IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED to SAVE O’ahu’s NEIGHBORHOODS

COUNCIL ZONING COMMITTEE ‘SPECIAL MEETING’ – last minute notice on a holiday weekend.

When: Tuesday Jan 20 1:00
Where: Honolulu Hale Council Committee Room
Signup: Just show up, you can sign up to testify and submit testimony on the spot

READ On ………..

Save O’ahu’s Neighborhoods (SONHawai’i) is contacting you

to raise awareness of the issue of B&B permitting and the devastating effect that Council Bill 08-6 CD2 will have if it passes. It will negatively impact rents, housing prices, neighborhood tranquility & safety, zoning, hotel jobs and much more – in all neighborhoods. Bill 6 is to be heard in a special meeting of the Zoning Committee, Tuesday, January 20 at 1:00 pm. Immediate action is required. This is not about B&Bs. Read on…

Save O‘ahu’s Neighborhoods (SONHawai’I) was formed in 2005 in response to this Council-generated push to expand the mini?hotel industry into O‘ahu’s residential?zoned neighborhoods. We are an all?volunteer group of residential neighbors receiving no industry or outside funding.

Bill 6 has been plugging along since it was first introduced in resolution form in May 2005. In July 2005 it passed council final reading as a resolution and was transmitted to the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting (DPP) for review and revision. Then for twenty?seven months it languished in the DPP until it was submitted to the Honolulu Planning Commission. After two comprehensive and lengthy public hearings attended by hundreds, the Honolulu Planning Commission unanimously recommended that more B&B lodging should not be permitted in residential neighborhoods. In early 2008 that resolution was introduced back into the Council as Bills 08-6 and 08-7 (7 on hold).

We understand that Mayor Hannemann plus Councilmembers Apo, Marshall, Garcia, Okino, and Tam support mass B&B permitting. Mr. Djou has made statements against B&B permitting. Mr. Cachola’s and Mr. Bainum’s positions are unclear. Only Mr. Dela Cruz has voted against Bill 6. If third reading occurred today, Bill 6 would pass and the mayor would likely sign it.

This issue goes back to 1989, when 2,000+ B&Bs and Transient Vacation Units (TVU) were “grandfathered” as “Nonconforming Use” in a compromise that many of us involved did not like but accepted as a solution. SONHawai‘i, and the informed public, believe that the council is now reneging on that bargain. Approximately 1,000 grandfathered B&Bs and TVUs maintain their Nonconforming Use Certificates, and we have no intention of challenging their legal status.

So what is wrong with a few thousand more B&Bs? Too much to print in this letter, so please pop in the enclosed Windows CD for a tour. Then visit www.sonhawaii.org to learn more. Also, visit a travel advisory www.bnbcoalition.org. We insist on proven enforcement BEFORE permitting.

The illegal vacation rental industry is flourishing on O‘ahu largely because the Mayor has failed to provide adequate enforcement, as he promised to do during his 2004 campaign. However, neighborhood prodding has prompted the DPP to take action against many illegals, and dozens have closed and converted to long?term rentals that now provide much?needed rental housing for local families, including hotel employees. Enforcement is possible with better effort. SONHawai’i insists that enforcement be improved, tested, and refined before considering permitting. Expanding mass?B&B permitting before establishing enforcement is reckless.

Many illegal TVU operators are promoting Bill 6. We assume that they, and many more in the future, will satisfy the loose specification of a “B&B” long enough to get “permitted,” then operate as a TVU with little threat of enforcement. When real estate attorneys take advantage of the loopholes and frailties of Bill 6, this industry will spread even more out of control and any hope of enforcement will be lost.

More overnight strangers in our residential neighborhoods, plus the loss of affordable rental housing, will cause a deeper resentment of O‘ahu’s visitor industry in general. There is already resentment over the housing and neighborhood quality?of?life lost to the existing operations— permitting more through Bill 6 will only add to it. Eight Neighborhood Boards and other community associations (list attached) have adopted resolutions opposing introducing these hotel rooms into our neighborhoods, while none have supported them.

From the Administration’s own cover letter introducing the bill: “The DPP also believes that new B&B homes should be limited to residential districts, in this first expansion of the use, because of potential, significant impacts on agricultural lands …..” This means two things: 1) The City ultimately intends to expand B&Bs into other zoning districts, and 2) Agricultural lands are more important than our neighborhoods – that somehow it is all right to inflict “potential, significant impacts on” our residential neighborhoods, but not farmland.

Council Zoning Committee action is coming Tuesday 1/20, so how can we possibly stop Bill 6 at this late date? Several groups and many individuals are working hard to wake up those in their neighborhoods and get them to tell their councilmember and the mayor that they oppose B&B permitting—but that likely will not be enough. Neighborhood leaders from across O’ahu, like yourself, must tell them, right now, in clear and certain terms, that you oppose Bill 6 and you oppose permitting more B&B hotel rooms in residential?zoned neighborhoods. Tell them why. Importantly, don’t stop with your own councilmember—contact all of them and the mayor; their contact information is attached. A chorus of voices must be heard, and every added voice will make a difference. (Council/Admin contact list attached)

The elected officials and the public expect you to speak up and state your case—anything less will be interpreted as indicating that the neighborhood leaders of O’ahu do not care about – or even support more – hotel rooms in our residential?zoned neighborhoods. It is imperative that you contact your councilmember Monday, January 19 by telephone to express your opposition to Bill 6. Remember – proven enforcement BEFORE more permitting! Just say NO to Bill 6.

There is so much more to this issue than I can possibly explain in this brief letter. If you wish, a representative of SONHawai‘i can discuss this with you personally or address a gathering in your community—contact me at 224-4040 to coordinate this. Please distribute this entire package and copy the CD to anyone you think may be interested. Send sonhawaii@hawaii.rr.com an email requesting that you be included in timely event notices and updates on the issue. Mahalo for your attention.

The supporting info for this effort is included in the attachments.

Sincerely yours,

Larry Bartley
Executive Director