seventeen now therefore be it resolved by the mentally planning commission it does hereby express its deepest gratitude and appreciation to poor cantor for her service during the past ten months and is here by extend its best wishes in her future endeavors with the first agenda item is a public hearing for a request from mr allen berman for a state land commission special permit in order to use to farm dwellings with a total of five bedrooms to operate a short term rental home in the state agricultural district on approximately two point zero five eight acres of land located at six eighty st p m k for seven ten personal sixty three units one and berman family to operate a short term mental within the agricultural district now many of you have heard the process before but just to brief you on the process for getting the short term home in the a history the too permits that are required the first one would be the short term home rental permit that's done through a process by notifying all of the neighbors within five hundred feet if there are two short term rental homes already there that triggers a public hearing if there are a number of level of the junctions that meet a threshold then that's a public hearing in this case the applicant sent a notice to all the neighbors in five hundred feet and no triggers for the short term home rental application part of this were in place that being said therefore if this property were located outside of the district the department could have administratively given this applicant a short term home rental permit therefore that brings us to today because it's in the state district it's required that the applicant then file for a special permit and since this is under fifteen acres the planning commission acts as the land use commission in determining whether this is an unusual reasonable use of the short term rental use within this particular property there are five criteria which are explained in the report by which this commission reviews this particular permit that being said the request is for the use of to do all ngs with a total of five bedrooms there is a main farm dwelling and then there is a two bedroom cottage the rural growth boundaries so should this property has been already in the future be rezoned to rural then this special permit process would not have been required i will indicate by way of a complete record this gap was issued notices for violations for the operation of short term home rental and the council and i believe that the applicants and i believe testify or today will explain that process in far more depth however the counsel in passing their revised georgia moment ordinance believe that people who were cited for operation without a permit should be given a rigorous test of going through a number of different steps in order to be able to come and apply for a short term and legally the applicant has complied with all of these they did apply by the end of last year that was the cutoff date for th they have paid the fines that were required from the department of planning and they also paid a considerably higher short term home rental application fee so they are in compliance with the provisions of the ordinance that did allow for this amnesty i think this may be the only one that you've ever seen that applies under this ordinance provision now i believe there might have been one or two others that have been administratively approved because the special permit you're seeing in this particular case i believe for the first time critical to reviewing an application for a special permit is whether or not the applicant has an approved farm plan  consultants just by way i know the count of the committee likes to know there are currently according to the record sixty five short term home mental approvals and less mowing the the lid on that is eighty so to be very clear what's before the commission today is only the state special use permit because we're located in the in the agricultural district and as kurt stated lonia poco is in the rural growth boundary although it  still is agricultural zoning but should some day lonia poco be rezoned rural which most folks kind of agree that that's the right designation for this for this area then we wouldn't be before you today because the short term rental home permit has met all of the criteria and specific to what kurt was talking about with respect to the amnesty program there is a provision in our short term rental home ordinance that says if you previously operated you cannot come forward to apply for a permit for a period of five years so you get banned for five years so when the council reviewed the the ordinance for a second time they came up with  a program where if the person showed that they were paying proper g e t n t eighty taxes during the time that they previously operated if the applicant did not take a homeowner exemption if the applicant agreed to pay real property taxes at the rate that would have applied if they had a permit during the period that they operated without a permit which meant in nineteen in two thousand and thirteen that meant hotel rate taxes and then in two thousand and fourteen in two thousand and fifteen it meant commercial rate taxation and paid a higher application fee and made amends for any past transgressions that is paid any taxes and he finds that were issued then they restored their ability to make application in this applicant has met all those criteria to the tune of about twenty four thousand dollars in these these fees and fines and so forth in order to have his ability to come before you and we do have the tax clearances for for that here as well these states special use permit criteria is different then the criteria that that set up for a short term rental hold permit and i'm going to go through that criteria and how i believe we meet that in just a second but first i just want to point out that when this permit would be issued it would carry with the conditions from the short term rental home conditions and that these conditions are up here this isn't a complete list of them but the most important ones are up here which is each wehling must be rented to a single party that the maximum occupancy of the main house is six yes because it is a three bedroom house and its two guests per bedroom it's allowed and they maximum occupancy in the cottage would be four yes because it's a two bedroom cottage all parking is required on site there's a rule of strict rule that there's no parties or group gatherings only registered guests are allowed on the property and that there's quite hours from transferable only upon death of the applicant it can be transferred to immediate care who's a family member is the only transferability that it's built into that permit so getting to the state special use criteria that's before you today the first of those criteria and perhaps the most important one is that the proposed use is not contrary to the objectives of h r s to a five h r s to a five is the state statute that governs uses  agricultural district and basically they want to make sure the agricultural district is being used for agricultural uses here in maui county we ensure that through the use of a farm plant and the farm plan must show that at least fifty percent or a majority of the land is being used for agriculture this started in two thousand and four that's when the county started implementing this this requirement for farm plant many many properties thousands of properties were developed prior to two thousand and four and were built with no farm plans whatsoever then when someone wants to come forward to get a permit they have to establish a farm plan and have it inspected this applicant when he built the original house while the farm plan and when he built the cottage had that farm plan inspected for implementation and that was more than ten years ago and it passed the house and specific to this farm plan acre fruit orchard containing more than eighty seven fruit bearing plants and this is an aerial view of this property and you probably can't read it from here but each of