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Governor Cuomo Bans Airbnb From Listing Short-Term Rentals In New York (nypost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New York Post: Gov. Cuomo on Friday bowed to pressure from the hotel industry and signed into law one of the nation's toughest restrictions on Airbnb -- including hefty fines of up to $7,500 for people who rent out space in their apartments. Backers of the punitive measure -- which applies to rentals of less than 30 days when the owner or tenant is not present -- say many property owners use Airbnb and similar sites to offer residential apartments as short-term rentals to visitors, hurting the hotel business while taking residential units off the Big Apple's high-priced housing market. Enforcement, however, will be a huge challenge, as thousands of short-term apartment rentals are listed in the city despite a 2010 law that prohibits rentals of less than 30 days when the owner or tenant is not present. Violators could be turned in by neighbors or landlords opposed to the practice, or the state could monitor the site to look for potential violations. But beyond that how the law would be enforced was not immediately clear. The new law won't apply to rentals in single-family homes, row houses or apartment spare rooms if the resident is present. But will apply to co-ops and condos. Airbnb mounted a last-ditch effort to kill the measure, proposing alternative regulations that the company argued would address concerns about short-term rentals without big fines. Tenants who violate current state law and list their apartments for rentals of less than 30 days would face fines of $1,000 for the first offense, $5,000 for the second and $7,500 for a third. An investigation of Airbnb rentals from 2010 to 2014 by the state attorney general's office found that 72 percent of the units in New York City were illegal, with commercial operators constituting 6 percent of the hosts and supplying 36 percent of the rentals. As of August, Airbnb had 45,000 city listings and another 13,000 across the state.
This is such a stupid argument. If Im good enough I can literally kill someone without any proof. Should we make murder legal?
Yeah, some shit is hard to prove, doesn't mean it should be legal if its genuinely hurting people and we decide it should not.
The distinction between residential and commercial establishment has been a staple for a long time, and it has a lot of value (if only so your neighbors can exercise their right of quiet enjoyment of THEIR properties, which I'd argue, is vastly more important than your freedom to rent it out).
Thats without even counting the insane amount of people who AirBNB condos after signing papers saying they wont (short term rentals are very frequently banned in condo associations). So fuck em.
Asshats who decide that the AirBnB they rented is their weeklong party house. Have you ever had to live next to a flat full of partying Russians on holiday? No? Let me tell you, it fucking sucks. Oh and then the following week we had some girl go running out screaming that her boyfriend OD'd on heroin or some crap. Absolutely awful. There is a reason why hoteliers are regulated and are typically not in residential neighborhoods. Let alone a goddamn condo where I'm paying a $2500 month mortgage.
Wait until you get one of these assholes next to you...
...for middle- and upper-class neighborhoods, but not for the inner-city neighborhoods that subsidize them. That's right, single-use zoning is a form of reverse welfare that subsidizes the middle- and upper-classes at the expense of the poor.
Also, what's the value in prohibiting someone from building an apartment building next door to a factory? You'd think it would be good to bring jobs to a city without bringing traffic.
In Japan by contrast, they do things a little smarter than the USA's clumsy approach to zoning. Instead of single-use zoning, they allow anything of a lesser nuisance than the area is zoned for. A grocery store is less of a nuisance than a factory, so they allow grocery stores in industrial zones. An apartment building is less of a nuisance than a grocery store, so they allow apartment buildings in commercial zones. And a single-family house is less of a nuisance than an apartment building, so single-family houses are allowed in multifamily residential zones, but not the reverse.
If every neighborhood in a city had to become self-sufficient in city spending versus property tax revenue, you can be sure that people living in middle-class, single-family residential zones suddenly faced with massive property tax bills would do everything in their power to attract bed-and-breakfasts, corner stores, and the other tax-efficient amenities that existed in our neighborhoods until we legislated our freedoms away in the aftermath of WWII.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
There's little reason for it except that the hotel industry has greased enough palms to get a law passed in their favour.
Housing shortage is one good reason, safety is another. Plus it's a nuisance for the neighbours to have short stay guests partying all night and making a fucking pigsty of the building.
Most of these laws are on the books to make a city a nicer place to live. Sites like AirBnB and Uber are not about sharing but about selfish parasitic behaviour. I hope cities across the world will follow New York's example on this one.