Proposed legislation in Hawaii would reshape the way short-term rentals are regulated and allow counties to phase them out completely over time. Currently, 5.5 percent of Hawaii’s housing units are short-term rentals.
I wholeheartedly support City Council Chairman Tommy Waters on the need to examine the shoreline in front of Waikiki hotels every four years (“Waikiki hoteliers, industry resist sea level legislation,” Star-Advertiser, Oct. 24).
In 2018, a year after four people were killed in the blaze at the 35-story Marco Polo, the City Council acted to require that residential high-rises vulnerable to fast-spreading fires be retrofitted with sprinkler systems or provide certain minimum protections.
One of the primary advantages of transit-oriented development (TOD) is that it enables the government to leverage an adjacent transit system to encourage development, offering incentives to builders for housing that will help address a most pressing need.