those those color designations indicate the plant that is in that area and what's there and i just want to kind of highlight what's there there's thirty banana plants six piaa trees eight mango trees that's the eighty seven fruit bearing plants and you can see from from this picture that the majority of this lot is being used for agricultural use there's a few more pictures here of the orchard specifically and yes it's a very statically pleasing orchard but it is a productive orchard and the fruit that this right here in front of b is fruit that was picked today from this orchard and we welcome anyone here to partake of this  what the appleton has been doing with his fruit is he has been donating the fruit to a company called aloha blue charters charters takes people out on snorkeling tours in a whale watch tours and so forth and there's a letter in your package there from the owner of aloha loot charters collins and i'm sad to say that was supposed to be here today to give testimony to this regard and quite unexpectedly passed away just last month for suddenly and he can't be here but the applicant will continue to make these donations to a little charters to tim's partner in that business the second criteria that the state special use permit needs to be evaluated under is that the proposed use would not adversely affect surrounding properties and i want to point out that when the council made the short term rental ordinance the were very careful to constrain it to make sure that it wasn't creating an impact any greater than any other residential use and it is defined in sound codes as a residential use the quiet hours t limit on the number of guests and the whole parking on site oftentimes i hear these these properties referred to as hotels and there really is no comparison between short term rental home and a hotel in that the folks coming here it's always just one party and they're typically staying for a week or more when they come in there's not an in and out there's there are no commercial activities that go along with this so it is defined as a residential use in your package and on top today you'll find support letters from three of the immediate neighbors and three more support letters from three other owners of properties in the neighborhood and one just take a second to point out where these letters of support came from and so forth if you look at the map shown here on the right hand side it shows the applicant's property and the stars that are surrounding it the two on top and the one on bottom are from the immediate those next to mr ratterman lives eric scott fitzgerald who also provided the letters port so the very immediate neighbors have all voiced their support for this application and i hope you take the time to read those letters because they're really well thought out and they and they they speak to the character of the of the applicant there's three other letters that are in the neighborhood from folks in the neighborhood as well couple blocks away and three blocks away and i think one of the writers one of those letters is here to give testimony as well ok so the third special use criteria is that the proposed use will not unreasonably burden public agencies to provide roads streets water drainage school improvement improvements police and fire protection and we have enough a lot of short term rentals operating today and we really have no evidence that any of them have caused a greater need for any of these services in fact we do have to recognize that there are times when short term rentals have no one in the place is vacant and therefore there's no no need for most of these services in this particular case there's been no reports of police calls to this property the fourth criteria is that unusual conditions trends and needs have arisen since the district boundaries and rules were established and many county updated it code in two thousand and eight and again in two thousand and twelve to recognize the changing travel demands of visitors to maui and created the bed and breakfast in short term rental home ordinances to address this however the rules of the last criteria is a determination as to whether the land is unsuited for permitted uses in the district this would be the case of some properties where either there is no soil it's just all rocks or they're on a slope that's so severe that it couldn't be legitimately used for agricultural uses in this case the applicant makes no claim that the land is unsuited for uses in the district in fact he points out that he is using it for agriculture has a one acre fruit orchard but is notable that it took quite a bit of effort to create that orchard it wasn't a matter that this was level ground that was fertile soil that he was able to put the trees in the one condition of the short term of the s u v and also the short term rental home ordinance is the continuation of these agricultural uses i think it's very important to recognise this because while we have the farm plan that says people have to establish a farm plan and implement that farm plan before they can build their second dwelling they don't have anything that ensures that they continue that farm land when you grant someone one of these permits they do have to continue that and every time the permit gets renewed they have to show the planning department that they are continuing their agricultural uses so this is one way where this permit helps ensure that we are furthering the agriculture in the agricultural district notice of application as curt said was sent out to the thirty six property owners within five hundred feet and during the forty five day notice period no objections were received a notice sign was placed in front of the property during that notice period also during that notice period the applicants invited neighbors to an open house at their property they sent out the invitation that you see on the right to all their neighbors within five hundred feet and about a dozen of their neighbors that come and they told them what they were intending to do here and they got a lot of support from their neighbors and finally notice of this public hearing was sent to the adjacent neighbors which is the requirement for the special use permits and was published in the maui news on july third in the area there are some other short term rental uses that have been permitted there is one permit is bed and breakfast that is nearby it's not within five hundred feet but it's nearby in this particular neighborhood and there are three other short term rental homes with state state special use permits that were granted by this commission and for reference this particular neighborhood this part of of lonnie poco is approximately one hundred  sixty lots the permit that this body you not it was fully rancid to helen hunt in september of two thousand and fifteen is really the most similar to this particular applicant's application the homes are almost identical the fruit orchard area is almost identical except for one primary thing and that is this free orchard has been maturing for about the last ten years and is producing fruit the one that helen hunt planted and was just in just before the council the commission commission consider that application and i'm not sure if it's producing fruit yet but this one has  demonstrated preproduction i do want to point out that there was a facebook post made and the property was identified in that facebook post as this property and it was not and i recognise that in there are many properties up there that aren't complying with the agricultural groups i think that we can see that this property is one that is complying with with the agricultural rules and i hope that th particular hearing doesn't turn into a referendum either on the agricultural rules or agricultural subdivision or whether we should have short term rentals there but rather just on this applicant's application for this morning allison harney on living money a program and the testament of jay's going to change a little from the president wonderful situation but i didn't tell you that i did go along