2027 Legislative Priorities

Hawaii needs better information about its long-term rental housing market. We should know how many rental homes exist, where they are located, what types of housing they represent, and how to communicate with the people providing them.HRHPA supports a simple statewide Rental Housing Provider Registration System designed primarily around data, communication, education, and access to resources. The State should retain regulatory authority and control over the official registry, while the housing-provider-facing platform could be administered through a qualified public-private partnership. HRHPA intends to advocate for a meaningful role in developing and managing the registration software, assisting housing providers with registration and renewals, providing technical support, and delivering educational and compliance information. A useful registration platform could eventually give housing providers one place to receive changes to landlord-tenant law, required notices, emergency information, educational resources, mediation information, and information about housing incentives and programs.HRHPA does not believe registration should automatically become a rental licensing or inspection program. If policymakers later want to require routine inspections, certifications, additional fees, or other enforcement mechanisms, those proposals should be considered separately through the legislative process.HRHPA’s Priority: Create a simple, useful registration system that improves Hawaii’s rental housing data while becoming a resource, rather than simply another regulatory obligation, for small housing providers.

Hawaii spends considerable time discussing how to build new housing, but preserving the rental homes already serving local residents is equally important. Small housing providers are facing increasing insurance premiums, property taxes, association fees, maintenance expenses, construction costs, and regulatory requirements. When owning and operating a long-term rental becomes too expensive, complicated, or risky, some owners may eventually sell the property, leave it vacant, use it for another purpose, or decide not to create an additional rental unit.HRHPA wants Hawaii to better understand why housing providers leave the long-term rental market and what would encourage them to remain. Policies worth exploring include property-tax incentives tied to long-term rental use, rehabilitation financing, assistance with major health and safety improvements, incentives for creating ADUs and ʻohana units, streamlined permitting, programs that help restore vacant units, and assistance bringing otherwise safe housing into legal compliance.We also want policymakers to ask a question that does not receive enough attention:What would make an existing homeowner willing to create one more long-term rental?One additional ADU, converted unit, restored home, or unused portion of a property may seem small. Across thousands of Hawaii homeowners, however, those individual decisions can become meaningful housing supply.HRHPA’s Priority: Preserve the rental homes Hawaii already has while creating practical incentives for small property owners to add new long-term housing.

Hawaii’s landlord-tenant laws have become increasingly complex. Small housing providers are expected to understand numerous requirements involving rental agreements, screening, security deposits, notices, repairs, entry, mediation, fair housing, termination, and other parts of the rental relationship.For someone who owns one or two rental properties and manages them personally, keeping up with every change can be difficult. HRHPA believes the State should make compliance easier.We support creation of an official, regularly updated compliance resource containing current required notices, statutory deadlines, security-deposit requirements, screening rules, mediation requirements, fair-housing information, and other essential obligations.Housing providers who use current State-approved forms and follow clearly established procedures should have some protection from penalties for certain inadvertent technical mistakes.A compliance safe harbor would not excuse discrimination, unsafe housing conditions, improper withholding of security deposits, intentional violations of the law, or failure to meet substantive legal obligations.The goal is much narrower: distinguish between a housing provider who is deliberately violating the law and one who made a technical error while making a documented good-faith effort to comply.HRHPA’s Priority: Make it easier for responsible small housing providers to understand and follow the law, while maintaining meaningful protections for residents.

Not every landlord is the same. A family renting an inherited home, a retiree renting a condominium, an owner living next to a tenant in an ADU, and a corporation operating hundreds of apartments may all legally be considered housing providers, but their resources and ability to absorb new regulatory requirements are very different.HRHPA believes major landlord-tenant legislation should include an analysis of how a proposal would affect Hawaii’s small rental housing providers. Before imposing a new mandate, policymakers should understand how many small providers would be affected, what compliance would cost, whether new paperwork or liability would be created, and whether the proposal could influence an owner’s decision to continue providing a long-term rental.An impact analysis should also examine whether alternatives, exemptions, phased implementation, simplified compliance, or different requirements for very small properties could achieve the same policy objective. This is not about exempting small providers from reasonable tenant protections. It is about understanding the consequences of legislation before it becomes law.A regulation that is relatively easy for a professionally staffed apartment company to administer can be significantly more difficult for someone managing one rental property after work or during retirement.HRHPA’s Priority:  Require policymakers to recognize and consider the real-world impact of major landlord-tenant legislation on Hawaii’s small housing providers and the long-term rental housing they provide.