Hawaii lawmakers take aim at vacation rentals after Lahaina wildfire amplifies Maui housing crisisThis 2023 image provided by Amy Chadwick shows where her home used to stand after a wildfire in Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui. | Amy Chadwick via APHONOLULU — A single mother of two, Amy Chadwick spent years scrimping and saving to buy a house in the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
The Aug. 8 wildfire killed 101 people and destroyed housing for 6,200 families, amplifying Maui’s already acute housing shortage and laying bare the enormous presence of vacation rentals in Lahaina. It reminded lawmakers that short-term rentals are an issue across Hawaii, prompting them to consider bills that would give counties the authority to phase them out.
The blaze burned single family homes and apartments in and around downtown, which is the core of Lahaina’s residential housing. An analysis by the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization found a relatively low 7.5% of units there were vacation rentals as of February 2023. In 1992, Maui County explicitly allowed owners in these buildings to rent units for less than 180 days at a time even without short-term rental permits. Since November, activists have occupied the beach in front of Lahaina’s biggest hotels to push the mayor or governor to use their emergency powers to revoke this exemption.
In his own Kauai district, Evslin sees people leaving, becoming homeless or working three jobs to stay afloat.
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