with your rules that forty five day criteria send a letter in i sent a letter and two letters recently news which i'm sure i'm talking to the choir here but that mary is projected to have shortage of thirteen thousand nine hundred forty nine units within ten years we don't have enough places for workers or people as we know it is unrealistic to think that  and the biggest thing it made me even think about this for this meeting is when i met these people it was heart wrenching what they're going through to find someplace to live for their families i mean they're in these kind of mediums would like to have families and  and you know things like that and and that's what made me really when i went to rent cars or really made me become passionate about getting places i mean we could rent cars probably three four five times more in short term rentals but if i felt just my obligation to the community to keep rentals available and really nice family right and also when i move to the new poco i feel it's my obligation to my neighbors to keep it real true ag land and i had planned it's so unique because you know edition to have fruits and vegetables to give to your neighbors and take into work and everything else you know you'll have on our web site there's a friendly go to my backyard who's a blog too which is charming living on ag land and i would like to keep it that way so and  then the other thing is we when we first moved to campus mary went to capital and that's all short term legal condominiums and then we moved always decided to live here full time low in the pili which does not have short term rentals but just a lot of illegals so then resident of the community i would like to have the right to stay in this community as is designated i think we should worry about our people more so i'm going to use a term i hear constantly in our paper about california people making rich people richer thank you missioner robinson i ponder isn't this true name in the beginning allison allison and i just like to say thank you for your thoughts thank you for realizing that in part of the community is actually being part of the community and not living somewhere else and have somebody else  thank you very much fire francine now  know i know i'm here to speak on behalf of the residents and the people of mali who have issues with short term cation rental la nina poco is another area of invasion for vacation rental educating myself with sale of land not to our people but to people who come to visit and turn it into a vacation rental spot troubles me to know and you know it's always nice to put up our point and to show what you're doing i caught the point where they offer fruit to a tour group i mean you're offering it to tourists not to your residence and not to people but this bothers me and i'm sorry that i don't live in that area where i can visually see what's going on like she just testified but the whole point of this island turning into a vacation rental island we're not going to be called molly island anymore but the cation mental island we're going to lose a lot so for you as people that make decisions i urge you to make the right decisions to be aware of what's going on on your island rules that you set in place that you contradict each other  my name is don couch i'm speaking on behalf of myself just to remind you guys i served as chair of the county council planning committee when the short term rental ordinance which is  county code one thousand point six five was originally established and again two years later when it was amended the council intended for this permit to help better regulate and control short term mental uses heard about illegal uses and  there was really no way to enforce on this we put in some rules to allow for enforcement these unregulated uses were were occurring and have been occurring for many years without proper permits or zoning to legally allow such uses we had all hoped that the property owners who wish to make use of these permitting process would do so not a lot now you heard about this turning in and it's so hard to follow but the maui island turning into short term rental homes out of fifty five thousand units of residential unit only four hundred we have a cap of four hundred that are allowed for short term mental homes and a cap of four hundred four bed and breakfast so there's a really small percentage really small percentage the other thing that i need to talk about is we asked for when we came back around the revisit of this ordinance we gave the people who were not in compliance one more chance to come into compliance and we were hoping everybody would do that that's generally what the planning department does if they find violators they want them to come into compliance that's what we tried to do here these folks i'm not saying whether or not apparently this is the first one of the ones that came into compliance that have to come before you the issue here though is a special use permit which list of criteria that needs to be met there so i just encourage you to take a look at all of the facts yes we do have a housing shortage we definitely do  iffy and some of the psalms you know ok sorry few minutes anyway if you have any questions i'm here to answer them just i want to make sure you guys separate the issues and this is what we asked for councils people to come in and pay their fair share of taxes thank you prior sent letters to the council when you were there asking for moratorium to b s to be clear on things and we had a paid consultant earlier tried to describe what the council's agenda was and what they were trying to do and it's great that you're here so that we don't have to take a third party's opinion but the question is was it was your vote always unanimous in numbers in in in in thought process of what the council trying to do with  interests actually no there was never where there were some unanimous votes but yeah there are some people that have concerns but that's why we have the representation form of government we have is to try and make sure everything fits for everybody which is really hard to do but you know there were there were some the as far as i remember and i don't recall it every being close maybe a couple that didn't want to be that there's protest letters that there wouldn't be an automatic short term rental permit correct if there we put in some criteria and that's that's the interesting thing you bring up hopefully if i don't want to step too far out of the bounds of this thing but part of the situation was look there's going to be people complaining sometimes it's neighbor against neighbor just a frivolous complaint this body has been very good at ferreting out those frivolous complaints i'm not saying that this one is or is not but we put a threshold if if you have an issue we've seen these people come to our office our offices all the time saying this this neighbor is bad and when you when you work work through all the noise and everything it is just personality conflicts not really things that are happening in the neighborhood but if there is something that a preponderance of neighbors around say that this is this is what's happening generally this body has been for years very good at weeding that out and that's what we put up we said this in the committee over and over again that we trust the planning commission to come up with whether or not the complaints are frivolous or or is it a percentage thing i mean is is is is one is one is one oppose not enough to to take a neighbor seriously does it have to be a preponderance of letters on both sides we did say yes that there needs to be a preponderance if you have a single one that certainly that didn't trigger coming to you i think it was to the joining neighbors or with a certain amount within so many next adjoining we did say if there's enough which is only a couple in that near vicinity then there's something that needs to be discussed in l public hearing that's why we wanted to bring it to you but we said if there's one generally if it was a real bad issue there would be a lot of complaints as opposed