Amid ongoing efforts to refine regulation of vacation rentals on the island, the Hawaii County Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use and Economic Development again deferred taking action on a bill on the matter at their meeting Tuesday.

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Amid ongoing efforts to refine regulation of vacation rentals on the island, the Hawaii County Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use and Economic Development again deferred taking action on a bill on the matter at their meeting Tuesday.

Among other modifications to existing regulations, Bill 147 aims to clarify language used to refer to different types of short-term — 180 days or less — rentals, remove the requirement of a use permit for rentals that meet certain standards, expand zoning districts where short term vacation rentals are permitted, establish management standards and punitive fines as well as create an enforcement fund.

Introduced by Hamakua Councilwoman Heather Kimball, it was previously deferred from the committee’s Sept. 1 meeting to allow more time for council members and the public to review and understand it. The most recent deferral was due to the meeting running over time.

Kimball has described the bill as a “housekeeping” measure that would align with current language and regulations.

“We’re trying to coordinate existing code in the county and state law, particularly as it pertains to agriculture, state land use, agricultural lands, and the past practices of the planning department, and real property tax implications of having a transient vacation rental,” she previously told the Tribune-Herald.

Planning Director Jeff Darrow said during the meeting that he believed the bill would help simplify the process of regulating these rentals for both operators and his department.

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“By passing this bill, it will help many people not need to go through an additional process,” he said. “Each person that’s operating a hosted rental in the residential zoning district would require a use permit at this time, under our current bill — and I’m sure that if we look at it, that would be, I would say thousands — that would help them but it would also assist the planning department in not needing to go through an additional land use permit process for each of these.”

However, the bill has drawn confusion and concern from the council and members of the public about its potential implications, including the use of the term “bed and breakfast” to refer to hosted vacation rentals, as opposed to “short term vacation rental” (STVR) to refer to rentals where a host does not live on site.

While Kimball noted that B&B is the language that has previously been used to reference this type of rental, she said she was willing to draft an amendment to change the language to “hosted” and “unhosted” rentals for clarity. Several council members said that they would be supportive of such a measure.

“I think hosted and unhosted is very clear, and people understand that, and that’s how we describe these acronyms,” said Hilo Councilwoman Jennifer Kagiwada. “So it makes a lot of sense to me to just be clear with hosted and unhosted.”

Kimball has also proposed several other amendments to the bill that have not yet been discussed by the committee. The matter will be taken up again at its next meeting on Oct. 6.

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Email Grace Inez Adams at [email protected].