committee meeting of december third two thousand and fifteen please come to order my name is don couch i'm the chairperson of the committee and before we get any further can we ask everybody to turn their cell phones on to silent mode so that when it rings we don't hear it and if we do hear it we'll ask who it was and if it was important we've done it before so good idea to check your phones now all right first let's  mclean good morning and gina flamm are money and we have a new corporation counsel we have it was supposed to be jennifer she's out today and mike out doing his public land use commission or public utilities commission i think it's probably utilities commission and so we have a shell thompson that i get that right thank you all right and then of course we have our staff conference was only ordinance relating to short term rental homes we're going to shortly we're going to accept testimony for individuals testifying in chambers please sign up at the desk outside the chamber door if testifying from a remote testimony site please sign up with district office staff testimony will be limited to this item listed on the agenda today pursuant to the rules of the counsel each testify will be allowed to testify for up to three minutes per item the chair will also be allowing an additional minute to conclude testimony and will be using the lighting system that the light will be green for three minutes it will go yellow with one minute left and when it turns red finish your remarks quickly when testifying please trust of the state your name and any organization you may be represented by members without any objection will start with public testimony no objection the first one up to testify as courtney o'keefe followed by deborah have my three long term rental units on maui i'd like to convert one to short term the property i'd like to convert is a cottage on a c p r bottom which i feel is best suited for short term rental for for this cottage i started the application for the short term rental home as permit i was ninety percent complete with my s t r each permit application when i received a letter from the planning department stating that my neighbor one of the other on owners in our r is in violation for operating a s t are each without a permit susceptible to fines and in eligible to apply for the permit for five years i then learn that because i own a property in this same c p r if my neighbor doesn't cease his illegal s t r each operation immediately i am also susceptible to his daily fight worse i am bound to the him eligibility of permit application for five years i feel this rule infringes on the right average of four people per night for eighty percent of the year a rate of three hundred dollars a night would generate roughly eight thousand in t t and four thousand in g t annually it is estimated that these visitors will each spend two hundred six dollars a day which he creates to two hundred forty thousand in annual revenue for the island there is serious demand for accommodation on the north shore if i were planning a vacation to hawaii and now he's never short an offer available rentals in my price range i had to the north shore of oahu before choosing another location on maui because reform this law so that property rates of s t r each applicants are dictated by their actions alone not the actions of others sincerely kelly okey but your members testifier i have are you prepared to answer questions about the situation or you're just reading i'm just reading ok all right thank you i can write down questions and he can rental industry for many years i worked for a local vacation rental company for over ten years every home that this company offered was properly permitted with the county and i understand the value that they  properly permitted i'm now starting a new career in the business and i'm here today because i believe that the changing the current ordinances will allow more homeowners to rant legally and this will been benefit everybody in the community i can tell you the homeowners that i have met over the past few years are all good people renting responsible with consideration for their neighbors and the community these owners don't just let anyone rent their home and what i see in the vacation rental market is regular families who enjoy vacationing together and want to stand private residences rather than a hotel there are a few proposed changes that are fair and will help the current situation however there are some proposed changes that should be revised one is the rule that says homes have to be five years old to apply the age of a home shouldn't determine whether it's a good vacation rental or not another is allowing owners on condominium ice properties to be able to apply for a permit individually it just seems fair and last is the five year ban on the owners who have operated in the past why not allow an amnesty period so they can apply and complete their permits so they can have and operate their homes as a legal bake a sure rental we all want the county oversight because it benefits everyone it ensures that the owners are accountable should there be any issues but it also means jobs and that's thoughts of jobs for the folks that live on maui in closing we live and thrive i visitors ending and whether we like it or not the vacation rentals are what our travelers are wanting in the mallee market i think that more owners on maui should have the right to benefit from this trend responsible and legally and not just limit this to the field thank you for your time thank you mr ross members and the question is the test i have a couple if i don't see any ok on the five your house has to be five years old to apply were you aware that we had a long discussion on that we don't want i understand the thought process behind that because that they do just come in just to build and not be a resident that maybe they five years old maybe that's a little bit too long maybe that can be modified down to a shorter period of time and then on the condominium rise property those folks also for the most part there's a couple exceptions but have the option to subdivide before it was starting to get in force so i'm not sure how much longer it's one of those things we're we gave everybody the chance right right and i do understand that and i think for some of the folks that  know they're prepared their paperwork is ready and it's it's just bringing in more visitors for those properties which will benefit all of this but if there can be some sort of revision on that amnesty to allow them to complete it because the process has been a bit you know taxing and hard but just give those folks a little bit more time to thank your members any further questions they  thank you next is bonnie carpenter followed by  good morning my name is by carpenter i live here on maui thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning i'm here today to voice my sport making rational changes to the current short term rental ordinances because that has hurt my business and many other residents i'm a photographer and home photography is my specialty my photography business has diminished significantly because a lot of my work was for folks wanting nice photos to use to represent their vacation rentals i want to add that the homes that i sho were dream homes for many people is not as though they didn't care about who use them far from it i spent a lot of time and money to make them they spent a lot of time and money make them beautiful and i can tell you that they were rented responsibly  they rented responsibly because they cared so much about them some used the homes a few times a year rented them just a few times a year to cover expenses while others bought them expecting to be able to keep their dream home by being able to rent them i know a lot of average people like us who share our experience and views so it's not as though it's just me standing here please understand i represent many of my neighbors my colleagues and my friends here on island i've also heard from others that a lot of people who already have their permits are the most vocal opponents of change this to me looks like people who want to keep others out so they have a cornerstone on the opportunity and i don't think that looks or sounds very fair in conclusion i hope they will change the laws to make it easier for average people like my  colleagues and my clients to make a little bit extra money on our homes responsibly and legally both by servicing vacation rental homes and by being able to rent their homes and easy change that would greatly affect my business and many i know would be abolishing the rule makes it difficult for two homes within five hundred feet of each other to be permitted thank you for listening thank you members of the questions to the testifier seeing none thank you thank you i want to say good morning good morning counsel and thank you very much for allowing us to speak this morning and thank you to john goodman who wrote back to me last night thank you very much i sent you all not only an e mail of my testimony but also photographs sidewalks it's very country and we like it that way ok so in my testimony i was saying the proliferation of short term rental housing in b and b s is an important issue for us as we all chose to buy homes in this old time well established area over sixty years ago and cherish the quiet and peaceful neighborhood we have created in fact we began the shark neighborhood watch over four years ago to assist the police department in keeping our neighborhood safe from the influx of vandal and ongoing i might add this means we all know each other care about the health and well being of each other and often get together to share news projects garden produce and of course barbecues short term rentals invade our neighborhood as a play get transference was no regard for the culture of friendship pace of life or rules of respect we have established thereby destroying the very fabric of our residential community short term rental still available housing away from the locals who rely on living close to their place of employment think about the cafes and all the shops downtown la you know and there's no place for these people to live short term mental shoot the costs of rent sky high th inflating the markets and making even more unaffordable who can afford to pay eight hundred dollars to forty eight hundred dollars per night to live close to a job that pays minimum wage real ninety percent of new sales are to newcomers not to personally live in but to rent out making maui into their personal now at the expense of our neighbors please protect our neighborhood from this greedy bl not allow any more short term rentals or be in b s within five hundred feet of an existing one in force the laws against illegal rentals and prosecute offenders thank you very much for your time you'll be discussing it next on the agenda thank you thank you members any questions that testify or i do have one you wanted to say that you want to include molokai in whatever whatever it says for ok next to testify is jennifer finlay followed by thomas crawley and so far mr crawley's the last person to sign up to no thank you hello my name is jennifer finley i live in the