourist crowds is going at times that the tourists don't go. Most tourists stay in West Maui and thus drive eastbound during the morning and then return westbound in the afternoon. Local residents along the Hana Highway who need to go to Kahului and surrounding areas could go there in the morning and return home in the afternoon, thus going against the flow in both directions. Sure, it's inconvenient, having to schedule your travel like that. But I would think that doing so would make for easier, faster, less stressful travel.

Improving the Pi'ilani Highway might also help, by syphoning a few of the drivers off the Hana Highway, at least in one direction. That's how I did it when I did this drive, drove eastbound on the Hana Highway and westbound back on the Pi'ilani Highway. I had the latter road almost entirely to myself the whole way.

[whtviper1]

I find it hard to believe the roughly 1,200 people who make the Hana area home didn't know what they were getting themselves into.

[Futuremauian]

If they would pave the last stretch and improve the road quality, a lot of the congestion could be eliminated by encouraging the tourists to make a one-way loop around that end of the island.

Opening the "Oprah Road" to the public would take a lot of cars off of the up-country roads.