The city council met on Tuesday to discuss how to handle short-term leases. Demonstrators on both sides of what is becoming a heated controversy rallied in front of the meeting hall. Airbnb officials passed out buttons and t-shirts to their supporters. Newsweek reported protesters ranged from well known housing activists, such as NY Assembly member Linda Rosenthal, to ordinary New Yorkers.
— Ti-Hua Chang (@tihuachang) January 20, 2015
New York state law dictates that residents cannot rent out any part of their apartment for less than 30 days unless they are living on-site. A report from the state’s attorney general Eric Schneiderman’s office revealed nearly three quarters of Airbnb listings were in violation of city or state law.
“Airbnb and the illegal hotel operators it enables are contributing to the affordable housing crisis,” the city’s elected public advocate, Letitia James, said in a letter to the company last month.
Many have argued that Airbnb creates incentives for people to buy up existing housing and convert it into de facto hotel rooms, depriving residents from the opportunity to buy. And the site’s popularity is growing: Schneiderman’s office said in the October report that the number of apartments and rooms rented through Airbnb went from 2,650 in 2010 to 16,500 in 2014.
Schneiderman subpoenaed Airbnb for customer information in 2014 and determined that 6% of Airbnb hosts controlled more than a third of the listings in the city. A single host had 272 apartments listed, for which he earned $6.8 million dollars. Airbnb removed 2,000 hosts from the site, and says on record that it does not support illegal hotels.
— Anna Molas (@AnnaMolas) January 20, 2015
Affordable housing is one of the focal points of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration.
Wiley Norvell, De Blasio’s deputy press secretary and spokesman, said the city takes turning apartments into illegal hotels very seriously and that there is a system in place that has and will continue to pursue complaints about the issue. Airbnb in turn says that most hosts comply with the law, and that its services actually make housing more affordable in the notoriously expensive city.
“The majority of hosts use the money they earn to pay their bills and stay in their homes,” David Hantman, Airbnb’s public policy head, wrote to lawmakers in a letter Friday.
Airbnb is calling for “smart regulation” in New York, as is in place in cities like Washington, D.C., or the company’s home in San Francisco.