high end and i'm speaking to you today as i'm out here resident in a small business owner my husband and i have a business that services vacation rentals the difficult process of obtaining a permit and the inability of homeowners that are in good standing to even apply for a permit has been detrimental to our business the demand for our work is not needed like it once was which makes it hard to make ends meet we aren't the only local residents that have been affected by this a friend of ours that has a house has a house cleaning company lost three houses in a one a week because the homes are no longer able to be rented that at five hundred dollars a house that's fifteen hundred dollars a week his company is no longer making we hope and plan to own a home and now some day we've been close a few times but as expensive as it is to live on maui i want to know that if i go to the mainland to visit family i can illegally rent my house out for the time that i'm gone to help cover expenses i don't consider myself a public speaker i'm not the best at getting it for everyone but at this point i'm desperate there needs to be a fair organized town ok thank you for that clarification thank you thank you next to testify is thomas crawley followed by salvador below a chair low committee tom scrolly on behalf of the vacation rental socio we are down to just a few more items that need to be addressed and i'd like to touch briefly on on each of those one of those is the condominium issue that you just heard about and i sent in testimony and i hope that you you have it on your desk explaining that you know the this permit is issued to an individual it's issued to a person it is not issued to a property it is not an ongoing land use right that's the issue to the property it's a use that is given to an individual in much the same way that a condominium is the use of a portion of a property to an individual and the ownership is by an individual so it only makes sense that this permit be granted by condominium owner unit and not by the entire parcel and you heard already heard testimony about the problems that it causes where you where you hold your condo mates responsible for what the others to the second issue is the five hundred foot rule and at the last meeting you had a discussion about what the clustering and what might happen when they get clustered in some cases might that be a good thing in other cases maybe might we want to avoid it and he said well let's let the planning commission decide that but i want to bring you kind of an update on the planning commission's  decision on that at their last tuesday meeting they considered one of these and they were terribly conflicted it was a six million dollars house you guys talked about it on the oceanfront where there were five other short term rentals nearby this was a short term rental area but because some of the planning commissioners basically don't like this use period and they've made their personal feelings very clear on it they wouldn't vote for it so this applicant got deferred for a third time that is three times they came to the planning commission three times the planning commission failed to make a decision either to grant or to deny this particular permit they looked for direction they asked for the county council to give them direction they asked for the they have their corporation council to give them direction they did not want the responsibility to try to determine whether this was a good fit or not the planning commission has has reviewed seventeen short term rental perm it's because they've come to them because either the five hundred foot rule or because of neighborhood opposition of those seventeen they granted seven they denied seven and three are left in never neverland with the folds that means the applicant has to come back a couple months later yet again and again and again and it's just not the way that this should be should be handled i do believe that it would be much more effective to get rid of the five hundred foot rule and allow people to get permits and if those people create problems in their neighborhood as has been discussed or as as a has been feared by some folks then we revoke those permits but what we already know is that the folks who have gotten permits have not created problems in their neighborhood when they are biding by this law that house is it's just a beautiful house in the neighborhood and the owners of that house typically use it themselves and become part of the community as well when they're using it so this fear that they turn into some monster when they get a permit just it's not founded anywhere  i see that my time is up the third issue that we were dealing with over the five year ban issue well catherine i'll tell tell you more about that but i do just briefly want to say on that that there have been people who were operating before we got the ordinance through and they continued to operate but they continued to watch what was going on could they get a permit and now they've kind of now they didn't force me this kicked in the condominium issue what is the i mean i asked this of another testifier about why not if they want to do this if they want to get a short term rental home go through the subdivision process i'm aware of a dozen or so condominium situations and subdivision would not be a option for them for example in the agricultural district where two acre lot is the minimum it's almost become a regular practice that people are building the first and second farm dwelling in one condominium ising them you cannot sub divide that two acre lot to a smaller lot so once in the agricultural division area it's not possible in any way shape or form of the ones that i'm also aware of like the one that you just heard from the lot is too small to be able to sub divide and then keep the wellings that are there so it might be a solution for a very very small number but for the vast majority of these the subdivision is really not an option and i'd also point out that the subdivision process i think you know it's quite complicated see them poor complicated than bit so to start that in say in two or three years down the road you might get subdivided and then you could go forward with the permit just isn't a reasonable solution for many and you mention the five hundred foot rule saying that you know go through if they're within the five hundred feet people go through the process and get the permit and then if there's some issues the neighbors complain then revoke the permit that seems a little too loose for at least for chairs stace what about five if there were if there are complaints not complaints i'm sorry concerns addressed by the neighbors when the notice is given out  that this person is applying for a short term mental home and if they get complaints or concerns from the neighbors they may get sent to the planning commission is that kind of a compromise yeah i may not have expressed it correctly when i when i say the five hundred foot rule because we use the five hundred feet for a lot of things but if neighbors within five hundred feet register complaints ok wired to the application  end at the time of the application ok that there are there are a number ways that can trigger a planning commission hearing then they can go before the planning commission and both can argue their case and the planning commission becomes the the arbiter if you will  that i guess what i was saying was just because there's another short term rental within five hundred feet to then send it to the planning commission and ask the planning commission to determine when is one more too many is a task that the planning commission has been clear they don't want they don't know how to determine that and they they'd like you know that to be taken off of their plate and i will say one other thing that testifier had commented on she said that there couldn't be another one in five hundred feet and as quick question for those of us who know the law we know that that's not the case there can buy another one within five hundred feet they just have to go to planning commission but i will say this i talked to a lot of people who are seeking permits the most misunderstood aspect of this ordinance is exactly that they say well i understand that if my neighbor already got one i can't get one and then i have to explain to the person no that's not true you can go through the process so that in and of itself has been a reason that some folks have not come forward to to get hermit's because they assumed incorrectly that the laws said you can't get a permit because you're within five hundred foot of somebody who did and of course once i explain to them that they can but then the process leads to the planning commission ultimately making the decision perhaps six months down the road and that decision based on what has happened so far is probably fifty fifty at that point they say i'm not sure i want to apply and it's discouraging compliance in general ok members at any further questions one last sorry i want to give members a chance  you talked about eighteen applications is that in the last year ever since you have had this short term ordinance however a sense of outrage two and a half years ago the planning commission has reviewed both short term rental permits  and the state's special use permit right they've reviewed thirty seven states special use permits that were able in a short term rental permit but the short term rental permit in most of those cases was granted administratively so that short term rental permit itself only comes before them if there's another one within five hundred feet or there's a certain amount of neighborhood opposition so it's only been eighteen times when that has happened in the entirety of this ordinance reconsider this five year ban and i know i've heard the testimony today saying well you know we've had a period where we allowed people i forgot the name what you would call that period to come in to be honest  i wasn't aware and i have talked to so many people who were not aware and when we became aware not through fines or warnings right and that but when we came aware only through going through the process we found that this door was closed to us not allowing people an avenue to become legitimate has created a lot of discourse and dissension i feel in the community and i feel that because of the people i talked to i'm not the only person who who has experienced the store being closed on them i've talked to other people who are not even willing to come in here and speak with you even though i have asked them to because they said you know what we've been treated so poorly without any recourse without any kind of dialogue what's the point and i don't feel that that's the attitude we want to have in this community i think we want to have an attitude of cooperation where if somebody wants to come forward and say hey you know what i'm not aware of an amnesty period i was not aware of the ord here i am to actually look at their case at their file and give them an opportunity you know i saw just recently on the news that forty eight percent of property sold on the neighbor islands were being sold to people off the land right nonresidents i happen to look