to just one even if it's a letter coming in i mean people coming in the testify is really good as you all know but in a letter if you get letters from everybody around saying these guys are bad apples then it would be up to you to disarm and yes or no we had one if i may the very first short term mental done under this was the impetus for all the rules we have because it was a bad apple but this commission said we'll give you one year if you even blink ron your permit is this guy has become the model renter if you will he will not have allowed people with loud parties or anything go there i guess the question is is how do you guys think about that four hundred you think it's going to be splatted around or you think it's going to be because we have plush you know and that's you know there's there's there's areas where people prefer to read and so we have clusters we have nine inside llewyn area but then we have clusters in different areas and we have another topic today where we have fifteen to twenty and once in one single property we discuss that quite a bit and for instance mccann the coastline in the can that's going to be where there's should be i mean i actually think that that might be we should have a zoning category called resorts or whatever and that should just be well we have a you would have to change your single family home to a hotel district and it's really difficult to do if you want to do a single family home into a small permitted uses versus change zoning on that in that case morning done morning for being here and actually be able to shed some light on some of that we guess about how many years was it that the council wrestled with the estuaries ordinance well there was no s t r a charges for a long time it was it all ended up being been bred for us and there was a bed and breakfast ordinance that they've tried for years and they finally came out i think in two thousand and eight somewhere around there with the bed and breakfast or ordinance the next thing was short terminals and there's a distinction short term mental homes are homes that the owner is not there so that it looks like i don't know why they would do that but that never came up and that still wasn't allowed so in my first year i think they said that they were going to they want to do it and i had  a an item when i first came in so what we did is we got the people for and the people against in a room we put them in a room and gave them some food and said you guys work it out and they did for  working on it hours and hours of testimony in other testimony public hearing groups charette to be to use we had a lot i mean all of that is so there was a tremendous amount of who were vocal for and against they finally came up with a compromise and and said this is a fair law that we can move with you know we had to make some tweaks because we had more people come in from the public and discuss almost like groundbreaking type of ordinance nation why have the caps how is it that you guys sort of team up with the caps and why we came up with the cast because that's what the bed and breakfast we said we did not want the island to be overrun with short term metals and bed and breakfast and we said there are caps are the established they discussed them let's just make them the same it's still a small percentage in less than a tenth of a percent didn't do the math at the top of my head but it's a very small percentage so that we didn't get overrun the issue was we wanted to make people to come into compliance and give the department to enforce that's another issue that we can deal with at a different time but at least we have that ability now to do that in the department is doing as much important as they as they can i've had people come clean complain to and i got this letter and said well you didn't follow the law now you've got five years you get awa ok i'm back on so quick history these kind of activities were disallowed on all of them in order to maintain the ag immune tory of line and to discourage non bonafide i get to these on a glenn recognizing that hotel accommodations in are very limited some time ago the counties were allowed to create but in practice in the case in rentals however times have changed there is a substantial amount of hotel room in winter in there appears to be clear abuse of these activities the property owner is asking for a special use permit in order to operate short term  the twenty fifty sustainability plan was published which made mention that what you did not have enough egg line to be self sustaining that was ten years ago i grant innovate you have been scooped up because it's cheaper than urban and used for in development these people would expect  systems are making a killing in more and more ways and one short term rental homes permit it under nineteen point six five of this code provided on an approved farm town house has to be fully implemented crates here for their permit also considers pas as community complaints which we know has been an issue with other home owners in that area so even though this home run home owner has a farm time the creator for the permit must take into account the community complaints unfortunately not withstanding county line use ordinances that prohibit their operation in certain areas illegal short term vacation rentals have proliferated throughout the state such a vacation rentals may have removed much needed units from there is an issue residential rental market i think that's exacerbated the rise in housing costs that now exceed what many see red residents are able to afford without meaning for enforcement of county line use laws the potential impact of illegal short term vacation rental operations on the long term housing market will remain under arrest even though there may be permits available there is a serious housing cri on your hands out of the fifty fifty five thousand homes a recent study indicated that there is about ten thousand eagle short term rentals on maui and you can reach out to all the cochrane staff they had reached out they had a software company that specializes in looking at all the different of the kitchen rental sites and that's the number that they came up with you can reach out to her office for more more information you know you have the part to stop issuing these permits into adequate inforced measures or e urge you to stop issuing these permits until such time because we are in a serious dire need of more rental housing on molly malo and for the record i was the one that put out that facebook post that is probably me i posted a picture and i'd be happy to show it to you but it's just an example of what's taking place in law in your book where majority of the line is being used for homes and there's no i to be happening whatsoever so just kind of wanted to put that out there about whether maui is known as being a short term rental vacation and i think the biggest concerns of the planning board and i may be speaking out of turn is that maui becomes the hotel island you know not the short and  the planning board allows to happen to this island with the thirty six thousand acres that are no longer in sugar so about the future of now we understand people want to have a short term application approved i think to the planning board i speak to i beg of you to save this island from development by a and b and make sure that the agricultural land on this island is used for agriculture so that now it can be self sustainable  and supporter as to arch application appeal they will be you know they they farm i'm very familiar with many of the hundred sixty lots up there these guys clearly practice agriculture and have been for over ten years and they do give fruits and vegetables to neighbors and fundraisers and schools also not just to  is a privilege and not a right and would always continue to respect that and to operate in a way that is respectful to our neighbors and abide by the rules that go along with the permit my wife and i actually met in maui thirty seven years ago at the airport we were both arriving on our first visit here and were at the