Honolulu – Maui legislators adopted legislation on Thursday aimed at eliminating a large percentage of holiday rentals from the Hawaiian island at approach a shortage of housing exacerbated by forest fires that destroyed most of Lahaina in August 2023.
This is the last action of a world’s global tourist destination to postpone the infiltration of vacationers in residential areas and tourism crushing their communities. In May, Spain ordered Airbnb to block More than 65,000 holiday lists on its platform for violating the rules. Last month, thousands of demonstrators in European cities such as Barcelona and Venice, Italy, Markets against the evils of suêchourisme.
The Housing Committee of the County Council of Maui voted 6-3 to adopt the bill, which would close a escape which allowed the owners of condos in areas of apartments to rent their units for days or weeks both instead of a minimum of 180 days. The mandate would take effect in the district of West Maui which includes Lahaina in 2028. The rest of the county would have until 2030 to comply.
Mengshin Lin / AP 
The complete council must still vote on the bill, but the result of the committee is a strong indication of the final result, because the nine members of the council are on the housing committee. The mayor should sign the bill he proposed.
“Bill 9 is an essential first step to restore our commitment to prioritize accommodation for local residents – and to obtain a future where our Keiki can live, grow and prosper where they call at home,” said the mayor of Maui, Richard Bissen, in a press release, using the Hawaiian word for children.
“We saw a disastrous housing crisis before the fire, then we lost 2,200 structures in the fire, and a large part of our local accommodation for our people,” said Jordan Ruidas of the Lahaina Strong group The KGMB-TV affiliate told CBS Honolulu. The group had pushed hard for the measure.
Holiday rentals currently represent 21% of all the county housing, which has around 165,000 inhabitants.
An analysis of economists from the University of Hawaii predicted that the measure would add 6,127 units to the stock of MAUI long -term housing, increasing the offer by 13%.
Opponents wondered if local residents could afford the condos in question, noting that many of the buildings in which they are aged and that their units are delivered with high mortgages, insurance payments, maintenance and special assessment costs.
Alicia Humiston said that her condo is in a hotel area, so he will not be affected. But she predicted that the measure will harm cleaning women, plumbers, electricians and other owners of small businesses who help maintain vacation rentals.
“This is not the best for the community,” said Humiston, president of the rentals by the association’s awareness owner.
Bissen proposed legislation last year after survivors and forest fire activists camped on a popular beach from tourists to demand the change.
Projected impact of the measurement
The study of the University of Hawaii said that only 600 new homes are built each year in the county, so the conversion of holiday rentals would be equivalent to a decade of developing new housing. Condos prices would drop from 20 to 40%, the study estimated.
The report also predicted that a quarter of the housing of visitors to the county of Maui disappear and the spending of visitors were going to flow 15%. He estimated that the gross domestic product would contract 4%.
The mayor said that such an economic analysis had not told a complete story, noting that families are torn apart when high housing costs push parents and cultural knowledge disappears when generations leave Maui.
The mayor told the Council that the bill was part of a wider housing strategy which would include the construction of new housing, investing in infrastructure and the cessation of illegal vacation rentals. He said that there were limits to the quantity of new housing in order to be built due to constraints on water supply and sewer infrastructure.
Tourism would continue to Maui but must do so in a way “which does not hide our neighborhoods,” said the mayor.
The staff of the mayor said that spending on visitors to the members of the Council would decrease with the measure, but most of the decline would be accommodation. Given that 94% of those who have holiday rentals in apartments are not living in Maui, they said that a large part of this income already flows outside the island. They predicted that the county’s budget could resist an estimated drop in $ 61 million in annual tax revenue resulting from the measure.
Lahaina’s forest fire has torn the historic city, Kill at least 115 peopleand leaving only rubble and ashes for blocks. Many residents whose houses burned on the ground have received solicitations of real estate investors outside the island To collect their land.
