WAILUKU » The Maui County Council has passed a bill allowing bed-and-breakfast operations in agricultural and rural areas.

In passing the bill yesterday, the Council limited the number of operations to 400 countywide, the number estimated to have been in operation before a crackdown on illegal bed-and-breakfast businesses.

Pamela Tumpap, president of the Maui Chamber of Commerce, said the bill helped to offer an alternative type of visitor accommodation and to increase tourism.

“;It's really needed,”; Tumpap said.

Maui resident Pat Borge, who opposed the bill, said the Council was listening to special interests but not to residents who are against the number being set at 400 bed and breakfasts.

“;To me, it's not fair. The numbers are too high,”; Borge said. “;We locals we give up a lot ... They don't belong in our neighborhoods.”;

Council member Michelle Anderson, the lone dissenter in the 7-1 vote to approve the bill, said the bill gave too much discretion to the planning director in issuing permits.

Anderson said she also felt the 400-limit on bed-and-breakfast operations was too high.

Under the bill, the bed-and-breakfast owner is required to live on the property, and the permit is nontransferable.

The bill also places restrictions on noise and parking impacts on neighborhoods.

Under a law in effect since 1997, 26 bed and breakfasts and transient vacation rentals have received permits to operate in residential and business areas.

At its peak before a county crackdown on illegal bed and breakfasts, tourism vacation rentals generated direct and indirect revenues of between $229 million and $318.8 million annually and between 2,508 to 3,478 jobs, supporters said.

Critics fear the bill allowing visitor accommodation rentals would artificially raise property values in residential and agricultural areas.

The Maui County Farm Bureau said the bill allows farming to be an incidental business to the bed-and-breakfast operation on agricultural land.