how many of their vacation rental licenses were granted to people who were molly residents even though it was difficult to kind of cross check that and keep in that what i found is a good portion are being sold to people off island molly residents now this creates a lot of very interesting things so now i can buy a home because i have no history of renting out my home i'm going to get a vacation rental permit but the person who lives on maui her kids go to school i'm ali who supports  who supports the state of hawaii with their taxes cannot get a vacation rental permit because they have a history and of course they have a history we all know how challenging economically it is to live on maui is no surprise that when people who are traveling who live on maui want to rent out their home this is a possibility for them many of them did not know that they were breaking the law when they were warned and they were told to come in like an our situation that door is closed i'm asking you to adjust the ordinances to support the residents of this community so they can make a living so they can add to their incomes instead of promoting people coming from off island buying vacation rooms as homes and as everybody is complaining the cost of living the cost of property cost of everything is just going up on this island but it's not going up because of  my residents are struggling so please support them with regards to the five hundred foot rule i would request an amendment you know we put in our application we had absolutely no concerns from neighbors but our application shot down anyway prior to that so it's natural that vacation rentals are going to cluster in the area you can't tell the ground while ai that you can't get a permit because the sheraton is already in way up you can say oh nobody's going to be able to live  a on the ocean front because all that property is going to hotels of course that's the nature of our geography of our topography visitors want to come they want to be by the ocean so it's only natural you know and  if those vacation rentals are supporting the community bringing up the value of homes why not support them thank you thank you members any questions to the test fire mr go way of living or how to provide for your family do you have your full time position it just paid vacation renting my home no no i work i work in the rehab medicine but when we travel i explained to counsel before i have a family member who's sick and now we're traveling actually quite frequently to take care of that family member we wanted to be able to supplement our income we cannot do so you know we were not looking at doing a full time  rental from the beginning so we never knew should we apply should we not apply what should we do right and we didn't even know if it would be viable at the time so we were doing that to supplement our income minor standing as a lot of people who are molly residents are using that to supplement their income when they travel so no to answer a question that is not my fault time occupation when these two apparently sounds like you were in the business of renting out your home in the some point yes in two thousand and fourteen we had started to advertise our house as a vacation rental we did get and i'm going to be straightforward we did not have a permit this was not a short term basis we got an anonymous message on air b n b was an address to me wasn't just anybody that just said if you're advertising that see legal so we said ok stop we pulled our ad off of air b n b and i coul and i contacted the planning department said hey i got this message from you this is our intention they said oh come on in it will help you fill out a permit application it took six months right take six months of inspections cause everybody if you've done gone through the process you know how intensive it is how lengthy it is two months later we get actually they close their application they don't bother to inform us i saw it on keven that i had to call them up to ask him what's going on they said oh we have evidence that you've so when you worked as a rehabilitation professional there are certain certifications you have to go through to get that correct correct and you did your background checked in order to get into that type of profession cracked no doubt i would say  not just when i applied for a job at a hospital or wherever you're working as a rehab rehabilitation person without doing any type of certification looking into what type of licenses you need things like that you know it's i'm sorry chair i i find it very difficult when people want to get into a business without doing the background check and what type of documents permits that you would need in order to get into that business very much thousand and twelve on the radio almost every day it basically caused the previous mayor mayor mayor to far as to lose an election based off this type of the questions back and forth the idea is to be able to not get a big group together or at least let the neighbors know and also have the i mean commission decide whether or not that's an area that should be clustered i just wanted to sentence thought on why why you think that should be removed i just think that if none of your neighbors as you were saying during the application process and if none of the neighbors who are said notification that you are applying have any concerns include that and they're all within five hundred foot why automatically trigger that to the county council when it seems like they're not sure about their direction that they should take ok members any further questions to t you talk about the five hundred foot rule and that neighbors would have to submit concerns gut for people who have been born and raised here or lived here for a very very long time they they know where they work on assumption just don't rock the boat they don't feel comfortable complaining about their neighbors and there is concern that if you don't if there's no complaints but people still have some concerns the known really going to get involved in another neighbor's business but you know at some point there has to be a dialogue where everybody has a chance to speak and and from that point you know that's all we can offer you is a stage to speak whether it's by letter right whether it's to come to the commission meeting much more than that what can you do you know but i think your point is a valid ok members any further questions seeing m by their name thank you ok i live in tarpit i also have a better practice there my neighbors are long term residents and i would love to invite her to my backyard and see the difference we were just speaking about they have no regulations they have nothing that they have to be hold accountable but you're asking well what up long but the key sharon has people making noise yes you have a chance to do something about it but these long term people there is theft at my house and it's not from the big people it's that is the biggest issue in our neighborhoods are these people that are renting out multiple illegal bedrooms and multiple kitchens and we're being a cult accountable if we bring people that bring dollars to our and these are reputable families as the talk of prevention these are people that just want to have a good family values and a family vacation they don't want to be sitting next to the pool at the hyatt they want to tip and experience and that's what we're about we're about representing a wonderful island we can show the world but it's and you know the world comes to my home i have peace in my home we have people that come from all over the world and we get one this is how we can promote this sort of thing so i would like to invite anyone to my backyard to hear the difference between my next door neighbor and my home i even comment to my guests it's like well isn't this crazy they want to put me out of business but listen to this that's all i have to say thank you members an  person who is from vancouver canada and i bought a home here to spend time worked a long time took a lot of risks to do  that and i just wanted to speak towards the general market and i think what's what's happening here are with the council as as good as their intentions are are handicapping future generations from owning real estate in this area having come from vancouver now where an average tear down bungalow on a thirty three foot lot costs over two million dollars thanks to foreign investment  as well intended as you are a small council like yourselves is not going to start international best meant the cat's out of the bag people no matter who is nice place to invest and now with what's happened in vancouver and other places like that san francisco l where real estate is sought after and valued the only way for local pitt people to own that real estate is to have a little side rental business is going on either in their own hot as or what their home when they when they travel and that's the only way they get by and as well intended as i think your rules are i think anything that frees it up and allows people to own real estate will end up being a benefit especially to the local people here and we've seen that again and again in bank hoover san francisco's recently had rulings that overturned that because the people who live there can no longer afford to live there and the only way they can and their future generations can is by having these kind of side businesses that allow them to afford the real estate there thank you members any questions that the testif morning members larry shapiro thank you for the opportunity to testify again as you know on testified several times before in favor of raising the maui metal short term rental cap but i think you've heard enough from me about that already i think i made my point clear i just wanted to second the comment that i thought was really quite cogent that tom crowley just made and that has to do with the five hundred foot limit and referral to automatic referral to the planning commission if there is already an existing rental it seems from what tom is saying  that the idea one problem the planning commission seems to be having which i can't speak for them but it sounds from the way that mr kohli's described it is their inability to have a legal standard upon which to decide whether or not an additional unit in five hundred foot radius is appropriate and if in fact the law was changed to say that if there are complaints the the  commission could decide whether or not those complaints were valid which gives them a basis for taking action deciding one way or the other so to that extent i do believe that it would be appropriate to change the law to say that if there are complaints the planning commission decides who decides whether or not those complaints are valid and i do respect the issue of people not wanting to raise  complain but i do think that by providing a forum that people at least have an opportunity to express their concern if they have one scuse me and the other thing i just want to mention quickly is that there are some other jurisdictions that have inactive laws similar to ours but they don't have the five hundred foot rule and i think their reasoning is that there is nothing really if someone like me has