Thank you to all the stakeholders who submitted their testimony both written and oral for today’s meeting. A big Mahalo to the planning department for meeting with us, and RAM, and amending their presentation with some of our suggestions. Your words and voices are so important, because only you folks know the state of the industry, and can speak to what changes to the ordinance could result here on Maui. Many of us stated the unintended consequences that could be associated with the proposed legislation and the commissioners and the County heard the message. 

There were a lot of procedural revisions that we supported in this legislation, but unfortunately these were tied to other restrictions, like adding the 15 years ownership for STRH or the 5 years ownership and construction to B&B applications. The language on the trusts still needed work, in order to be sure beneficiaries were not left out.

The commissioners along with the director of the planning department, Michele McLean said their recommendation is to defer this bill. The department will make edits detailed by the director, McLean:

“Allow Jacky and me to make the changes we included in the powerpoint, 

• Eliminating the proposed changes to B&Bs including the 5 year owner and construction requirement, 
• Removing the 15 year requirement for STRH and leaving that as is at 5 years
• Removing the property tax as prima facie evidence from B&B and STRH
• Working some more with corp counsel on the trust language, taking into account some of the testimony that we saw
• Clarifying that ads should use TMK not physical addresses
• Clarify that each lot gets one vote per lot, pertaining to the changes in mailing notifications and letters that come in 
• Clarify what the changes mean for existing permit holders,

Those were the main takeaways that I got from the meeting with MVRA, RAM and written and oral testimony.

So what we will do is work on the bill and coordinate one last time with MVRA and RAM and then we can post that, and schedule it again at a future meeting.”

After the unanimous vote to support the deferment, Chair Carnicelli added, “I want to say thank you to all the testifiers, everybody that submitted written and oral testimony, its greatly appreciated. Its always good to see the community come out and have their voices heard and make a better mousetrap. So thank you to everybody.”

If you missed the meeting and you would like to see the deliberations and vote check our youtube channel for this short 8 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3MZXN6zN0Y