Musings: Sob Stories

Though The Garden Island has done a great job of printing B&B/homestay sob stories, it hasn't touched on the real tragedy: illegal TVRs trying to slip in under the wire and totally unsuitable B&Bs.

Take, for example, these AirBnB ads. One offers an airbed in a beachfront tent at Haena for $245 per night, while the other is a futon in a tent at Haena Beach Park for $40/night. So we've got folks pimping public beaches and facilities for profit.

Then there's simple greed, like the Haena house that offers two units, one of them an illegal B&B on the ground floor in the flood zone. The property is owned by Leila Kawaihalau and others. It's right next to a permitted TVR that made the Abuse Chronicles, and which Leila  also operates, so she can't exactly make like she never knew the rules.

Though she knew the county was no longer issuing TVR permits, Leila converted half of her house into one "B&B," then enclosed the downstairs to make a studio, with refrigerator, microwave, coffee-maker and separate entrance. 

While her ads hype the beautiful beach:

Tourists stay in this funky, illegal ground-floor enclosure:

Totally oblivious to the tsunami and wave inundation risks that come with being "less than 50 yards from the beach:"

And this is an area of big waves:

That do wash up onto the house lot:

Despite all the vegetation that's been planted on the public beach:

So is the Council, as it ponders the B&B/homestay ordinance, preparing to let stuff like this slide? 

Even as it endangers flood insurance for the entire island? Because the county is still under investigation by FEMA for allowing ground-floor bedrooms in the flood zone.

The Garden Island has portrayed the planning department as a heavy-handed bully destroying the livelihood of old folks and those simply pursuing a means to live on Kauai. 

But with its recent enforcement action, the planning department is doing exactly what the County Council ordered it to do when we exposed the TVR mess through the Abuse Chronicles. Though a Council majority declined to conduct an investigate, it directed the department to go after the “low-hanging fruit.” Or in other words, the guys operating illegally, with no permits.

The B&B/homestays were caught up in the sweep, prompting many of them to claim they'd tried to get permits, but failed because there was no process. But that doesn't jibe with the fact that some B&B permits were indeed issued in the past, though they're no longer in business.

And in reality, very few B&Bs were affected by the crack down. As of early May the county had issued just 93 cease and desist orders, of which only about 10-15 went to actual B&B/ homestays.

I discussed this issue with Beth-Ann Kozlovich on Hawaii Public Radio's “The Conversation” yesterday morning. She opened the segment with this:

When does your spare room become a business and who should regulate it? How those questions are answered on Kauai is splitting the community as they are debated in the County Council.

I reframed it to this:

The question many residents are asking is how much of the island should be in resort uses?

And this:

It all comes down to whether the Council has the political will to cut off all those illegal vacation rental owners. Many of them have a sense of entitlement since they've been paying the higher TVR property tax rate, even though they don't have TVR permits.

We'll just have to wait and see.