not been in operation i don't know i don't know how to run short term vacation rental but the people would if they were to complain they would be complaining maybe on a philosophical or emotional basis not based on complaints about an operation that i had because i haven't been an operation they might complain and get about neighbors their dog old complaints raising old issues and old gripes about views or dogs or pets or something like that so i do think it would be valuable to create a basis for the planning commission to make a factual decision if you were to change the law to say that the regulations required referral by the commission only if there were complaints from neighbors thank you very much thank members any questions to the testifier i have a couple on that so they kind of do have that the reason why we put that five hundred foot i'm going back now and trying to remember but i pretty sure i remember this the reason we put the five hundred foot restriction on there is to protect the character of the neighborhood and that's that's at the very beginning of this ordinance says this ordinance is to help protect the character of the neighborhood now if you come in and say well you don't have to you know we if there's a couple within five hundred feet you don't have to have the somebody over see and say yeah that's for with the character the neighborhood versus no it's ruining the character of the neighborhood that that was the concern what how would we get if we were to eliminate the five hundred foot rule automatically going to the planning commission how would we protect the character of the neighborhood which is what this ordinance is about i think that if there were complaints from neighbors i think the neighbors would ideally be talking about well the nature of the existing short term rental if there are issues with the existing short term rental and pointing out i mean i know this is what i would do i guess if i was upset about it i would say well there's the existing one there are problems for example if they were complaining how close this one was to it how close it was proximity to their home why you know factually they believe that there would be an impact on them so i think there would be an opportunity for them to to objectively state what the impact would be of another rental within five hundred feet which to them would change the character of the neighborhood which would give the planning commission a factual basis and really a more objective basis upon which to make a decision all right thank you was said a time before there is any history we now have some history we have some experience with that and no there really for for license rentals there have not been issues i would say if we were able to adjust their very small really minor cap of five to another five so a total of ten to total of fifteen adding five or tend more i think would be appropriate for us to meet the existing needs and interests of many of the homeowners who are interested in in doing this and not as you know why i live in a maui this is not a rental that's going to be taken out of long term rental in the short term to short term mentalists when we want to travel that we want to rent it out so i think if we were able to raise it from five to ten or or fifteen would be appropriate i'm not in favor of removing the cap in any way i am in favor of restrictions and i to answer your question i think a total of five more or ten more would be appropriate ok thank you members any questions thank you mr shapiro thank you going to go to the district office are you there thank you ladies i believe we have one more testify here so just hang in there if you have to testify or that comes in please give us an e mail or whatever other ways or speak up when we get ready to close testimony  i see another slip coming in and somebody standing there so come on up and identify yourself and embody else wants to testify please come up otherwise we're going to close testimony right away thank you ohio committee members my name is katherine clary and i'm a board member of the my vacation rental association so i listen to the testimony at the last meeting and this meeting as well and although i feel that i've been close to this entire frequent talk about what's fair and i asked you is this fair but i also wanted to read a section of the current order months this is referring to the annual list of permit operators the department shall notify listed operations of the need for a short term rental home permit and information on how to obtain one upon submitting an application applicants with operations listed by the department shall submit evidence of general excise tax intransient accommodation tax payments for the prior year this contradicts item d in the same section that indicates if you're operating you'll be banned with this conflict within the ordinance how is an applicant to know if they should apply or not on one hand it says your band on the other hand it says annually we're going to create this list and invite people in to apply and on a personal level i no longer have a stake in any of these changes all of the properties that i work with applied in two thousand and twelve and have permits as each new permit is issued it's just more competition so i often wonder why am i still here and i think it's because i've been here since the beginning and i really want to see it through to the end but where is the end and i feel it's where all operators are permitted and if an owner wants to short term rent and they're kept in their area not ben matt they have a reasonable path to a perm so my question to you today is do you see the end in the same way that i do if so what can be done to remove some of the stumbling blocks thank you thank you ms clarke members and the questions that testify or have a you know you were here when we went through this whole thing and proposed the five year ban and the reason why we proposed a five year ban and do have some sort of solution  that might still keep it pretty much the hammer saying you know you've got to apply and you got apply without having operated as well as allowing those either didn't or i think whatever reason didn't come in i think it's really easy for those of us in the industry to go how could they not know about us but it's not in the paper that frequently the gentleman that wanted start in two thousand and fourteen where in the world would he have heard of this he would have and so some of these people are being caught up in this and i think with no enforcement up until really late last year early this year people honestly weren't aware and it's only when enforcement started that they became more aware of the situation and so am i in favor of end of an amnesty part of me says no they had a chance but yet the other part of me says we really have this bigger goal of a fully legal industry i honestly believe we're getting there i we've made so much progress this year with people becoming aware that they needed to get a permit with enforcement happening with a lot of of the smaller units actually being enforced upon in converting to long term rental but as many of the people testified today you also need to think about a small person who operates a business dependent on this industry and there's a give and take to be had so i would i would suggest one more open period but there needs to be a way to let everybody know that this is it i mean if you come in during this period we'll will allow you and if not and we're finished that's all i can really suggest ok i know you heard m comments and i kind of tend to agree with them is that if you're going to do some sort of business you need to look into what the requirements are and people don't look at this as a business if you were to start a long term rental would you call the county and say do i need to get a permit to do a long term rental people don't understand that just the fact that you're sleeping in the bed for less than one hundred eighty days demanding process in compared to the six months  still i can pay shade what cancer is saying that there's one side of her and i appreciate you telling me that you could be selfish and see a forget it and walk away and let them fend for themselves i appreciate that but she's also saying the times that i know i didn't know or others did not know what was going on was that your soul may be a well publicized one more amnesty period maybe an answer to all of these questions i mean now this is being televised and this has been discussed and hopefully now we social media and all the other means to be part mean uses blog and the web page this time if you don't get the in message i don't know what rock you sleep under however it is what it is soul that would be a long week was missed by says sane i agreed this is been a long drawn out process and this impacts people i'm for long term rentals because it impacts the working people the people that need to leave work here each and every day however there may be room like the spices  you and i've discussed this soul i want to get some reasonable way to finish finishing this up because i don't want to be here next year all year waiting to get this done neither do i you know i think we appreciate your efforts to chair and i think  and several people told me that so you know just because we're in the middle of this new you where we're talking about this is our life it's what we're obsessed with the public isn't and a lot of people don't read the paper and don't subscribe  that are more involved but it is to other people members any further questions thank you ms clarke and i don't see anybody else running down to testify going once going twice right without members haven't heard back from the office the district offices either so without objection will close public testimony public testimony is closed and with that we'll take our morning break and then we'll get right into the let's let's be until ten twenty five and then we'll get right in so this meeting is in recess planning committee meeting up december third two thousand and fifteen please come back to order all right members were on p c ten which is short term mental homes as we well know pursuant to section sixteen orders three nine four one which establish a permitting process for short term mental homes that apartment planning is required to conduct a review of chapter one thousand point six five mile county code two years after it's in nagma and transmitter report with comments recommendations and proposed amendments to the planning commissions for review and transmitters of the council chapter nineteen point six size what was enacted on may twenty third two thousand and twelve the committee has met seven times so far once last term and six times this term to discuss the department's proposed amendments so following our nov fifth two thousand and fifteen meeting a request for legal services forwarding copy of revised proposed bill was sent to the department of corporation counsel for review we haven't gotten a response yet but it's out there for review from everything's been changed we also received a matrix updated by miss flamm are reflecting the committee's revisions to date the majors also includes three amendments proposed