baggage claim and reached for the same piece of luggage and thank goodness our luggage looked the same because we fell in love with each other and w was to eventually retire in maui and become full time residents here and would really need a house to be able to accommodate our large extended family from time to time we've own our house now  years and visit with our family several times a year we have continually been expanding our farm planted agriculture and have been donating our fruit mainly to as you've heard  collins charter boat business as well as to neighbors and fundraisers we have been blessed to know our neighbors and respect their privacy and friendship mahalo for your consideration of our some well i think because we have such a large extended family that we sort of need to have that much space to accommodate them so therefore you know we kind of were hoping that we were able hello again commissioners it's been found that the application presented by the berman family for this land use commission's special permit this comply with the applicable standards for an unusual but reasonable use within the state cultural and also in discussions today with regards to criteria for a land use commission special permit that being the case and looking at the preponderance of the testimony that was given in the staff report by  various neighbors looking on balance of the operation the farm plan implementation the department does recommend to the planning commission approval of the a special permit subject to seven conditions  one of the most important is condition seven that the farm plan shall remain implemented throughout the duration of the state special permit and evidence of this implementation should be granted the required upon renewal  shoreline so we don't have to talk about shortening but what's before us right now is a special use permit with five criteria and when i look at these five great syria does this particular application meet what it is before us i long term or not for me is whether or not i should vote in favor of the special rentals i would probably give this more consideration because it was a long term short term i guess i disagree with the findings that this is automatic s t r rates to begin with i think we have adequate complaints opposition i think what's epidemic i state that have landscaping and fat farm spend a farm plan on eating fruit to get a box that in my backyard right now and i have a ten thousand square foot locker you know it's it's it's nothing against the applicant it's a an applicant to have a short term rental they're not here they can rent the home out we don't get it it's a it's a monetary thing and it's good but also monetary is too to rent out the cottage to help supplement from the applicant's testimony to help supplement the control of the orchid and i think that's something reasonable and that's why i farm have second the wellies second dwellings so they can have farmers live rent free and subsidize labor so that farms  workers there's also with the farm there's amount of monetary that they would sell to help provide for a farm were were were farm friendly we want to be farm finished so we have to we have to make sure that the farms on land are used for  keep on turning into landscaping we can keep on turning to short term rentals because that's the opposite of what our intent was as a planning and i don't think it has the criteria for for being a professional farm i only one of the things i guess i just did want to speak to in regards to the motion was  regards to the applicant being you know the first person i mean what they're doing is they're there they're doing what the law says they should do they got caught they're operating illegally and quite honestly that's not good but the wisdom of the law says ok you get caught we're going to we're going to give you the opportunity to do what's right and to make it legal and they jump through all the hoops and they spent all the money t they like ok yes we got caught we did it wrong but now we're going to come forward and i think that it's also important for us as these numbers start as we start getting closer to the four hundred and this becomes more of an issue and as the department starts to squeeze and start really enforcing you know you got the new money from the council to be able to do enforcement as and enforcement ramps up we're going to start seeing more and more of these people they got caught and then they're going to try to do what's right and so that part of it is is i think also something that i just in regards to this particular application and this particular land use permit i just think i want to be able to just international colony club which is located in the or three residential district at twenty seven fifteen collop who drive these would be units twenty two twenty nine thirty eight and forty five which are located at p m k numbers four for six of these would have their own permit should they be granted for the units as indicated by the deputy director just to give you a back history aug eleventh two thousand and seventeen meeting  here extensive review of these applications powerpoint presentation department presentation and staff report were reviewed after due deliberation  the commission voted to defer this matter to a future date that date being the closing date to one hundred twenty days therefore that today being a hundred nineteen day under the hundred twenty day rule that the commission needs to make a decision on a project at the april eleventh two thousand and seventeen meeting there was no ability of the commission to get five votes either way therefore should today's meeting result in something similar then it's my understanding that the applications would be approved i did not copy as i gave you the hyperlink to the application before it was requested by the department after listening to some of the testimony and after listening to some of the commissioners for the consultant mitchell to some new information that she's learned to get a sense of the history of this community at the international colony and to update the commissioners as needed the reason we had the hearing in the first place is not because there were triggers the protests there are there that protests did not make any trigger for this hearing it was because there are indeed other short term home rentals within five hundred feet in fact with an international colony  good morning commissioners my name is debbie mitchell and here representing four owners at the international colony club which is located in west maui course it's the area lined in red and then just across the street is the aft maui the royal highness in the west and village across the street to the north is the coffee cup excuse me chronically coffee plantation and the old sugar cane train station this is the layout of the development there are forty five cottages located here on approximately ten acres and as you see i've kind of  the cottages in green for those have already been granted their permits and those in pink are the ones that are requesting their permits at this meeting just some views around so you can understand the area this is just directly to the west and it's the end main entrance to the north kona probably beach area facing east going up the hill to kind of pull hillsides and the coffee farms as well as the new hospital that's being built up there gold street and facing south you see the old railroad tracks of the sugarcane train again to the north is the sugar train station itself they got it running up for christmas this year it was good to see it again and miss that going by and again this is the entrance to the resort area there  in north pole and each golf course crosses the border several times of the property so very much kind of separated from the rest of the housing developments by the golf course itself so it is really kind of an island unto itself this is a little aerial shot taken from the ocean and you can see the large resorts there and then just up at the top left is the international places located throughout the two ten