Enforcement of Oahu’s short-term rental law to begin Monday – Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi today said the city will defend its right to restrict Oahu short-term rentals outside of resort districts to 90 days, and starting Monday will begin aggressively enforcing all other provisions of its new short-term rental law.

Blangiardi and city officials held a press conference at 1:30 p.m. at Honolulu Hale to address an Oct. 13 order from U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson. Watson granted a preliminary injunction to stop the city from enforcing provisions in Bill 41, ordinance 22-07, which pertain to increasing the minimum allowable stay for Oahu rentals outside of resort districts to 90 days from 30 days.

Blangiardi said that the city cannot enforce on rentals of 30 to 89 days due to a preliminary injunction. However, he said the city is ready to begin enforcement Monday on rentals of less than 30 days and all other provisions of the ordinance, which sets fines at up to $10,000 a day.

Short-term rental owners in resort districts, who are allowed to rent for less than 30 days, must register their properties when the city’s registration website goes live on Monday, Blangiardi said.

He was adamant that the preliminary injunction would not “diminish our ability to enforce,” and said he believed in the law, which came about because “we wanted to take back our neighborhoods.”

Blangiardi said the city is down 80 positions in the Department of Planning and Permitting, but plans to dedicate seven full-time inspectors to the endeavor, and more if needed. He said the city has purchased a short-term rental monitoring system that will sweep websites to find illegal short-term rentals, a number that he believes could be as high as 14,000.

He said the city also has set up a telephone hotline 1-808-787-STVR (7887) so that DPP can field complaints from the community about illegal short-term rentals.