by the planning department for our discussion today we're going to be working from that matrix today we have also received a handout from the planning department of the three proposed amendments following on nov nineteenth meeting a handout by the planning department of an additional amendment i guess it's been put in your binders somebody requested a while back map of every short term rental home and so we've got that down fairly good  so you've got that that's what those maps are in the back yard should also have a cd i'm not sure but there's a list there and it shows exactly where everything is so far every permitted one ok we are going to be working off the matrix we were on page seven of the matrix discussing a few things the first part in the green section five hundred foot portion but we did confirm the street clarification what defines a street and you know the front the lot the budding lot etc and the access to the property i want to go down you know this go and talk about minimum ownership criteria which is the last item on the page seven gina if you want to go with us on that ok thank you the department in this amendment here there's a number of different things that were added but the first thing is we've put in a minimum percent interest that the applicant must hold we near we took the twenty five percent because that's what for the trust is required twenty five percent it can really be any number that you decide you're comfortable with that we would like to have something in the law we could talk about that first maybe and then to kind of move on to the sure i do know we did talk about it a little bit last time and we possibly if it's an l  well that i mean is that enough for you guys to say you know if it's greater than fifty percent of the listed owners were good doesn't matter what percentage is in there thank you we're talking about two different and there are each of them own a different percentage interest in that into so this is when it's owned by one entity and we're talking about the make up of that entity which is different than if a parcel has multiple  ok and so in this case when it's a shill entity that owns it the applicant who becomes the permit holder the natural person has to be at least a twenty five percent owner of that entity so it's up to the structure of that entity how do you agree to move forward me pick one person you're at twenty five you're at least a twenty five percent interest holder in the us you know the permits going to be in your name rest of the corporation doesn't like it but too bad i'm twenty five percent and i'm going to do it is that something that we don't need to worry about that's just a legal thing with or how would that work mr th it would it would likely be an issue that would be resolved civilly between the of the shareholders of the corporation or the partners if one of the partners is doing taking actions that are contrary to the partnership interests that that would be a private rate of enforcement ok as far as setting the percentage of the term you know it's really what is the goal here and i think that the goal is to have a natural person that the department can look to for problems with the permit or things like that so if if that's their reason for their percentage it's fairly arbitrary though you know what number you want to pick twenty five fifty percent and cetera the only caveat to that is for trustees they don't actually have any type of ownership interest they have a legal entry and they're basically like a director you know that's the only way we're going to make sure that the language is clear ok and i think we put this in members a while back because there was a situation where somebody  gave one percent of piece of property to somebody who wasn't a member of the family and made them the applicant and that's i think why we put the twenty five percent in but since then matter it's just that there has to be either in a trust or an lp somebody who's designated as the person personally i don't care what the percentage is because this goes into the whole if you've got this l o p that's got five members of the family each has an equal amount which is twenty percent they can you know they can get an application mr hammer i just want to clarify that for the trust and the al cs when we originally passed the bill twenty five percent as the number of that was used however we did not attach a number to individual fee simple fee ownership right away went in and so that's what we're asking for is for when it's own in a person's name that that person that's applying has a minimum percentage not in the free we already have the the it's already twenty five percent and we've already accepted we can revisit it but it's already in the law twenty five percent for l l p tress don't have a percentage because of what we talked about but for the l l p's for the corporation ship the corporate shareholders twenty five is about that this body came up with when the real original bill was passed right we didn't think at the time to apply to fee ownership had to lever in that we started seeing very very small percentage is rarely but it still it would come up or we'd be asked those questions ok so that's two separate issues looking at two separate entities are two separate individuals in terms of the liability so if you only two are going to have you can have multiple right so it's a lot of the law firms are limited liability partnerships so if i do something wrong then it's all on me not on the other partners so there is almost like chinese walls sure tween each of us but get we're limited in liability to certain certain things that are agreed upon in the partnership so if we're talking about ownership of the property whether we like she said there are two separate things let's go with the  ce first we have a twenty five percent one person must be twenty five percent owner of the o o p i'm saying i think we need to get rid of that because a lot of these families that they're not in trusts some of them are in l l p's and if there's a five member  family there's no twenty five percent owner and they therefore they wouldn't be able to get now i understand where you're where you're going and i guess my my question to the department and there are fresh my memory as to why it has been natural person fabricate ok why can't it be the company the l l c or the family trust and if you're looking for immediate you know immediate response or immediate liability out personal guarantee on it signed on you know as the person that a natural person is going to take responsibility if if and when or it still happens the corporation or the family trust  doesn't stand up and take responsibility but anyway simply it's a great question and we talked about it quite a bit number of years ago the reason that reason i remember the most is we talked about the  slips never became available because you could transfer the ownership that he would just sell your corporation to the person buying it and then there's no way to track and there was a desire by this body to not make those permits transferable because when you make them transferable the value of the property increases so it's for accountability as well as keeping it nontransferable but i'm sorry just a follow up on that is couldn't you just have that within the provisions of the code that says it's not transferable the permit would remain in the name of the entity and so are selling that you are talking about the l  limit it to a natural person the assets that you want get out if ever you want to sue that person is only limited to that person persons personal assets you're not looking at the entire company the big pockets  or to the another reason that we were looking for it to be in the name of a natural person is because each permit holder may only hold one permit yes and if it were in the name of an entity then we c say ok well that entity can only own one permit but then you create another entity and another one in another one all with the same owners or with similar owners and that becomes difficult for us to track with the intent being that just one person should be allowed to have only one permit ok your intent is to be able to track so what you're saying i'm not able to track and also to ensure that a permit holder can only hold one permit x y z and you could get a permit in the name of that entity are two different own two different entities each with your own permit but you're the same people and it was councils intent to only allow yes we're trying to avoid otherwise a who we can get together and make multiple elsie's and you know take up all the four hundred permits that are out there if they wanted to just by creating different companies missed by so you had a comment question it pretty much was discussed but i miss mclean remembers exactly what we were trying to do we said one pyramid per person that's it we don't want people snapping them up with different names and also they're not transferred they were not to be transferable correct so that was clear from the very very beginning so how do you and i know i remember and i'm kind of channeling mr weight on this one i remember there is the thought that there's a member family or you know whatever you're going to if we say they have to be twenty five percent were ever ok they still have the option to do a trust that as we discussed the trust is a trustee you don't have a minimum ownership so you can have multiple trustees that families can do that the problem is when it's in an l l  p or a corporation that's where we were looking for a minimum and then i guess is there an advantage to a trust versus an lp and if it's a family they should make it a  trust i don't know is anybody's l p s are typically set up for professionals not so much families so when i see them come in it's usually it's a court it's an lp that's already established for a professional and they just choose to use that entity as the ownership entity as opposed to doing a new one when i see families come in i typically see them come in as trusts ok if i may i'm going to read excerpts of the amendment that relate just to family trusts ok because it's a very long section on this is on page eight of the matrix in the green hundred sixty five zero three zero g and again i'm just going to read the excerpts that relate to travis the short term rental home permit shall be issued in the name of an applicant who shall be a natural person or persons and holding a minimum of twenty five percent interest a legal title to the lot except that a permit may be issued for a lot owned by a family trust i'm going to jump ahead if the following criteria are met the applicant shall be a natural person who is the trustee of the family trust i'm going to jump ahead the corporation limited liability partner l l c shall not be publicly traded and all of the trustees partners dot dot dot shall be natural persons and if there is more than one partner they shall be related by blood adoption marriage or civil union family trust members and beneficiaries shall be related by blood adoption marriage or civil union so the twenty five percent doesn't apply to family trusts the part the applicant has to be a trustee and all of the trustees and partners