For more than three years, ShareBetter SF has worked to create enforceable, sensible regulations for short-term Airbnb rentals in San Francisco. Our coalition of tenant organizers and landlords, affordable housing advocates and neighborhood associations, labor unions and business interests, advocates for seniors and the disabled, and proponents of sound planning, land use and housing policies, focuses on preserving affordable housing and preventing de facto hotels in San Francisco neighborhoods.
We are making solid progress. Earlier this month, Airbnb and its major competitor, HomeAway, dropped a Federal lawsuit challenging San Francisco’s authority to prohibit them from facilitating illegal rentals. Both companies agreed to limit their listings to only legal, registered short-term rentals, an enormous concession that will eliminate the bulk of their SF listings.
As Los Angeles develops short-term rental regulations of its own, much can be learned from our experience.
Airbnb causes the same problems here as it does there: exacerbating the shortage of affordable housing, and helping commercial operators make a mockery of zoning laws by running de facto hotels in residential neighborhoods.
As the City Council continues pursuing the right rules for Los Angeles, here are a few lessons from San Francisco and beyond:
• In cities around the world, Airbnb uses “home sharers” as human shields. The company turns them out for public hearings by the hundreds. But legitimate home sharers — folks renting spare rooms occasionally — are just a small fraction of Airbnb’s listings. Independent studies repeatedly find that many Airbnb “hosts” are commercial operators renting multiple units full-time.
The company uses its most in-need hosts to defend the practices of egregious operators, especially when most city regulations will not significantly harm the occasional home-shared—only illegal commercial operators.
• Regulation works only if Airbnb and other platforms have “skin in the game.” Short-term rental regulations should include provisions that hold them accountable for ensuring their listings comply with the rules. In 2014, San Francisco adopted rules allowing people to rent rooms or units if they registered and paid hotel taxes. Short-term rentals were legal only in primary residences. Second homes and investment properties were ineligible. People who violated the law were subject to fines.
Airbnb ignored all of these requirements and limitations. It listed and rented anything, legal or not, registered or not. Regulations are not effective if regulators must pursue tens of thousands of violations one at a time. Airbnb must be held accountable for renting illegal units.
• In tight housing markets, it’s perfectly reasonable to strictly limit short-term rentals to primary residences. When so many working families cannot find or afford housing, it’s hard to justify using vacation homes and investment units as tourist rentals.
• Allowing for “hosts to be present” to increase the total number of days allowed (cap on days) to rent short-term does not work. The San Francisco regulations still carry a glaring weakness: a split cap. If a host is present, she can rent an unlimited number of nights each year. If she’s away, she can rent up to 90.
Every independent expert who examined our rules — including the L.A. Planning Department — reached the same conclusion: There is no way for the city to know when a host is sleeping in her own bed at night. A distinction between “hosted” and “unhosted” rentals is simply unenforceable.
• Remember: Right now, all short-term rentals in L.A. are illegal. Any new regulations allowing them under even limited circumstances is a significant concession to home sharers and Airbnb.
Finding the right short-term rental balance in any city is challenging. But in Los Angeles, as in San Francisco, preservation of affordable housing and residential neighborhoods should be the paramount objective. It is the residents of Los Angeles who are impacted in the long run, and it is those residents who will show up at the ballot box after Airbnb has moved on to its next city.
Dale Carlson is co-founder of ShareBetter SF.