acres this is the main parking lot and then there are four additional parking lots and there are adequate parking prove the ordinance so that each resident has t parking spaces as required that are not on street there within the parking lot you'll see street parking but that is not the residence party this is a general for planned they are all very similar  in way out there are three bedrooms and as well as two bedrooms and those are the there aren't any that differ from that city there are nice tidy around a thousand square feet of living  you can see the pool and there are actually two pools on the landscaping that is quite mature interiors showing the bedrooms the nice and light the files follow the plantation style  living and as i was looking through i wanted to find something that showed when this came into existence what was happening in west maui when  found the university of hawaii i found an aerial view of the old kaanapali airport and you'll see from the red line you'll see that's the beginning of the genesis of the first section of international colony club as it was being developed as the rest of the resort area was being developed in here these are a couple of promotional materials that i found from the era showing the location of the comet probably airport and on the bottom one at the very lower left corner jewel see the international calling called out and on the top it's at the top right so in their resort materials that they were handing out to folks this was called out as part of the resort community again these are postcards from that era as well that show the initial building of cottages there and they mention maybe daily maid service they mentioned rental service to the point these were built as part of the rental make a sion area these were built as rental units big cation rental units as again was another one that talks about the putting greens and  shuffleboard and begin to churn and maid service the house and ground rules that have been given out for years that it alls talk about renters and short term renters and provide rules for those so a little bit of history about why you were were talking about these separately regionally ordinance called the short term ordinance calls for one permit protect parcel number and this is indeed one tax parcel number but all these folks had been living in these units and renting them because they thought that was what they were told that was what was legal for them they paid the highest tax they chose the hotel tax they pay that tax they paid the gnc a taxes as well they all thought they were legal when the ordinance paper around and one of them tried to apply they found out we were the only ones to get it so didn't have the records to do the grandfathering so this was the way we had to go so that's what it was done with that in mind that it was always a rental area before applicants here you can see these  are shown at the last presentation there mixture of local residents part time residents and frequent visitors they are all new applicants some have owned but never rented but they decided to apply a while before the permits ran out i did a little work because last time it was an important bit of information for you as why these were not suitable for affordable winter and there i just did a little study the the main reason is that there they pay eleven hundred dollars a month in management fees in maintenance fees so i looked at each of the four units i gave you the assessed value which is lower than the market value obviously and the current market units that are on the market are those three i did a little calculation for you just did some round numbers and you can see the eleven hundred dollars mean at sea so the break even cost for the owner without utilities without repairs without maid service or landscaping any of that is almost thirty eight hundred dollars a month so i just wanted to there that although these are small and they're still there are a great respect expense to the owner so to provide them as long term housing it may push it out of that affordable area for folks to to be able to maintain in fact two of my owners has said if they have to mean the long term they will have to sell because it doesn't bring in enough to cover their expenses so just for what it's worth all the neighbors in five hundred feet were notified about the permit and the department has to add in the maui news we did have one protest from a neighbor that should be in your packet it was a gentleman that mistook the location  for area down into the world golf course that was quite some ways away it was obvious from his letter that he was not talking about he was talking about it being right on the ocean and so we did try to call him we wrote him letters as i mentioned the last time he agreed that it was the wrong place but he did not provide us with a track he did not retract but we did contact him with the nation there are actually twenty two other permit within five hundred feet there eighteen already in the international call and of itself and then up a couple up a place there are three other short term rentals and one b in b so that that is the story with that just a little justification the owners on every case want to maintain these homes for their own use they have kids the have family members and people that they would like to come and stay and if they have a long term injury and there that that doesn't work out for them it makes them not be able to use the property the maintenance fees again being so high thirty five hundred a month it would be that they would be in losing money if they were to bring it down to that level and the last it is always been assumed that the short term rentals were ok they were sold with that in mind so when people bought they just assumed that that was what they were able to do that's why they paid the high hotel tax rate and finally it was a part of the resort community that is designed by an fac and therefore considered part of that resort that was built up again you talk about clustering but you see there are going to be four homes planted in west now we at least these fo a community that already doing this and they are it's not spreading them out through places neighborhoods where that might trouble the other neighbors this is in a neighborhood that's already functioning that wa so thank you very much i appreciate if you have any questions for me please let me know if you have this time of the or for public testimony from our first test fire francine condos not to our people but to people who come here to visit and turn it into a vacation spot troubles me to no end the question is what are you doing for our people  is being sold off to the highest bidder no longer affordable for any residents to keep their home and their last option is to become homeless you have laws and guidelines for you to follow that contradict itself zoning ag land bed and breakfast shoreline use i think this board needs to challenge the planning department in their submitting bills applications etc also the enforcement of illegal usage they need to develop a plan to check on these rentals instead of waiting for an r f s not too many of our residents know of this form or even know how to say a long one i believe that an owner should they're here for at least ten years before they put an application in for short term rental regardless of the house was built five years or more we need strict laws in place of our molly island or our molly ireland will be on vacation rental island with no residence no culture no people of this i know no homes for your children your children's children will have no legacy to hand down to  reason people are dane you to make decisions for us i urge you to make the right decisions today god is given us a beautiful place to live and malema and that beauty is whether you like sure to read also or you don't like short term and you should be in favor of this application because this application is as debbie said our properties that have been short term rentals since their inception essentially by granting these permits all you're