shall be family members you're basically saying if they want if it's a big family do it in a trust right and be over because the members of the l a p have to be all members of the same family anyway right i don't know about the composition of an l but know if in here it's in the law you just read that for a family trust well i thought it was for the o p s member as well yes yes yes yes i'm sorry yes yes so far i'm i'm fine with the twenty five percent if it's if it's a bigger family then go for the family trust members  that's as mr thompson said that's a civil matter between the members of the lp that's not something that the council or the county should be involved in it or maybe maybe we care again i mean it would seem to me that if i were family is going to decide to do some sort term rental or do something with our property i certainly would want to know what my sister's doing and i don't think it's all in the letter good with twenty five percent but can be multiple applicants that total at least twenty five percent or no is that something that works a natural person or persons so to me that would mean that the combination of i'm either one person or more than one person has twenty five percent and as written the applicant could be more than one person natural person or persons i believe you wanted to cross out and hold and replace it with holding a minimum of correct so we're missing some straight through and old ok c shall be related by blood adoption marriage or civil union i don't know if that's the intent if if the intent is to restrict these types of applications only to those multiple owner situations that so i think we should take out their references to partners corporate shareholders are all of the l l c members and you know what i mean right now as you're limiting all those e to family type situations right so where were you talking about partner tree number three i think your i know but there's i think three exactly what we're looking for all the trustees partners corporation of the trustees partners corporation share all those or all of the members shall be natural persons and if they're more than one partner shareholder or member they shall be related by blood adoption so what is your objection there so what i suggest that we remove from number three is read it as a as i think we should have though all of the trustees partners corporate shareholders or all of the temple that is correct yes that was their status for a long time and we wanted to be part of the family and that's it no companies coming in i think that's that's why we agreed upon it all right so then going back to the initial deal the concerns that the department had is about fee simple ownership  simple so right now it things can be quit claim to somebody even we don't require a minimum ownership for them to come in to apply for a permit and this is where i guess you have the family each individuals on the deed a family of five are individual owners all the brothers and sisters of a family are on the deed there's five of them that means it's a twenty five percent i mean a twenty percent so that nobody can apply th you can we can pick a number i don't know if the councils has something in mind that would work how they would want to i mean it's up to the members you know you want to go to t ten percent but the but then you know i think we have to make it we have to make it greater than fifty percent because of the family situation that missed by so is talking about it at least fifty point you know greater than fifty percent of the fees simple holders have to be the applicant because we can have multiple up accounts so are you ok with that there could be cases where it could be unwieldy but from  policy perspective i think that that's appropriate members any concerns with that you know consensus on that yes ok thank you that was the simple one so that takes us t you would like our you know what you're on the five year ban in general well you're making some changes here so what were what are the well it's clarifying that advertising online reviews  advertising is mentioned elsewhere in the chapter as serving as evidence of operations so it's adding that in this section two as well as online reviews and we are suggesting that operators on the island of lanai easy have until the end of next year to submit permits before a five year ban goes into effect and i believe there was discussion last time about at which the five years takes effect and it also applies to making it clear that it applies to the property itself  in addition to the permit holder not be eligible to operate ok numbers this one is a tough one  currently i believe the way we were told last meeting the way the department looks at this is to get an application they look back to when the ordinance has the was first created and said oh you've been operating so you're banned for five years or you have to do the five year wait period i guess that's the the official term so it's the chairs concern that look back is a little bit too onerous i'm fine with going back a year if you stopped operating per year want to have a discussion on that not to go back all or to the beginning of this or not i think that's a little bit too far i'm fine with going back six months the part i want to go back a year what's the what's the  committees will if you will miss spicer but thank you very much chair i have a great deal of discomfort over the proposal that's before us straight out five year ban ok it just doesn't sit well with me i would like to come up with something that i know everybody says much as much as you know when we started this whole thing we took a big chance we were we were fighting the community that was saying we don't want to get rid of it we don't want the things in our community in and you know we went to hours and hours and weeks and months of heart wrenching stuff to come to where we're at and how long have we had it think about it how long have we had it to where we are actually policing it and you know doing a good job of trying to figure out how to make this work i make it shut down but i am willing to give people woman a chance some kind of be amnesty period and notify and there may we have to notify them in some way did they cannot say i didn't get it i don't know what that is and  if they don't follow through or they do something wrong or whatever then i'm for the hammer but you know when i'm hearing people say i didn't know i didn't hear i'm sorry i hear that in my committee every single time we meet nobody told me i didn't anybody's income as well that i don't want to destroy neighborhoods or you know we're caught in this very emotional situation here but will it hurt us to be generous one more time how much damage is it go will just go off like they've said and they go and they go on vacation already they go off a month or two they'll have to wait a year but to be fair to everybody and the band itself i would say no longer you know if you don't get it done i think five years too long maybe two years would be reasonably comfortable with that again you have to have something to have some teeth you have to have some punitive measure that makes people realize that if you don't do it there's consequences and six months a year that's really too short i'm talking about the band itself i'm not talking about that and the steam and doing all of that so we really comfortable in taking it from five years to two years i was just thinking about other ways of handling and i was just discussing that with the deputy director doing letting the department have the discretion for the period of the band up to five years  forth on this idea a little bit because the bottom line is that we really want people to come into compliance yes yes absolutely we all agree on that ok that's good but i have a really hard time with giving the opportunity again i've sat here and the director has sat here and heard a lot of flak from the committee and from the public about our lax enforcement if we say ok well we're going to give these people one more chance to come in that really pulls the rug out from under our enforcement strength and it's not as strong as we would like it to be already let me give you an example of the kinds of things we face we issued a violation against someone for operating and the gentleman had a distinctive first name is first name is bradley which is not his name and he said that wasn't me that was my tenant i have a long term tenant for the property and he was doing this and i did not i was not aware of it and so we were sort of  jeez you know what how do we handle it with this guy we found an online review from someone who stayed there saying bradley took great care of us so here we have the guy telling us telling  zoning inspector to his face that wasn't me it was my tenant and again this gentleman had a distinctive name so we know that it was him he was the one operating we had an online review so that's probably one of the more extreme cases but to say that oh this guy should now have the chance is really hard for us to swallow why would why don't we after an amnesty for other types of violations zoning violation estimate violations we hear from those people oh i didn't know oh you know that illegal structure was on the property when i bought it i didn't know oh i didn't know i needed to get an estimate permit for that at such a minor thing well you know it's it's not our responsibility to tell people what the law is especially with the way properties changed hands properties get advertised oh great vacation rental potential great  potential then what would happen if we did some sort of notification and then some other pro i didn't get the notice well you notified those guys but you didn't notify me i didn't know it just it it's a real challenge to think about just opening it up some sort of amnesty the look back idea though is something that we can support still having the ban in place and if you want to change the years on the ban that that's where we can talk about that too but to say that someone can advertise or operate for at least a year you know what that means that means that property has to go into long term rental or sit vacant you know we're also hearing about the housing crunch and granted some of these homes are likely might not be rented at all but some of them would be if if given the choice of a b  or waiting a year before you apply for your permit so that you can get your permit you might very well put that property into long term rental for six months or for a year and we need that inventory  i would ask you not to give some sort of amnesty but to do a short a relatively short period seems a reasonable compromise so that some of these operators are just going to have to cool it for a you on the ones that that were obviously in your face you know were lying and i know your stance on the whole a warning for your thing your whole idea is to get them into compliance now you have a situation that we have a test fires claiming that he didn't know what it is you know somebody gets sick in his family and they said ok we're going to be gone for six months let's run it out or for three months let's run it out and started doing that and then got a notice saying but you been