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County Planning Director Michael Yee was recommending against approval. In his report to the commission, he noted that while a permitted house had been built on the property in 1997, more recently, the landowner, Fairview Avenue Hawai\u02bbi, LLC, had put up three dome structures and two enclosed tents. These had been advertised for short-term stays on AirBnB and other internet sites. According to one landowner in the area who submitted comments, there were already \u201cat least seven airbnb\u2019s on the applicant\u2019s property\u201d that were advertised online. (In the permit application, the owner\u2019s planning consultant, Zendo Kern, stated that three \u201cdemonstration domes\u201d had already been built. He said nothing about the additional accommodations nor did he address the complaint that they were already being rented. Yee informed Environment Hawai\u02bbi <\/em>that the county was undertaking enforcement action in light of the unpermitted structures and use.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tDan Orodenker, the state LUC\u2019s executive officer, submitted comments, noting that the state\u2019s land use law allows \u201cfor short-term agricultural tourism overnight accommodations only for the county of Maui, when other pre-conditions exist. For the other counties, bed and breakfast operations, lodges, and transient vacation rentals in properties within the state Agricultural District would be considered overnight accommodations. It should therefore be noted that while \u2018agricultural tourism\u2019 may be generally allowed on a property if there is an ordinance in place, overnight accommodations are not allowed even though they may be proposed in conjunction with \u2018agricultural tourism.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tMary Alice Evans, director of the state Office of Planning, cautioned that \u201capproval should be based on whether the lodge use would be considered as an \u2018unusual and reasonable\u2019 use within the Agricultural Land Use District. \u2026 A 40-unit lodge intended for short-term visitor accommodation is not consistent with the objectives of the Agricultural District.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tA number of landowners in the Hokukano area also submitted comments; none was in favor of the proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tJust days before the Planning Commission was to hear the application, the landowners, based in Hayward, California, asked that the hearing be delayed until at least October, in order that the concerns of neighbors could be addressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tOn August 20, just moments before the Planning Commission began its meeting, the planning director was notified that the landowner was withdrawing the application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tStill, commissioner Mark Van Pernis, himself an attorney, had a question about the appropriateness of vacation lodgings in the Agricultural District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn light of the recent Hawai\u02bbi Supreme Court [sic] decision stating that the county can ban vacation rentals on agricultural land,\u201d he said, \u201cmy inquiry is, will this decision \u2026 prohibit such applications in the future? And the corporation counsel can deliver his opinion when available.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deputy corporation counsel J Yoshimoto replied: \u201cJust to restate the question, so I understand it correctly, in light of the recent Hawai\u02bbi Supreme Court decision regarding [short-term vacation rentals] on Agricultural land, the question is whether this affects any applications moving forward. Is that correct, Mr. Van Pernis?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tOn hearing Van Pernis agree to that characterization, Yoshimoto said, \u201cI\u2019ll work on that and advise the commission accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n — Patricia Tummons<\/em><\/strong> On August 13, the state Land Use Commission voted to grant Hawaiʻi County’s petition for a declaratory ruling that short-term vacation rentals are not allowed for dwellings in the state Agricultural District. In so doing, it agreed with the county’s … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,338,473],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-12844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-land-use","category-september-2020","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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