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Indiana Considers Prohibiting Cities From Banning Airbnb (usnews.com)
"Indiana's cities and towns wouldn't be allowed to put their own restrictions on companies such as Airbnb under a proposal state lawmakers are considering," reports the Associated Press. Slashdot reader El Cubano writes:
The proposed legislation would prohibit local government in the state from banning Airbnb rentals by their residents. There are exceptions for home owner associations (which will still be allowed to ban rentals in their communities) and 180-day per year cap.
It is interesting to see something like this being considered at the state level. Supporters say that they are trying to prevent knee-jerk regulations and to protect an innovative emerging market. At the same time, local authorities are upset that they will no longer have the option to make the determination for themselves.
The bill has already been approved by the Indiana House, as well as a key committee in the Indiana Senate.
It is interesting to see something like this being considered at the state level. Supporters say that they are trying to prevent knee-jerk regulations and to protect an innovative emerging market. At the same time, local authorities are upset that they will no longer have the option to make the determination for themselves.
The bill has already been approved by the Indiana House, as well as a key committee in the Indiana Senate.
So, I am the submitter of the story, and I was really curious about was whether others think this is a good or bad thing. (Since I didn't submit it as an Ask Slashdot I didn't think I should go with questions in the story summary). I will reserve my own thoughts on whether this is good or bad as I am interested in what others have to say on the matter.
Is it good that Airbnb will be allowed to operate statewide, with protection of their innovative approach to the market being enshrined in law?
Alternately, is this an overreach on the part of the part of the state government?
I have to imagine that Airbnb is pleased by a developments like this since it keeps them from having to fight different local regulations in lots of different small jurisdictions.
If you're constituency is the entrenched hospitality industry, it's hardly and overreach. If your constituency is actually the people who voted for you and you actually give a rats ass about their interests, its most egregious overreach. Gee, I wonder where the party lines will be on this one.
Generally I think it's a good idea and a move in the right direction, but I would also like to see more responsibility for AirBnB hosts for their guests. Living next to an apartment that's being used more or less exclusively for AirBnB can be taxing if it is handed around between people who enjoy to party, and some apartment are actually being sold as "party location".
The least I'd expect if you turn the apartment next to mine into the noise equivalent of a frat house is that I get an easy way to have fines coming down on your that make you reconsider.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This sounds like something that is better decided at the local level, so the state getting involved seems like overreach to me.
Note that unlike what the title claims, this is not only about banning but also about restricting.There is a difference between renting out your house when you happen to be away and renting it out almost full time. So restrictions on the number of rental days per year can be useful to keep areas that are in demand by tourists as residential areas. 180 days per year is such a generous cap that I'm not sure it would prevent houses from being used as rentals all year round.
To my mind this is fundamentally wrong. There is a reason that municipal governments exist - because what's good for the state may not be good in any particular city in that state. It SHOULD be possible for a municipality to make laws or implement programs that do no exist elsewhere in the state and the state should not be able to prevent this unless there is a truly compelling reason (like a constitutional violation). This becomes particularly egregious when you have liberal cities in red states- surely, at least within their own cities, the liberal voters' beliefs should get some traction into the laws they live under ?
It's a gross overreach when a state government interferes with a municipality's attempts to provide free broadband after ISPs failed to cover their citizens.
It is a gross overreach when a city votes to protect trans-rights and a state-law then not only changes the default law in the state to one that denies trans rights but also invalidates the local municipal law and prohibits municipalities from making such laws themselves.
It's a gross overreach when a city, for whatever reason, is told by the state what regulations they can or cannot have on what kinds of businesses. Some business regulations must be on the state or even federal level since they regulate activities which do not remain confined to borders (air and water pollution regulations for example), others are entirely local in their impact and whether those impacts are positive or negative thus entirely depends on the local context - and the municipality should be able to make local rules as appropriate for such activities.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Here, here.
It should also be noted that as far as the US goes, there was a reason as to why any power not explicitly granted to Congress is either reserved by the states or the people. It is a limitation on government, and an important one. One of the biggest reasons through out history for an empire to fall is over management. What works at the capital, does not necessary work at the frontiers. If the ruling party does not allow flexibility in the law for these differences, all it will do is create tension, and anger.
I guess our current ruling party has forgotten those lessons....
The only ones who should be banning overreach on the local/municipal level is local government representing the neighborhood level. For a state to say this is wrong you must do X to a city is as bad as the federal governement saying the same thing to a state. Not everyone in Indiana have the same thoughts on the matter and it is up to the cities to decide how they want to enforce these policies.
Personally I don't have an issue with AirBnB so long as the owner is present at the location the entire time of the stay, and is accountable for any damage or disturbance caused by the guest including potential crimes that are commited as a result of a previous stay. If they want to be able to absolve themselves of such responsibilities then they need to establish their location as a purely commerical property away from residential areas. But that's just me, because I have had a neighbor use the service which resulted in a party they didn't know which included a drunk person their guest invited over break my door because they thought they were locked out. Cops or no cops, my wife didn't sleep until they were gone.
If you're constituency is the entrenched hospitality industry, it's hardly and overreach. If your constituency is actually the people who voted for you and you actually give a rats ass about their interests, its most egregious overreach. Gee, I wonder where the party lines will be on this one.
That's the key - it's only over reach if they prevent you from doing something or let others do something you don't like; it's good policy if they let you do something or prevent others from doing something you don't want them to be able to do. personally, the state's function is to set uniform rules for safety, codes, etc. where uniformity is needed and let local governments decide what sorts of regulations are appropriate for their locality. Of course, special interests find it easier to influence state legislature so they work at that level, wether it's to ban municipalities from becoming ISPs or overriding local laws they don't like. For all the "libertarian" talk often coming from startups some sure sure jump right into government regulation when their business is being disrupted.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Most laws that move the decision making closer to the people is good in my eyes.
Except this doesn't. It would basically prevent local governments from making that decision.
HOA have exemptions, yes, but that's so the rich state legislators can ban it from THEIR neighborhoods.
Apparently, it must be cheaper for AirBnB to bribe state lawmakers than going after all the local lawmakers.
I used to live next to a place that would have different guests nightly. The street was choked with cars, and you would see 10-20 adults, likely sloppy drunk, all crashed out in/around the rental house. Fights with different people always happened in the wee hours of the morning. To boot, the owner of the property was proud of the fact that he didn't have to bother paying bed taxes, and snickered at the hotels that did.
Needless to say, when I could, I moved elsewhere. I'm really not impressed with AirBnB, because it screws hotels and innkeepers who actually pay their taxes and deal with licensing and other fees.
This is the quintessential conundrum for the small-government proponents.
On the one hand, small-governmenters want a minimum of regulations telling businesses what they are and aren't allowed to d. So, a rule saying that communities can't issue their own regulations on businesses operations is good.
On the other hand, small-governmenters want return of control to local governments. So a rule telling communities what laws they can't pass is bad.
Overall, a mishmash of local communities enacting different regulations governing every aspect of life with different degrees of control results in chaos; it would make it nearly impossible for businesses to operate if they need a lawyer in every single community they might do business in to analyze the regulations. The advantage of state and federal government is that it can standardize the regulations, so that there isn't a different law in every single community.
But, federal and local governments can certainly overuse this power. Like almost everything, it's a trade-off.
For the non-HOA 50%, this law moves control of the issue further away from the people.
Wrong. If there is no HOA then control resides with each individual homeowner, and which is the most local level possible. This regulation isn't forcing homeowners to use AirBnB; it is giving control to homeowners.
People who won't buy a home covered by an HOA because it would annoy them, but then still want to control what their neighbors do, are a special form of hypocrite.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke