The Maui County Planning Department has said they are thinking about creating a plan to phase out all short term rental homes. 

“The idea is to phase-out STRHs over a longer period of time than is being done for Molokai. Let them expire when they expire but no more renewals. We need to see what the industry and community feedback is. Depending on that, we may (or may not) draft a bill and take it through commissions and then to Council.” - Michelle McLean, Director of Planning, Maui County.

We will be meeting with the planning department next week about this idea. There are about 50% of the existing permits that need to be renewed this year and next.

We need to grow support for the “Good Guys” who have gotten permits and are paying the huge tax bills that allows local residents to have low taxes. 

We have to shed light on the issue of illegal short term rentals and the second homeowners who buy up housing at a rate ten or twenty times greater than permitted Short term rentals and pay the lower tax rates. When people say that their neighborhood has changed because of short term rentals, let's ask them, "Which permitted, short term rental has changed your neighborhood? How?" Likely the addition of so many off-island owners who use their homes as second homes, has had a stronger hand in making that impression on people in the neighborhood.

This message must come from hundreds of people on all forms of media. But we also must be prepared for the push back from the uninformed who don’t understand the numbers, like:

Maui has 45,000 single family dwellings yet only 250 of these are legally permitted short term rentals. Some of these short term rentals pay more than $100,000/year in property tax. Yet

Maui county has somewhere between 2500 and 5000 second homes that are not rented out long term and “might” be rented Illegally short term.

This is what you need to do: 

All STRH permit holders should understand that their permits are currently under threat. Not new permits, but all existing permits may not be renewed, should a proposal, currently in the state of being drafted by the planning department, be adopted. 

 

Every permit holder must be prepared to participate in the upcoming fight. If you can write letters to the editor, start writing. If you can donate money towards a legal fund, start writing checks. If you can influence decision-makers, start talking. We need the public and the decision makers more aware that we are the good guys. We are the legal permitted industry that pay taxes twice what we would pay without our permits. We are the short term rentals who operate responsibly with professional on-island managers, occupancy limits, parking requirements, no party rules and a host of rules designed to protect the peace in neighborhoods.

 

MVRA cannot take on this battle alone!  We need your membership NOW! If you want to be kept up to date on government actions with our newsletters. JOIN NOW!

 

{Join Now https://mauivacationrentalassociation.org/join-us}

 

If you prefer to mail your membership dues, send checks to MVRA to 140 Hoohana St. Suite 210, Kahului, HI, 96732. 

 

LET US KNOW if you would be interested in organizing an STRH tour for council members, or if you are good at writing press releases, or if you can do graphic design, or  if you would like to organize a Habitat for Humanity / MVRA event, or think you could be helpful in creating info for our website repository for guests and members with Cultural History, Hawaiian Culture, Ocean Safety, Environmental Awareness, etc.