Amend Bill 147 to protect housing for local residents
91直播 Island is losing housing to vacation rentals, and 91直播 County is allowing it to happen.
While other counties have drawn firm lines on where unhosted vacation rentals can operate, 91直播 County still allows them in residential condominium developments outside of resort zones.
91直播s that should be for local residents are being used as visitor accommodations.
The recently introduced County Council Bill 147 would continue this mistake unless it is amended to remove unhosted vacation rentals from multi-family residential districts outside of resort zones.
The data leaves little room for debate. A 2025 county-commissioned economic impact study on vacation rentals found that 93% of vacation rentals on 91直播 Island are unhosted, meaning entire homes are taken off the long-term housing market. These properties gain added value as income-producing investments, attracting outside buyers and driving up prices.
UHERO’s 2025 Housing Factbook shows that 67.8% of condominium purchases on 91直播 Island are made by out-of-state buyers, compared to 19.9% on Oahu, where vacation rentals are more restricted.
Condominiums are supposed to be the most accessible path to homeownership. Instead, they are being converted into investment properties.
The consequences are obvious: Fewer homes for residents, higher prices for buyers, and rising rents for renters.
The county’s General Plan says visitor accommodations belong in resort zones. Most residents agree.
As part of the county economic study on vacation rentals, a survey of residents found that more than 70% of respondents were unlikely to support unhosted short-term rentals in their community.
The County Council can either ignore the data or act on it. Amending Bill 147 is a straightforward step to protect housing for local residents.
If we fail to set this standard now, we should not be surprised when homeownership slips even further out of reach.
John Pelletier
Kailua-Kona
Rebuttal to recent letter regarding Honua Ola
No, Mr. Glen Kagamida, Honua Ola will not help “global greening” (91直播, April 16).
Mr. Kagamida seems unaware that the Environmental Protection Agency is not functioning as it has under the previous administration. It’s like all other government agencies tasked with protecting the public interest over corporate greed have been attacked and defunded under Trump.
The Trump EPA claims it lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce this pollution.
The Trump administration is trying to remove all greenhouse gas standards for motor vehicles, and is making an effort to undermine climate pollution protections for power plants and oil and gas production.
Besides carbon, which has been sequestered in these trees for 40 years or more, other pollutants would be released into the environment along with heavy metals like lead, mercury, arsenic, dioxins, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides.
All these pollutants are detrimental to your health and would pollute both the east and west sides, depending on the trade winds, and not the same as the vog does.
Honua Ola is an extractive corporate scheme that would siphon off corporate profits out of the state, while exploiting local resources at the expense of the local population. For example, it’s three times as expensive as clean energy, and there are costs to roads and the health care system.
Rusty Iijima
Waikoloa