doing that so you can apply how do you handle that and i know and you still were flouting the law so forget it where do you draw that line being able to operate a short term run alone is not an entitlement it's a privilege and if you're not able to do it you certainly have other alternatives for the use of that property if you're not able to make the kind of money that you would make doing a short term rental operation you could do long term rental it's not as if you know a situation like a like an estimate violation if there is construction done without an estimate permit it's pretty radical to tell someone well you need to tear your structure down and then we'll give you a permit and you can build it back up again that that's silly this isn't the same kind of thing to us if it were more comparable to that we could see you know you'd still be subject to the daily fine you might still be subject to the initial fine  and we might take a look at what the daily fines would be as long as the person is trying to get permitted in achieve compliance this is a different kind of thing to us and we have no way of knowing who is telling us the truth and who's lying to us and just like the discretion that that we agree with make with mr victory no that we don't want to have we can't determine who's telling the truth and who's lying we can't determine who has a legitimate reason for not being able to do a b or c we can't make that determination we don't want to have to make that determination and i understand wanting to open it back up again i do and i've gone back and forth but at this point you know we've heard every story there is in her just say you know if i think the look back ideas  is a very reasonable one and i don't think that is is overly burdensome because you have other revenue generating opportunities on that property he is specially operation or advertising we look from the present back to when the ordinance was adopted which was in two thousand and twelve because there are some properties that were operating five years ago we don't year before you can apply and if they apply and we look and we see advertising or evidence of operation from six months ago say no you're you can't get your permit you have to stop for a year e we've approached it a couple different ways until we came upon the procedure that we use now so there might be some people who didn't receive the types of notices that i'm about to describe but that's what we've been doing recently in this is what we're going to continue doing we issue a notice of warning that says we have evidence that you're operating this is our evidence and that gives them an opportunity to contact us and say oh no that is a ghost site or that was someone else and so if they can prove to our satisfaction that they haven't been advertising or operating then that's the end of it and they can apply if they want to typically they don't they don't produce that kind of evidence because they were operating in advertising then we send a notice a violation that says you are in violation and you are banned from applying for five years that's new yeah from what we had heard before we had heard that if they get the notice of warning mr positive you get the most the warning they're bad for five years right we have to give them an opportunity to respond back to or to explain or demonstrate that they haven't been advertising or operating but if they have been advertising it's at the notice of warning that they've been banned for five years because we wanted to we wanted to say yes that's correct we wanted to say that the notice of violation you get bad give them a chance to come into compliance and that was not recommended by your department correct the ban would take effect at the notice of warning notice notice and then your bad or that any type of explanation or ask when they receive the notice of warning they can contact us and say i haven't been operating or advertising or so they do have the opportunity to do that to try to see if they really have it's been operating right there is the ones that have been operating they get the notice of warning they're banned like that  in the court system knowing that being in front of the judge and say i didn't know what the speed limit was was never a defense you know regardless of you knowing what the laws are and you're still going to be found you if you committed those type of violations and this is a like a ministry to violations so there is no mens rea as you i mean there's nothing to prove whether a person did it intentionally negligently it's whether you did it or you didn't so i i really have a hard time granting another amnesty getting back to the department's point of view  perception of the years before us that haven't been really been enforced will compound this type of you know look the administration or the county never  really enforce these these provisions the you know turn the first four years of the our colleague ministration in there now only now in the second the second term of the continuous terms are now taking a look at it's partly to blame the county but i just have a hard time allowing us to as legislators to change the law to know just to get some tea you know if you're looking at five year versus two years i would rather see a two years so that's my point in my you know i think two years appropriate  a lot of the if we're talking it as a privilege in our licenses are privileged and so are driver's licenses and so if you get caught with a deal why it's a one year license suspension they change the law you know you get caught twice it's two years license especially the third time it's full on revocation so that's got to have some tea to it you know you can't just be like you know  look at it as a privilege you know not and title me thank you so what i'm hearing at least from two members is that instead of the five year they want to go down to two and look back of a year  basically you have to have not been operating for a year before you apply is that what i hear from the members yeah i think for myself and i'm not i don't speak for others but i think the good maybe it's just their luck i don't know what it is but anyhow i i gain does in my mind would be the last chance and that's what i guess i'm saying we haven't done anything about  thoughts on the about six months six months amnesty any thoughts members or let's go to the department first and then members i did have one more comment that i need to make ok up earlier in my diatribe and that we have actually really only started imposing the five year ban in about june of this so operators have had from the time the law was passed until two thousand and twelve till mid two thousand and fifteen to operate without permits and apply and get their permits so it's not as if the hammer came down  and twelve there was first a temporary permit and then about three years since then all this has been going on that's another one of my pitches for not opening up the door again back maybe a little bit more time before we start hammering people but we've got to come up with something we and we've got to do whatever we're going to do and we've got to do it consistently with teddy otherwise we're never going to solve know we we as a county to dotted force when we initially pass out these these provisions are lost but on the other hand you know what about all those who have been operating illegally and have been not paying the taxes or you know there are you know property tax provisions that would put them in a different category you know that there's a lot of lost revenues that the county hasn't collected in the state maybe on  taxes i just assuming that if they were operating legally they probably weren't declaring their taxes as well i don't know but that type of i guess issues that we would  tend to make me believe that an amnesty is not appropriate at this time you know i really believe that we should you know say what we did and go forward on you know six months or no allow it to be enforced for six months and then up the ante after a certain period of time as a pretty you know i'm sure that we can draft in a way that we're talking to look back is when they apply they have not been able to have been able to have operated for the last year right and then we can you are saying it you want it to be two years well i mean now at night now that you mention it it's kind of like if to to create an amnesty period by using a one year and you need to have that effect of certain sunset sunset date and then after that date then it goes to two amnesty where it's like ok if you've been doing it for one year than you can cut it in half not that have not been doing it for one year then you can calm him but then if you don't do it by you don't come in by december two thousand and sixteen then the law shifts to we're going to start looking at two years that department was kind of like an increase and they do have that in criminal law know just to add a little bit you know to say ok if the council is not going with an amnesty but they're allowing a little bit of concession here for one year if we don't do it now that at that because i think simplicity is important you start complex by having disappointed that date and i think people get more confused and now i don't know i like to keep it simple i agree with you mr mclean i'd like to keep it year bad which i'm actually surprised that i would have gone down those three but if you guys want to still go to to that fight mr gum come on them around with they can find me so very interesting three to five ok so what i will do members since we're running we're at a bare quorum and there's obviously not agreement i'll bring this up not at our next meeting is going to be the in my community plan just so you know that's the intent of the chair so in january i hope to have this passed out by the end of january just so you know i don't want to go another year  but i do want to bring this up to the other members that are here we're talking about a two or three year ban maybe five so far i don't see any any will of the the committee amount of time get their input and then we'll make a decision i have a feeling it looks like it's going to be certainly a one year i would go with a one year look my recommendation would be one year look back three year ban and no two y look back as a good compromise for both so that's probably the way i would recommend to mr white and mr cochran but certainly if you want to  compliance these group of people let us not forget compliance is the reason we're doing this we don't need a hammer to get compliance because if we have to do it hammer every time we want compliance guess what most of them won't comply after a while they just go out there until you get caught like our friends in iowa go on years and years until you catch me if you can and they all played a game right you know i mean i'm honestly you know again i'm trying to give this as a compliance issue giving them an opportunity i mean i don't mind a hammer when you break the law i don't mind that but i also want to see these people have won fair last chance getting complacent and if we're going to go five years that that's going to that's going to chase a lot of them way and here we go