An online search for “‘bed and breakfast’ Oahu” turns up more than 200,000 results. That’s quite a return for an island that banned the opening of any new bed and breakfast establishments nearly two decades ago. But with one City Council member’s proposal to lift that ban, and another’s plan to introduce a licensing board to oversee existing bed and breakfast properties, the issue is at the center of a heated public debate, driven largely by those in neighborhoods like Kailua, Kahala and Hawai’i Kai who oppose both measures.

The city defines bed and breakfast homes as those in which guests pay to stay overnight for fewer than 30 days, and the owner or a lessee or property manager also stays on site. Angie Larson, president of the Hawai’i Vacation Rental Owners Association, runs a two-bedroom bed and breakfast in Kailua, which she declined to name, saying she doesn’t want any trouble from the city. She said she opened her business after 1989, when all the certificates of approved establishments had already been handed out.

“In 1989 there were 141 [bed and breakfasts],” she said. “Today there are only 57 left. Even though the numbers have dropped drastically, they won’t give out more permits. We’ve been asking since after 1989, and the bottom line is that we want to comply and we want to coexist with out neighbors.”

The high volume of illegal bed and breakfast sites, which City Councilman Charles Djou estimates at well more than 500 on O’ahu, means that hundreds of proprietors are paying residential taxes for commercial operations. Residents who live among these operations have concerns that extend beyond tax compliance to worries about not knowing who is living in the houses around them.

“Security’s a big issue,” said Elizabeth Reilly, vice chair of the Hawai’i Kai Neighborhood Board. Reilly said she routinely speaks with people who have illegally operated inns or bed and breakfasts in their neighborhoods. “I’m huge on neighborhood watch and it’s frightening to think about. If the ban on [bed and breakfasts] is lifted, the city will basically be asking me not only to do my neighborhood watch but also watch to see if something illegal is happening and then report it to the very entity that has not been properly enforcing.”

Djou said it’s that lack of enforcement that led him to create his own proposal, separate from Councilwoman Barbara Marshall’s plan–which he said he strongly opposes–to lift the 1989 ban.

“For the last decade and a half, the city government has been unable to enforce the law,” Djou said. “One possibility is, well, we’ll just go out and hire more building inspectors. Given the city’s financial situation, that would entail a tax increase and I generally don’t think raising taxes is an appropriate response to a problem.”

Djou said the Department of Planning and Permitting is too backed up as it is, so that the shift in priorities that the department would have to make to realign its focus on bed and breakfasts would further delay that backlog and drag down the slowing local economy. He said it also doesn’t make sense to try to reallocate members of an already-strained police force to target neighborhoods where bed and breakfasts are operating illegally.

“So faced with that situation, you either accept the status quo or you try to do something about it,” Djou said. “My proposal is modeled on the licensing agencies that already exist for dentists, plumbers, retailers, you name it. There should be a professional licensing board, financed by licensing dues and any fines issued would go to the board so they could pay inspectors.”

Djou said his proposal is a way to create a self-regulating industry that doesn’t burden taxpayers, but taxpayers like Reilly argue it ignores the core problem.

“The buck has been passed from City Council to City Council,” Reilly said. “We have a gross enforcement problem, an illegal housing situation. Let’s make enforcement work and then we’ll take a look at the demands and needs of what comes next with regard to development.”

And as they do in so many local political debates, development woes surface for many of those who don’t want to see their neighborhoods turn into tourist traps and worry about how well infrastructure like sewers and roadways could support the sort of influx they imagine would come with a boom in bed and breakfasts. Keeping development under control is at the crux of Sen. Fred Hemmings’ opposition to both City Council measures.

“I think we really have to be careful with this kind of legislation,” Hemmings said. “I introduced a bill three years ago and that was a statewide visitor accommodation cap to make existing accommodations more valuable as a finite resource and hopefully benefit the hotel industry. It would also protect Hawai’i from over-inundation. I am a huge supporter of the travel industry but when it gets to the point that we’re losing our lifestyles and just turning into one big commercial operation, it just doesn’t make sense.”

But Larson said any fears about a sudden growth in development–and the changes to a community that might come with it–are unfounded.

“We’re not talking about a change in infrastructure,” she said. “We’re talking about utilizing rooms that already exist and acknowledging what they’re being used for. People say they won’t know their neighbors but guess what? These already are your neighbors. Some of these fears are generated by a small group of people who have leaders who are perpetuating the same fears they brought up in 1989. None of those things happened then, and none of them are going to happen now.”

Marshall’s proposal to lift the bed and breakfast ban gets a second reading tomorrow, whereas the earliest Djou said his plan could go through the system would be in February.