The proposed tax is flawed on so many levels that it would almost be negligent for the Honolulu City Council to pass it
The Honolulu City Council is set to vote Wednesday on whether to create a heavy new tax on all so-called empty homes, as proposed in Bill 46.
The measure comes with many unanswered questions and feels rushed, especially since the Council has not yet received the results of a half-million-dollar study on the tax that it commissioned.
So if you live on Oahu and haven’t taken the time yet to speak out against this bill, make sure to visit Grassroot’s Action Center before it’s too late. The site makes it simple to write a custom message in as little as two minutes using an online dashboard.
There, you will be given sample wording that you can customize. Then just enter your contact information, hit send, and an email will be sent to the Honolulu City Council and Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
If you need more information about why the bill could be a disaster for Honolulu, here are some recent materials on the subject produced by Grassroot:
>> Keli‘i Akina’s recent “President’s Corner” column “Put ’empty homes’ tax proposal on pause.”
>> Grassroot’s latest testimony on Bill 46 “Reasons abound to reject proposed ‘empty homes’ tax.“
>> Grassroot’s May 2023 report “The ‘empty homes’ theory of Hawaii’s housing crisis,” written when an earlier version of Bill 46 was being considered.
And just this past week, on Thursday:
Grassroot Executive Vice President Joe Kent wrote in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser why a report often cited by Bill 46 supporters — the “UCLA study” — should be discounted.
In the article, headlined “Honolulu not right venue for an effective empty-homes tax,” Kent said, first, the report was “more like a manual about how to implement the tax rather than a study about whether to implement it.”
Second, the only alternatives the report considered all had to do with more taxes or regulations, “not fewer, which research overwhelmingly shows would be the best way to resolve Hawaii’s housing crisis.”
And third, the UCLA report contained critical methodological flaws, particularly in comparing Honolulu to Washington, D.C. A better comparison, Kent said, would be Auckland, New Zealand, which in 2016 “upzoned three-quarters of the city, tripling the potential for new housing development. As a result, construction rates doubled, housing prices fell by up to 39%, and rents decreased by as much as 33%.”
Such evidence, Kent concluded, “highlights comprehensive zoning reform as the most effective way to address Honolulu’s housing crisis, rather than pursuing a complicated vacancy tax proposal that could have unintended consequences.”
You can read the whole article here.
Meanwhile …
The Honolulu Board of Realtors sponsored a crowded special meeting at the Hawai‘i Convention Center this past Tuesday concerning Honolulu’s proposed empty homes tax that featured guest speakers Akina, University of Hawai‘i law professor David Callies and Tax Foundation of Hawaii President Tom Yamachika.
The trio talked about the potential problems of the proposed tax, including its legal vulnerabilities, which apparently are substantial. Among those are the possibility that the tax could conflict with Hawaii’s right to privacy and with the U.S. Constitution’s takings, due process and interstate commerce clauses, as well as with the requirement under a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that any law must “substantially” advance a state purpose for it to be valid.
All that said, please take the time to get involved and make a difference by visiting Grassroot’s Action Center and make your voice heard.
