Moratorium Bill Goes to Planning Commission For Public Hearing This Tuesday

The newest iteration of the Transient Visitor Accommodations Cap Bill, or the Moratorium bill will be heard at a public hearing at the Maui Planning Commission next week Tuesday at 9am. This is Resolution 22-70. You can see the details here: https://www.mauicounty.gov/DocumentCenter/View/134690/080922_Agenda-Item-B2_Bills-for-Ord-Amend-Title-19_Transient-Accommodation-Caps_Memo-Report

We do not support this measure. We firmly believe in managed tourism and regenerative tourism. However this measure does not have enough information when it comes to economic repercussions. We have a current moratorium in place through January 7, 2024. We should be exploring what our economic diversification plan is during this time, before making this existing moratorium a permanent change. 

The intent of this bill is to cap transient vacation accommodation rental units at existing levels. However there are several places in the department of planning report recommended changes that indicate current TVR use in certain zones will be disallowed moving forward, and existing properties doing this use would be now considered non-conforming. These properties currently doing this use that have permits or special use permits would not be able to renew those permits for these uses.

At the very least the county should be contacting these properties that would be affected. Furthermore, this recommended language was not in the Planning and Sustainable Land Use committee’s version of the bill that was agendized for public discussion in the March 23 meeting, and during that discussion there was no indication that the
measure needed to change the property use rights permanently in order to achieve the intent of the bill.


Note: This bill does not impact bed and breakfast or short term rental permit holders, and does not affect their ability to renew their permits.
This resolution has raised a red flag with the county real property tax division. Administrator Marcy Martin indicated in a letter to the Planning Department on June 6 that there are concerns with the legislation that pertains to the financial repercussions of this measure.

Martin states “If a property with TVR or timeshare entitlements loses their entitlements, assessed values and classification could be impacted. For example, classification would change from hotel and resort or short term rental to a lower tax rate classification. This bill could reduce real property tax revenue. The impact cannot be measured with a market analysis of impacted properties.”
This year the county approved over $1.07 billion dollars for their FY2022 budget. For the first time in Maui’s history we are going over 1 billion dollars. This will be more than a $200 Million increase, or 27% over last fiscal year. The county funds most of those dollars in real property tax revenue. In all, the county will raise $430 Million in property tax revenue this fiscal year. 

The short term classification will raise $160 Million in RPT tax, 12% more than last year. This was an increase of $17 Million in tax dollars, the highest increase in all the tax classifications. This year short term rentals represent 37% of the real property tax revenue, and 15% of the county of Maui’s entire operating budget.

Much of the increases in revenue in property taxes overall came from the increase in values of properties. Total assessments rose $4 Billion overall in Maui County in fiscal year 2022-2023. Increases in assessed values were 5% overall in the short term classification. Short term rentals will contribute $12.1 Million in revenue to the Affordable Housing Fund, the largest contribution of all the classifications, and the largest contribution to date. Over the last 5 years the short term rental classification has generated $31.5 million dollars for the affordable housing fund.

Gutting funding categories for the county does not make good fiduciary sense given the current budget. Changing the property rights of owners without notice to those property owners for comment is problematic and should not be the way our county makes changes.
What can you do?

If you have a property that could be affected by this measure, or work with folks that do, or work in the vacation accommodations industry, please reach out to your council members, send or give testimony at this meeting.

Item you are commenting on is Resolution 22-70

Meeting of August 9, 2022 9:00 AM will be held virtual online here: BlueJeans link https://maui.bluejeans.com/566798312

To phone in testimony:
To join the meeting
by phone, call 1-408-915-6290, or 1-408-740-7256 and enter meeting ID: 566-798-312

To submit written testimony: click the above button or
Please email testimony to planning@mauicounty.gov

View the agenda here:


Finally, feel free to reach out to your County Council representatives via email or phone: 

Alice Lee, Council Chair: Alice.Lee@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-7760; 

Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, Council Vice Chair: Keani.Rawlins@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-7678;

Tasha Kama, Presiding Officer Pro Tempore of the Maui County Council: Tasha.Kama@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-5501; 

Gabe Johnson, Councilmember: Gabe.Johnson@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-7768; 

Kelly King, Councilmember: Kelly.King@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-7108;

Mike Molina, Councilmember: Mike.Molina@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-5507;

Tamara Paltin, Councilmember, Chair of Planning and Sustainable Land Use Committee: Tamara.Paltin@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-5504;

Shane Sinenci, Councilmember: Shane.Sinenci@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-7246;

Yuki Lei Sugimura, Councilmember: Yukilei.Sugimura@mauicounty.us, Phone: (808) 270-7939
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If you have any questions please feel free to email me
at jenrusso@mauivacationrentalassociation.org or call me at 808-280-3286.

Mahalo

Jen Russo
MVRA needs you now more than ever. Our voices are stronger together. We continue to advocate for the Vacation Rental industry in this challenging landscape. With our local government discriminating against rentals with no good cause, and proposing to pass legislation that reduces or eliminates property rights our work is more important that ever before. Since 2001 Maui Vacation Rental Association has been the non profit publicly supporting the rights of Maui property owners, small businesses, management companies, and managers. We know our work is more critical than ever. Thank you for supporting, engaging and being a part of this organization. 
We are actively watching the administration’s activities and remain concerned about discrimination against vacation rentals as well as threatened property rights. If you want to continue fighting for your property rights to be a vacation rental on Maui then please consider contributing to our legal fund. We continue to work on the legal arguments, phone calls, relationships and strategies for keeping your businesses from being discriminated against during the pandemic and into the future. Please join our legal fund today by clicking here to contribute so that we can continue to be well prepared. Mahalo to those who have contributed already.