again catch me if you can and that's not what we want we want the tax revenue we want them to be complied we want to have to do it right i think that's what the department has been trying to do and the idea is and we spoke to him you say this much to you when we chastise you guys for not enforcement a lot of the blame falls on us would never give you enough money or responsibility because they didn't get the position maybe enforceability was difficult i know people say oh you can get a computer to do this you did well yes but there's still the point you've got to get out there sooner or later and inspect you've got to make sure what you see what you hear is really right what is there so much that you and i don't want to belabor the point but again i want to remind the members we were here trying to get the compliance ordinance so that people could come in and really get legal like we did with the that that are still in that process because it's difficult so i'll leave it at dan i just want to make sure everybody's comfortable with that idea that it's a complaints issue and i'm not here to to try hammers at people i would really like to se at least request the chair if we could get a representative from the from the planning commission or the commission itself to be here so we can ask some questions as to what type of criteria they're using and if so it's discovered that they're  person council whether there's anything in the charter or in the county code that would allow us the authority to question their competence see as a member of the commission we'd like to address those issues as well thank you chair department or corporation council i'm happy to do that but departments here what you have to say a couple of things there is that the committee asked a question that one of the last meetings since the planning commission sent that letter that there were two s to reach applications that went to them that the commission denied  there are two that have been deferred that still need to be heard one was allowed to have an automatic approval because they heard it didn't have enough votes either way so that automatically got approved there were at least four that came in for the state special use permit they were on ag land that they approve the state special use permit so that b s to reach permit could be granted ministry to flee they approved a time extension for another and they approved one that was just heard at the last meeting so it's really only two since march that the night the others were either approved or are still pending gina just also just told me that the chair of the commission has asked for some guidance from court counsel to make sure that they are applying the criteria in the law when they consider these and that they are not going outside that scope when they consider applications to make sure that they are still being objective and in their consideration of these permits and individually and and fairly and also if the applicants are unhappy with the outcome they can appeal that circuit court i think that is you know in general those are difficult appeals to  have success with because the law is so discretionary they to share the only reason why i bring that up is that i've had several calls to my office that basically saying the reason why we're not going through the early cheat in that process is because we know we've heard on the streets that the commission is already pretty pre by esther predestined to vote no on t v ours and so i wanted to even look into it or dispel that are it seems as though that's called a route that's not good that's not good for the county and that's like that of course for their commissions let me let me just say that they did send us letter asking us to put a moratorium on short term rental homes or repeal the bill so right there that tells me there's the bias whether or not they're actually doing it is a different story but there's already a built in bias so i do have some concerns with that i think sorry just going along with that chair idea i think we need to you know have the commission on the floor i know that the department is here speaking on their behalf but i cannot ask certain questions to the department and have them as or have it related in my mind that it's actually they're not biased you guys doing policy or are you guys doing in ministry to decisions i am getting kind of gray blur you know feelings or reactions that would be a very interesting probably first time because they can't really have definitive guidelines they feel like right now they have me some challenges and i believe the letter said is because a long term rental is their biggest concern  people family friends that cannot get rentals and they're paying for one bedroom with two bedrooms garages a and store rooms eight hundred dollars a month is death those are the people who work in our community dear family and friends who work right here every each and every day so i again i think we're treating the nice but i'm very good i want data by just saying that we know there is a problem they recognize the problem  sent it to us saying they recognize the problem but not wait let me go ahead and show ahead let me finish however does that make them bias there recognizing a problem problem and they are saying their concern and asking for a moratorium may not be because we've asked for water moratorium we've asked for other moratorium from other commissions soul i just i'm just saying that i'm not totally and the street on the other word on the street which i have a great year for is that they're trying to do something that maybe a cultural should be looking at word on the street thank you thank you just a couple things i have this is from the discussion we've been having prior to mr between those comments these for the most part if you look at all the permits that are out there a lot of them are high end homes that are not going to be long term rented to the working folks now they could be long term rented to people who have high end but usually those folks are going to buy anyway so we have to take that out there now there are some that may could potentially be long term as a matter fact test fire came up and said they want to convert one of their long terms to short term and that's that was a big red flag for me and that's where we get into the five hundred the five hundred foot rule that we have differed until that's going to be the last thing we talk about so if we get this band taken care of then then all we have left on the department's concerns are the five hundred foot rule so that's where we can have the discussion maybe we'll have a member of the planning commission here because they're the ones that that asked that it be discussed and that's when we had some testify or say ok how about if we if the house price is greater than such and such it's not going to be a long term rental doesn't need to go to the planning commission if it's below then it should go to planning commission because it could be a long term rental then that's what the commission would determine whether oh no it's  mr mr guzman who's going to be leaving town for three months out of the year and he wants to rent it to help pay as morgan vs now it's mr bertram you know who's only here three months out of the or indeed could potentially rent it long term for at least six months so those are some of the things that we need to give direction to the commission for so in your deliberation of this next time you hear it see it on the on the agenda about those kind of things to discuss because the that is a very big concern and the other concern that the chair has anyway is the whole you know the article that came out in civil beat about you know fifty two percent of the homes on maui are being sold to people outside of my county you know people say well you guys got to do something about that we would love to do something about that but there's this little thing called the constitution of the united states that says we can't so we have to have some creative ways to figure that out as well so it's not it's not just short term rentals are causing the problem it's not just housing i mean it's a big mess and we've got to pick at it one bite at a time so we want to get the short term mental people that are going to be and the reason short term mental is are a good thing not a ton of them but a good thing you heard several testifiers today at the last few meetings and say hey this is my livelihood as far as i go in and clean those i go in there and fix the pool or you know there are some i believe we had a test fire last time say they've got twenty people that rely on short term metals out there for their income so it's jobs we'd be taking away jobs if we get rid of short terminals you've got to think of it i mean it's a big picture and i know we are that's why we're well you know why we get it now elected to do the job we have to think about the big picture and we do you know we we hear the people who don't have all this in mind and made very passionate but we have to put all that together and come up with something that benefits as best we can now that this is their last chance and they started last go around to get complaint and make sure that these hammers and we're talking about these penalties that we're talking about will be coming down and then don't come crying back come back to us crying this is it but i game this a big picture like you did and i think that's the real challenge because we have exterior forces pushing at us and the bottom line in all of this and the real reason we're here today w a commission and be the deep army can then rig and enforce because they are clearly defined what needs to be done i think that what mr mclean has mentioned a couple times discretion is not something they really really like right as it opens pandora's box ok i'll stop here because i know you want to go to members are going to defer this we're going to come back with this matrix market in your book wherever we're going to  very last page page and we also have to we had a request to consider as well as an eye for some of the stuff so i still have that on the list we all we have  is the five year wait period were came about and the five hundred foot that could take up meeting whole meeting in itself but we have those two things there's been a request for the metals cap to be increased and then there's some other enforcement requests out there so we're really close we're very very close a fight be a penalty and look back right you have to look at that because you're only sure that that's not me that's written down so keep this we won't put a new one save some trees and if there's no further comment i want to thank the department for a very lively discussion in the members for a very lively discussion and staff for getting it all down i hope so thank you and miss thompson welcome to planning committee committee meeting members with that this meeting is adjourned thank you and happy holidays i believe we're done with the no we have december sixteenth for the ny planning community plan is going to come up on that one so when i community plan and get here it's been published for two weeks now so take a look at it have your questions will be ready to go