Short-term vacation rentals do not belong on farm lots, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The state’s highest court issued a unanimous verdict Tuesday in a 4-year-old case stemming from a Hawaii County ordinance limiting the establishment of STVRs on agriculturally zoned land. The case initiated from a group of 20 West Hawaii landowners, referred to as the Rosehill Petitioners after their lead complainant Linda Rosehill.
The petitioners challenged the county ordinance, Bill 108, which prohibits landowners from renting out farm dwellings for periods of under 30 days. The bill, which was adopted in 2019, required any STVR operating outside of permitted zoning districts to obtain a nonconforming use permit from the county within 180 days, and prohibited any house on ag land from qualifying as an STVR unless the house had been built before 1976. The petitioners argued that the language of Bill 108 did not actually specify how long farm dwellings can be rented for, and therefore allows them to be rented for 30 days or fewer.
The group in 2020 submitted a petition — called the Rosehill Petition — to the state Land Use Commission. The LUC denied the petition in 2021, but the petitioners appealed the matter to the Third Circuit Court, which reversed the LUC decision. The LUC in 2022 then filed its own appeal to the state Intermediate Court of Appeals, and the case was eventually transferred to the state Supreme Court in 2023.
After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments i.