Musings: Gems and Blems

Though it's a sort of torture to watch Kauai County Council meetings — I'm always acutely aware of the limited minutes of my life ticking by — they do sometimes turn up a gem or two.

Like this bit of complete cluelessness, uttered by Councilman Gary Hooser:

Working together, taking our time and not reacting to the mob mentality as mentioned earlier, we can find a way to reach some common ground.

Wow. Great insight. It's just too bad he didn't have it when his own red-shirted mob was outside the Council chambers at 3 a.m., bullying a vote on his anti-GMO Bill 2491.

Because there's no mob scene around the B&B/homestay issue, which Gary was referring to. Just residents sick and tired of seeing their property taxes go up, and their neighborhoods turned into defacto resorts, because the County is unwilling and/or unable to regulate transient vacation accommodations in all their many forms.

In this case, Gary is pushing a measured approach because he wants to grandfather in all the existing homestays, which neither the planning department nor the Council majority seem to support.

Except for Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who finds it “very unjust” that all the people who for years never did seek a B&B use permit — and yes, they were available all this time — aren't being given automatic approval.

According to information I obtained under a public records request, the planning commission approved homestay use permits in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, three in 1998 and one in 2004. It also denied two permit requests in 1998. There obviously was a process, which some homeowners did seek out and use, to obtain permits for lawfully operating a homestay/B&B.

So can we please cancel the pity party for folks who have been operating for years while claiming there was no process to get a permit?

Councilman Mason Chock also demonstrated that he's uninformed when he noted a “small handful” hadn't “gone through the process” and he was “inclined to ensure they're heard and what can be done for them to continue.”

In fact, 11 people who were operating homestays without permits have managed to obtain them in the past six months, using the existing use permit process. These include several on ag land, which would be prohibited under the proposed homestay bill.

To date, planning has approved 20 use permits for homestay operations.

In recent months, another nine operators withdrew their applications for various reasons, like maybe they had illegal structures or other planning/zoning issues. Two had their permit requests denied. Seven are fighting their denials though the contested case process. Action was deferred on three and another one went to the planning commission last month.

Though planning has screwed up plenty, homestay operators are being heard and given ample opportunity to make their case. Councilmembers should check their sympathy, especially when it's directed toward their friends, and allow the planning commission to do its job.

What they need to focus on now is crafting a bill that doesn't repeat the same errors as the TVR law. Councilmembers spoke a lot about the need for a fair process, which is why the issue of grandfathering in current users is such a big deal. As a reader noted in comments on a recent post:

Grandfathering is a term to allow a previously legal use to continue when laws are made that no longer allow that use. It is severely wrong in this situation, where B&Bs have always been allowed with a Use Permit. Grandfathering was never meant to allow Un permitted uses to be made legal. And the current home stay process should not grandfather any operation that did not bother to get a Use Permit and in fact did operate illegally.

A previous Council made that terrible error when it passed a TVR law that allowed only those who had been illegally operating to seek permits. The law-abiding folks were forever barred from obtaining the lucrative permits that run with the land. It was one of the most unjust acts the Council has perpetrated, and it screwed locals big time. It's simply not fair to again let folks slide when they failed to use an existing process and instead chose to gamble that the county wouldn't enforce against them.

As Council Chair Mel Rapozo noted, tourist accommodations have always been illegal on ag land under state law. That's why it was such a travesty that a previous Council — including JoAnn — amended the TVR law to allow them there. While I'd rather see homestays than TVRs on ag land, neither is appropriate.

Councilman Ross Kagawa got it right when he observed: “Just because a mistake was made doesn't mean we gotta continue the mistake.”

Amen. So revise the homestay bill to require inspections of the property, and deal with enforcement.

Mel revealed that the Council, along with its legal analyst, has been investigating some of the TVR abuses. “There's violations everywhere you look in the TVR neighborhoods,” he said. “It's horrific what we're finding, and where's the enforcement? It's not there.”

Mel wants Planning to address the Council next month about its enforcement efforts against illegal TVRs, and its plans to enforce the B&B/homestay law. Because without enforcement, what is the point?

There's another interesting issue that hasn't come up. Folks who bought properties in the visitor destination areas, where homestays and TVRs are allowed, ostensibly paid more for that privilege. Is the county going to be sued if it continues to erode their property values by allowing a proliferation of visitor accommodations outside the VDA, either by permitting outright or failing to enforce?

Finally, though JoAnn admitted she had not even read the homestay bill, which is only four pages long, she was bemoaning the fact that the Council couldn't question people who testified, due to a recent rule change. “it's important to understand the circumstances each person is speaking from,” she sniffed.

No, it's not. Rather than rely on the self-interested comments of the public to guide her in “good decision-making,” perhaps JoAnn should start by doing her homework and actually reading the controversial bills that come before the Council.

That, and pay attention and/or reference written testimony, so you don't throw a hissy fit when your colleagues won't allow a person to repeat their entire six-minute testimony because you didn't capture all the points. It's a public process, JoAnn. It's not all about you. 

And Gary, "bite me" — the phrase you uttered to Ross — is never an appropriate way to speak to another Councilmemember. Especially when you love to lecture folks about treating the Council with respect. 

Time to grow up — and learn a new comeback. That one is juvenile and tired already.