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S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

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Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#51

Post by wpietri »

rwallace wrote: post #47
wpietri wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation isn't really the limit there. Regulation is the mechanism that implements the limit. The limit comes from the combined views of the citizenry about what sort of place they'd like their city to be.

Is it really the combined views of the citizenry? Or is it primarily the views of a minority of wealthy landowners who have political influence more proportional to their wealth than their numbers?

It's combined through a complicated weighting function, and we can certainly argue about that function.

But I'll note that just last year there were a pair of ballot propositions where circa 2/3rds of voters rejected raising height limits for a big new project:

http://ballotpedia.org/8_Washington_Street_Development-Initi...

And having lived here quite a while, I'm sure it's not only wealthy landlords who are opposed to unrestricted high-rise development.

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#52

Post by wmil »

rwallace wrote: post #47
wpietri wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulation isn't really the limit there. Regulation is the mechanism that implements the limit. The limit comes from the combined views of the citizenry about what sort of place they'd like their city to be.

Is it really the combined views of the citizenry? Or is it primarily the views of a minority of wealthy landowners who have political influence more proportional to their wealth than their numbers?

It's actually the other way around. Major landowners want to build more units because there's plenty of money to be made.

It's existing renters who are stopping new development. Long term renters have fantastic rates because of how rent control laws are written. And they want to keep their rent low (for themselves, new arrivals can get screwed), their streets sunny (instead of being overshadowed by high rises), and their neighborhoods not too crowded.

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#53

Post by baddox »

wdewind wrote: post #50
baddox wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> short-term rentals have a negative effect on neighborhoods because they change the incentives of the people living the house from those of a neighbor to those of a visitor. So what? People aren't friendly enough to their neighbors? Is this really worth regulating? If there's a specific concern, like tenants not maintaining the property or being too noisy, why not just require tenants to take care of the property an…

As I said below, I had an extremely negative experience having someone in my building renting out their apartment on Airbnb. Of course, sample size of 1.

I don't doubt it. But would it have been any better if the apartment owner had done the same specific things as the Airbnb renters? I'm assuming your problems involved noise or property damage.

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#54

Post by anigbrowl »

rdl wrote: post #16
anigbrowl wrote: post #5

I predict this will make it onto the ballot easily and give it a 60% chance of passage. EDIT: Downvoters, a prediction is not the same thing as an endorsement.

What happens if both this and the Chiu proposition pass?

Prolonged litigation.

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#55

Post by calbear81 »

What if we changed the equation and brought landlords in on the action without having to evict renters? Having followed this topic for quite a while, I think these points are generally accepted:

- People are more okay with host-present room/couch rentals than full apartment rentals. - Landlords are pissed about rent-controlled units being arbitraged by their renters. - Everyone just wants to make some money

Landlords can agree to a renter doing AirBnB if they are willing to profit-share with the landlord via some type of 3rd party rental management service. The landlord would have to ensure that everyone in a building agrees to this or at least you set up floors for "sublet-allowed" units so folks know what they're getting into.

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#56

Post by wdewind »

baddox wrote: post #53
wdewind wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said below, I had an extremely negative experience having someone in my building renting out their apartment on Airbnb. Of course, sample size of 1.

I don't doubt it. But would it have been any better if the apartment owner had done the same specific things as the Airbnb renters? I'm assuming your problems involved noise or property damage.

Both noise and property damage. The key is the tenant is much less likely to do that as they have a long term interest in maintaining a healthy (or in NYC more likely neutral) relationship with their neighbors. I never met the people who trashed my building and threw parties on the roof, but I was disturbed by them and my landlord incurred damages.

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#57

Post by baddox »

wdewind wrote: post #56
baddox wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt it. But would it have been any better if the apartment owner had done the same specific things as the Airbnb renters? I'm assuming your problems involved noise or property damage.

Both noise and property damage. The key is the tenant is much less likely to do that as they have a long term interest in maintaining a healthy (or in NYC more likely neutral) relationship with their neighbors. I never met the people who trashed my building and threw parties on the roof, but I was disturbed by them and my landlord incurred damages.

So why not have it in the lease, or regulations if you must, that property damage or certain noise violations will result in eviction?

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#58

Post by anigbrowl »

Crito wrote: post #43
anigbrowl wrote: post #5

I predict this will make it onto the ballot easily and give it a 60% chance of passage. EDIT: Downvoters, a prediction is not the same thing as an endorsement.

The downvotes were probably more about the worth of your comment. Your opinion and some off the cuff percentage aren't really interesting without some sort of accompanying justification or analysis. Why do you think it will make it to the ballot easily, and why specifically 60% odds of passing?

It's a hunch, for sure. I actually wrote a few hundred words on why I thought so, but scrapped it because it's basically just rationalization rather than based on specific data. The pros and cons of AirBNB have been debated to death on HN for the last few years, so I saw no point in repeating those arguments.

But to flesh it out a bit: the threshold for getting something onto the ballot is around 9500 signatures, while the # of registered voters is in SF is just under 500k. Getting 2% of the electorate to sign a ballot petition on a hot-button local issue is easy in SF.

As for passage, I've written at length before on the conflicting economic interests of landlords, renters, and other property owners, and how SF's restrictive geography leads to the adoption of zero-sum strategies. For a better and fuller explanation; I'd refer you to that long TechCrunch article on SF's housing crisis: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

I predict passage with a healthy margin because the larger problems are rather intractable, but it suits all stakeholders to make AirBNB a scapegoat for the city's structural economic problems. There are a lot of landlords, renters, and property owners who don't like AirBNB for different reasons, and short-term rentals give them something to agree about and lower political tension. Also, everyone knows someone with ludicrously cheap rent thanks to rent control, and punishing people who exploit that for personal gain will be popular (even though the number of people who do so and get away with it is tiny). If the proponents of the measure take out the 'snitching reward' mechanism and instead direct that 30% of the fines go to some popular local hobbyhorse like (much-needed) road repairs, support will probably go up.

Opponents of the ballot initiatives should avoid characterizing it as a dark horse backed by the hotel industry or service workers union, whether or not that is actually the case, but push the Chiu measure instead. Short-term rental proponents have been almost comically tone-deaf about how their arguments sound to people who can't/won't participate in the STR market themselves.

Re: S.F. ballot measure would severely limit short-term rentals

#59

Post by wdewind »

baddox wrote: post #57
wdewind wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both noise and property damage. The key is the tenant is much less likely to do that as they have a long term interest in maintaining a healthy (or in NYC more likely neutral) relationship with their neighbors. I never met the people who trashed my building and threw parties on the roof, but I was disturbed by them and my landlord incurred damages.

So why not have it in the lease, or regulations if you must, that property damage or certain noise violations will result in eviction?

Well, both of those are already in the regulations. In fact, also in the lease is the concept that you cannot sublease. 99% of NYC apartments have this clause, 99% of Airbnbs in NYC are, inarguably, illegal. Unfortunately, here I am with a damaged lobby and some nights of shitty sleep because my neighbor wanted to pimp our building out.

Whether or not that should change is another question. I don't necessarily think they need to be made illegal - that seems too drastic a response. But Airbnb is not self-policing itself enough and operate with a shoot first ask questions later legal policy. It is trivial for them to look at hosts they have and know if they are breaking the law or not. They ignore this in the hope that it will all go away eventually. They are begging for regulation.

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