really doing is reducing the cap the numbers that are available for any other home to be a short term rental when this before this issue came up at international colony club twenty nine of the forty two units were paying the hotel taxation that means these individual owners were raising their hand saying yes i'm i'm using this for short term rental and i'm told that i'm supposed to pay a hotel taxation and they said they would do that so when this change in the ordinance came about that allowed individual condominium owners to make their own individual epic asians i figured what we would end up with is twenty nine applications that come in as it turns out we have twenty two i'm not sure what the other seven have decided to do whether they decided to stop operating or whether they just are waiting to see what happens with these guys but the bottom bottom line on this is this is really a subdivision in our three zoning that it's not a subdivision actually it's one are three zoning law and that from its very inception from the time that it was built hundred sixty four was built specifically for this use and essentially just ranting those people the proper way by today's zoning laws to allow it to legally exist i'm sure all these people were shocked in there when they found out that they had been renting for twenty plus years and that it wasn't in concurrence with with our law so the council took took the opportunity to fix the law and do this but again  whenever in the late sixty's early seventy's or early eighty's i can't remember when they changed the laws the zoning laws to disallow transient vacation rentals as you saw this whole complex was already built for short term reynolds there were other areas that the council during the planning commission committee that i was chair  we kind of took that these places were built for that specific purpose pool munna we made it was so convoluted designing and whatnot so we basically said ok it was built for short term allowed in west maui so we're not going to make the whole island nothing but vacation there's only eighty eight allowed in west maui this will take if you use all twenty nine as mr foley said this will take up twenty nine of those eighty eight so they can't be elsewhere i'd like to correct some things annecy period for people coming in is over it's done if they operated they can't do it for another five years there is mention of ten thousand illegals vacation rentals there's a software that the company i discussed with in the planning committee said they came up with about twelve thousand units without permits we're advertising for vacation rentals well ten thousand of the approximately ten thousand of those are condominiums that are in areas that allow transit vacation on the west side and a few places over there and certainly on the south side all of those don't require permits so this oscar looks and says oh they're advertising they don't have a permit they're illegal that is not true about ten thousand units are legal they don't need permits and therefore they don't need to put their permit number in the advertising because they don't have the permit number so that's the other thing there was concern about agricultural land as agricultural land going away twenty seven thousand of the thirty six thousand acres of a two nest former a c s land are designated important ag land what that means is there can be no sorry man there can be it has to stay in ag for ever unless the state legislature by a two thirds vote of both houses reverses that important ag land so just so you know we are not going to build maui we have a maui island plan that says where we can build and where we can we work really hard on that now and plan to make sure that there's no building in the ag lands that we want to continue as ag thank you seven thousand of them are considered designated important ag land and it would and it would be hard for any town and council if the state legislature decided to take it out for any county council to  pull it out and what becomes of the meaning if they're outside of the plan they still have to either come in for a general plan amendment which is very difficult as well i believe that has to be a tutor i can't remember now for the urban growth boundaries there is they would have to get a change in that so it's a huge process it's not just going to be are we can build houses  here six and a half years and probably going back far before that you've seen many many many applications whether it's s t or h or whether it's the state special permit needed on ag land for an f t spent on this one issue is phenomenal if we spend that kind of time and energy trying to solve before we probably wouldn't have an affordable housing problem that being said if it's for us to administer this thing and to enforce it we have to look really carefully at the criteria that's in the code that the council adopted whether we like it or not whether we agree with it or not that's what we have to follow and we make our coming for you you might look at and not like it for whatever reasons you may have but i'm just asking you please understand our recommendations are based on the criteria in the law and we try to administer it administer them as grandfathering works is if you establish it when it's lawful and it continues uninterrupted then it's grandfathered in even if the law changes midstream and doesn't allow that use anymore we've had to grandfather many times of uses countywide whether it's business user or what ab you and we try to be as consistent as we can with the documentation needed to establish grandfathering we were unable to have that continuous documentation for this property if we had been able to do that and i believe that was the case we just were unable to verify it that we would have established this as a as a cation grandfathered since we were unable to do that then they have to come through the us to return to process and from the planning departments perspective any minister ing along with the caps that is done described and this becomes where where where the commission has a role is are there areas that are appropriate for them and are there areas that are not and we do believe that this is a resort area as part of a resort area we felt that it was appropriate for this concentration of short t properties that just mr jack maybe there's only just number forty five has been in his family for years using as their family property and recently he is the only living member of the family and he has his business and everything in seattle washington but he wanted to once he heard what was happening decided he would like to join in the other three are new department good morning missions again the recommendation based upon additional information that we would have received in today's powerpoint continues the recommendation prov i move to approve as recommended by staff rent and that's one way to look at it but i look at it differently and you know we we always seem to look to to look toward the monies of today we have a plan but we don't want to keep a glance as we want to turn it over to make it possible to put a commercial or a housing or we don't want to change the hotel because it is hotel so we want to turn back over to access always it's always for the money so there's a reason why things change and things don't change this was an opportunity i thought for things to change for the better we had a we had the cost of thirty five hundred dollars to rent a unit well people purchase because they get a pass the duction and that would've been twenty four thousand dollars tax deduction which which would bring their cost down in their paper be eight hundred to two thousand a month net which i think is affordable but these applicants also bought this home and they're buying it because now it's their seventeen other people as a short term rental and we saw the prices those sets was four hundred thousand another selling for six hundred to seven hundred thousand and this is the crux of what's happening in mali where our housing is becoming all price for people to buy it we