After two years of meetings, panels and discussion, the bill is currently in the Council's Planning Committee for review. It was deferred yesterday, as they wait for comments from the County Attorney's Office. Once finished, the bill will be sent to the whole Council for a vote.

Bill 2204 would eliminate all new transient vacation rental properties and bed-and-breakfast operations outside designated areas across the Garden Isle.

Owners of current vacation rentals and bed-and-breakfast properties who have paid their general excise taxes and the Transient Accommodation Tax for a year will be allowed under the current version of the bill.

But they will be required to get nonconforming use permits every two years, and will not be able to transmit their permits to new buyers if they sell their property.

But another issue arose, causing the ire of many in attendance yesterday: a new amendment that would outlaw all vacation rental and bed-and-breakfast properties on land zoned for agriculture, including those in agriculture subdivisions.

County Councilwoman JoAnne Yukimura, who proposed the amendment, said under her interpretation of state law, buildings on agriculture land should be relegated to homesteads and farm dwellings, not used for commercial enterprise.

"It's been a huge white elephant for many years in the state," she said. "They're not legal right now under state law."

Councilmembers said they hoped the new county attorney, former Big Island Judge Matthew Pyun Jr., who was sworn in yesterday, would give his opinion on the matter by the next committee meeting, April 4.