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A March 27 Maui News story quoting a study by the Honolulu-based housing advocacy group Appleseed Foundation about the impact that vacation rentals are having on Maui's housing availability badly tripped over the facts.
While The Maui News story was well balanced, the headline announcing that one in seven residential units on Maui are vacation rentals is what will stick in most folks' minds, affecting public opinion and eventually public policy.
The Appleseed report stumbled over the same residential issue that other Honolulu researchers -- in particularly, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority -- have in the past: the existence of some 11,000 condominium units on Maui, built between 1960 and 1990, that are permitted to vacation rent by their zoning.
In Honolulu, condos must have permits to vacation rent. These Maui units are a hybrid, mostly condo-hotels, but also partially residential. The Honolulu researchers keep treating them like residences, which results in statements like those that showed up in the Appleseed study that 1 in 3 homes in Lahaina are vacation rentals or that 1 in 7 homes on Maui are vacation rentals.
The report also stated that 93 percent of all 9,000 vacation rentals on Maui are "not permitted." That's true because the far majority of those units are permitted to vacation rent by their zoning. No permit is required.
I admire the work that the Appleseed Foundation does. I just hope that they would learn to get their facts straight.
Dave DeLeon
Haiku