could have bought it four years ago if this didn't have a short term rental locals could have bought these properties they could live in it it could have afforded eleven hundred dollars but they can't because they keep being priced out from people who don't want to live here but people who want to use money for a profit and like the deputy said it's we so much time with the short term until instead of fixing the housing if we just give a moratorium and just ban them altogether we wouldn't have to waste all this time it doesn't mean that nobody could ever use their house for rental but we could do a pas on it which is what this commission asked for from the council a few years ago which we got no reply for and so we're continually come in again and again but can you please approve this because we think this and we think that but it's not fixing anything there's a cap there's not a minimum we don't need to give eighty eight permits so we're allowed to give up to eighty eight and to the council wants to move it to a higher number but it's not a minimal i'm not for the second i understand that mr mathers had this unit for a long time and which means he's only paid in eleven hundred dollars a month which means he could rent it all for fifteen to two thousand and still make some money off of it and he could still rent it off for six months at a time i don't think there's a need for these people to have it i understand the theory of well you know what if you don't want to have people renting out two million dollar homes nobody's going to rent that although probably the four to six these are the ones these are the ones that i want to protect these are the ones we should have protected and unfortunately it didn't happen and then i supported this thank for the record in speaking to the motion i'll just go ahead and when we approved when this body approved seventeen last year i went on the record and stated my reasons why we missed particular application these came before us a couple of months ago went on the record and stated why and so i'm not going to restate those positions but just stand let the record show that i stand on those positions i also want the motion is to approve the short term rental home term and subject to the twenty two conditions in the staff  of what is required required in the code so those are going to be applied to these applicants even if it isn't in a commission approved  action i don't know there are there are numerous requirements listed in the code and i have to do a side by side to compare which of those end up in the get but that's where the conditions came from  the the rules give me the conditions that we lay out in our permits whether they're administratively approved or whether they are approved by the commission are identical what we put in our administrative approval letters are the same conditions that we recommend to the commission and sometimes the commission adds to those or make changes to your identical as they go forward and those were taken from chapter nineteen point six five that the county code to go individually so to say that everybody's in this in this community is is for short term mental i think it's some assumption it's not a guarantee there's not there's not letter supporting it it's for the been a proponent i think it's a mistake and i don't think that way i know the votes are against me but i just think this is another area another cost of the holes in here where it's an opportunity where people could actually live and work and provide for a family in maui and not speak the transit visit and the next item is the directors report the first item is designation of the hon advisory committee to conduct a public hearing and provide a recommendation on a request district boundary amendments from agriculture to rural and a change in zoning from county agriculture to key one public once a public district and additionally a special management carry permit for the no he could community center project  it was a beautiful drive coming up from there and i don't know i've owned property in lower ninety good since nineteen seven the one i want to say first of all that i am in full support of not he who having a community center but i do object to the location of where the planning board where they want to put the put it i believe that the residents of ninety two and the local people in one he killed of a why and answer see ancestry have every right to want to promote and preserve their culture  this beautiful part of the island there is tremendous tradition in ninety two but there are tremendous problems with the location that you're choosing to but they're like this i believe the road to lower ninety two is very narrow dangerous for a particular hit to the traffic i don't know if any of you have been up and down that that road that road just so you know traverses through many private properties so there was no real true legal easement to even get so that he could community center it can be proven that that the lower and i think the road goes to other private land private lands i believe that the community center should be put off the high highway where there is true excess ability to it for all residents of night to and for and for terrorists if there is an emergency why put a community center down lower to sea level if that could be a emergency with a tidal wave it makes no sense to put it down at a low elevation it should be at a higher elevation also as a matter of priorities we have a bridge in one he go over the market the stream which has been closed now for three years i don't know if any of you have walked over that bridge i can supply photographs it's incredibly dangerous terrorists go there all the time to walk to the landing there are  holes in the bridge it's only a matter of time before the county of maui and the state of hawaii are sued because of an accident people trying to cross that bridge so with terms of funds i don't want to get into the argument about funds should go towards the community center or the bridge i believe funds should go towards both i think that he could deserves that the county budget acknowledge the liability that exists for the bridge the the the ninet landing is a community center of sorts that is where people in one hundred who have traditionally always gathered there's very little recreational facilities or parks and low and i hate to so having accessibility to our landing for all crew is of tremendous importance to the community but once again i want to say that i am in full support of their being a ninety two community center i just object to where the location of where it's going to be that i  a community so she ation let's be clear they are for the most part of family run organization that go the board of governors are mostly eighty ninety percent from the same family you know i don't object to what their interests are in having a heated community center but they do not represent the majority of opinion of the lower ninth who residents and i think when you have a public hearing you will find out that many people in low and i think you do not want the community center in that particular location thank you anybody else question test hi my question search for the record of the property that community center we want to put on was i know what they're lending me beyond the bridge saw i just want to say we have followed every step  we needed to take to get back to our community regarding the community center in place of the school which was housing for or not family visitors whatever and we want to give it back to the community in take all with a community center and the property is on the straightaway it has nothing to do wit so i just want to say we've been fighting this not for i should say we've been fighting it we went through a process of it was on the property for the community center back when milly carrol i just want to say that this is why the hon advisory committee this is i think that this is really beyond my own personal knowledge my own personal understanding so i think that it's just important that we go ahead and we allow