I read with great interest the doomsday letter in Saturday’s WHT with the sky-is-falling mentality regarding the anti-Bill 108 hysteria. Is there anything else catastrophic the author can predict about how our island will crumble and decay if Bill 108 passes?
Naturally, I Googled the author and of course he’s a Realtor. He offers properties to speculators to rent and to purchase. If the author is worried about our county’s economy he should read on for a realistic look at what is happening right now everywhere on our island without some sort of parameters on unsupervised vacation rentals.
Here’s what I know: All of you people out there who are negatively impacted by an unsupervised vacation rental next door to your home, take notes and become proactive!
The unsupervised vacation rental next door to my home was not paying the proper property taxes. The mainland owner has never lived in the house, but he took the homeowner’s exemption. Go to the Real Property Tax Office or go online with a TMK. The total taxes he owed (plus penalties) was staggering!
The unsupervised vacation rental next door to my home has not been paying GET and TAT taxes. Go to “Tax Cheats.” It’s easy. I keep exact records of all the nights the home is rented. That way I can turn that information in to Tax Cheats. At one point I calculated the total amount of all the taxes owed. Incredible! I may add that the federal and state taxes will also be “incorrect” since the owner has cheated on reporting his vacation rental income. Tax Cheats will do the heavy lifting and find out for all of us taxpayers and proceed accordingly! Thank you, Tax Cheats!
The so-called property manager of the unsupervised vacation rental next door to my home does not have a Realtor’s license/broker’s license. He is required to have one because he offers several homes for rent and lists himself as the manager on his website. Go to DCCA everybody to file a complaint if this is happening to you.
The unsupervised vacation rental next door to my home is on ag land. Conducting certain business on ag land is OK. They are clearly outlined in the state statutes. Those commercial activities that are not listed need a special use permit. The home next door does not have a SUP for conducting a business that is not approved for ag land. I have consulted with two land use attorneys and you can, too.
The unsupervised vacation rental next door has a septic system that was built and approved for a one bedroom house. It currently advertises accommodations for 17 (or more if all of the blow up beds and rollaways are used). This is an issue for the Department of Environmental Safety. Go online to see what type of system your neighbor’s house has and move forward accordingly.
In addition to the above, Planning Department regulations do not allow over five unrelated people to inhabit a home. “Six to 10 people rent a home and share the cost” the author argues in his letter. The author needs to do some accurate investigating. I did.
In closing, I may add that the unsupervised vacation rental next door to my home has completely destroyed my once peaceful sanctuary of a home. I have tried talking with the manager and was told to leave my home for the day as a “solution” to out of control all-day partiers.
I tried talking with the renters calmly pointing out the close proximity of my home. I put up blinds along the side of my home closest to the fiasco of a vacation rental and I purchased a portable air conditioner to block noise, My last HELCO bill was $300, thank you very much. I even bought the biggest, baddest bullhorn available on the internet. Using that just infuriated the renters who felt entitled to do anything they wanted because of the amount they paid for their rental fees.
Currently there is no place for me to go for help. All that I can do is peruse the owner next door in all of the above mentioned avenues. Bill 108 is needed to get a framework in place that will address all of these runaway issues that negatively impact the everyday citizens of the Big Island.
Chris Fulien is a resident of Kona.
