KAHULUI, Maui — Owners of Maui's embattled bed-and-breakfast and short-term vacation rental businesses appeared hopeful Saturday, buoyed after a Maui Chamber of Commerce-sponsored workshop meant to find solutions for an industry faced with going out of business, The Maui News reported.

The event came days before Maui County Council members will conduct their first review this week of five bills drafted by Mayor Charmaine Tavares' administration. The measures are meant to set new standards to permit bed-and-breakfast businesses and transient vacation rentals outside the island's hotel/resort districts.

About 55 people — nearly all vacation rental, bed-and-breakfast and tourism business owners — were at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center for the three-hour session. The event was organized by Council Member Gladys Baisa, whose Planning Committee will take up the measures at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the eighth-floor Council Chambers of the Kalana O Maui Building.

"I think there will be a lot of changes (to the bills)," Baisa said. "The council has an opportunity here."

Baisa, who was joined by Council Member Bill Medeiros and state Rep. Mele Carroll, said elected officials must find a way to stop the pain caused as the Tavares administration moves to enforce county laws against unpermitted visitor lodgings.

"This is a very contentious issue," county Planning Director Jeff Hunt told the near-capacity audience. "But I think you can express yourself without attacking someone personally or the administration or what happened in the past."

After Tavares took office last year, she set into motion a plan to eliminate unpermitted vacation rentals.

She said her decision came in response to what she said were numerous complaints about how the number of illegal rentals had jumped to more than 1,000 because of a lack of enforcement by previous administrations. She has also said she's taken action because the rentals have negatively impacted neighborhoods and reduced the county's stock of much-needed long-term rental properties.

On Saturday morning, a panel of tourism and real estate experts spoke and then participants broke out into groups and came up with a list of what they would like to see included in bills revising the county's vacation rental and bed-and-breakfast ordinances.

Here's a sampling of some of the more popular suggestions, most of which involved vacation rentals:

• Allow vacation rentals to operate outside the hotel/resort zones.

• Streamline the county's permitting process by allowing the planning director to issue permits independently, without involving planning commissions or the County Council.

• Establish an appeals process in which — if 30 percent of neighbors within 500 feet of a proposed vacation rental objected to it — a proposed business would be sent to a planning commission for review.

• Set up a complaints process in which three verified complaints within a period of time would lead to a permit revocation.

• Establish a schedule for warnings and fines.

• Grandfather in existing vacation rentals.

• Cap the total number of vacation rentals or allow them to be a percentage of the island's housing inventory.

• Spread out the locations of vacation rentals.

• Require off-street parking.

• Mandate a professional on-site manager or management company with a visible phone number.

• Prohibit the transfer of ownership.

• Allow bed-and-breakfast owners or a full-time manager to live on the premises, but not necessarily in the home.

Chamber President Pamela Tumpap said she plans to compile the information and present a report of the workshop findings to the Planning Committee by Tuesday.

Chamber officials want the industry regulated and the bad operators weeded out, but there must be a way for everyone to coexist, she said.

Alluding to an earlier estimate that vacation rentals and bed-and-breakfasts generate $300 million in business, Dick Mayer, vice chairman of the Maui County General Plan Advisory Committee, called that a gross overstatement. He said vacation rentals have the potential to clutter up neighborhoods. He also noted that past and proposed long-term plans call on tourism industry growth to be restricted to hotel/resort areas.

Tom Croly of the Maui Vacation Rental Association said that regulation is not feasible.

"But maybe we can limit how many can be in a neighborhood," Croly said.

Chris Clark of Kihei said he built a home with the intention of it being a part-time vacation rental.

"It's just absurd that I live in an area with beachfront rental condos all over, but I can't rent out my home," he said.

Foster Radford said he's operated his illegal vacation rental near Kalama Park for 40 years but closed it down to comply with the new enforcement. He said he's tried numerous times over the years to apply for a permit but was turned away at the Planning Department.

Radford praised Saturday's workshop, saying it was devoid of the ugliness that has dominated much of the vacation rental debate.

"I was told it can't be done, but we are going to pass laws that everyone can live with," Baisa said. "We all have our eyes on the prize and that is legislation that will get us out of this mess."

For more Maui news, visit http://www.mauinews.com/default.aspx">The Maui News.