Airbnb Has Sued Its Hometown Of San Francisco (cnn.com)

Robert Mclean, reporting for CNN:Airbnb is taking its hometown to federal court. The company has filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, objecting to short-term rental rule changes approved by its Board of Supervisors. A new ordinance set to take effect in late July would require all Airbnb hosts to register with the city. If they do not, Airbnb would be fined up to $1,000 a day for each listing, putting the burden on the company to make sure each listing is legal. But the city's $50 registration process is analog enough to turn off many hosts. It can't be completed online and requires submitting all the documents in person. Airbnb contends the new rule violates the Communications Decency Act, Stored Communications Act and the First Amendment.

Comments

Frivilous Law Suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Compliance with local regulations is the bread and butter of running an actual business. Airbnb must adapt its business model otherwise they are simply externalizing the costs associated with fraud after they neglect due diligence in verifying the legality of their listings. Inevitably this is more about publicizing that SF relies on a paper process, but the paper process has several advantages in terms of forcing residents to be local in order to rent out their property without actually rezoning it as a hotel or rental property and paying appropriate fees to account for increased traffic and sewage volume, etc.

Re:Frivilous Law Suit

[oh_my_080980980]

Most municipalities do not have the ability to submit registration forms on-line. Sack up and deal with it Airbnb. Your first amendment rights are not being trampled upon but you are wasting tax payer money just to be a dick.

Re:Frivilous Law Suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber IS a cab company.

Re:Frivilous Law Suit

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people keep trying to make this about the hotel industry? Airbnb is fucking up the entire real estate market which is already horrible enough in SF of all places. Landlords are turning apartments into hotel rooms to make a bit more money, reducing housing availability and driving up prices in a city that already has a desperate shortage of it.

Re:Frivilous Law Suit

[Solandri]

Have you asked yourself why that's happening?

City laws prohibiting new development maintain the "desperate shortage" of housing. And city laws capping rents makes short-term rentals more lucrative than long-term rentals. The real estate markets were already fucked up there by those laws before Airbnb even existed.

The market wants to fix it by adding more housing units but is prevented by laws prohibiting development. This causes prices to increase, which normally acts as an incentive for more development. Since the city doesn't want that, it caps rents. This doesn't make the problem go away though. All it does is shift the problem from one of price into one of availability - a lot more people want to live there than there is available housing. This results in a larger population of people wanting to live there but unable to. Which leads to more people wanting to visit. Which leads to more demand for short-term rentals like hotels and Airbnb.

In other words, Airbnb is a symptom of meddling in the real estate market (by the local government). Not the cause as you're insinuating.

Re:Frivilous Law Suit

[Holi]

Why should people follow building codes? Why should hotels and restaurants follow health codes?
Because we as a people have decided to enact laws that require them to follow the rules to make things safer for us, and because people have proven time and time again, that on their own they will cut corners to make an extra buck.

There are some good reasons for this

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Some good reasons I can think of off the top of my head:

1. It helps for planning purposes to know how many houses are homes and how many are short term rentals.
2. This helps catch people whose lease forbids short-term rentals (e.g. in rent-controlled or subsidized apartments) who are using Air BnB
3. People are dodging the taxes associated with (and already in place) for short term rentals
4. Short term rentals often conflict with long term sustainable housing. Which SF has an issue with already. Limiting the stock of this is an important aspect of city planning.
5. Renting property can be dangerous (there are sleeping/vulnerable travelers there) so being able to involve the government in revoking a license is a good thing. It can also be used to deny people with sufficiently criminal records.

I'm sure there are more, but I only had a few moments to consider it. Conversely, the $50, and fill out a form seem like remarkably low burdens to impose. I mean, "I'm suing because this form isn't online" is pretty stupid.

Real estate and tourism

[PraiseBob]

There are a number of cities that rely on the tourism industry that are undergoing negative changes due to AirBnb.

More rooms are available -> Hotels cant charge as much for rooms due to competition, and collect less taxes for the city. So the city has more tourists to support, but less tax revenue
Real estate prices go up -> Long term residents have incentive to sell/rent, renters have incentive to live elsewhere

It's similar to gentrification, but instead of replacing poor people with yuppies, its replacing residents with absentee landlords. There are increases in tourist dollars to local businesses, but less money from local residents. The overall effect is unhealthy for the city as a whole, since it drives residents away. Ultimately a city cant survive without locals who actually live in it.