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I Have Read Prop F

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Re: I Have Read Prop F

#131

Post by fredkbloggs »

tmuir wrote: post #79
fredkbloggs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it very easy to not have an opinion. Whether my neighbor wants to rent out part of his property via airbnb, craigslist, or not at all makes no difference to me. It does not affect my quality of life, does not interfere with my enjoyment of my own property, and is a private transaction among 3 (or more) parties of which I am not one. I just don't care, at all. That doesn't mean that his tenants might not cause…

Some towns don't have noise ordinances. Thus, lets assume someone rents out their house. The renters hire a band with a powerful PA system, and play from dusk til dawn. How will you deal with the tenants? You have precisely zero recourse, because they aren't breaking any laws. Isn't it obvious that these situations are far more likely to happen with short term tenancies than people who rent for a year, or own? It's s…

Seems to me that your complaint is about a lack of noise ordinances (which does not apply to SF, the subject of this article), a matter that should be fairly easy to correct and much less controversial than this whole airbnb kerfuffle.

I don't think short-term tenants are any more likely than long-term tenants or owners to be terrible neighbors; I've seen some awful examples of both. Unfortunately, people who are inconsiderate jerks are going to be lousy neighbors regardless of how they came to occupy the premises. Laying blame for a tenant's inconsiderate behavior at the feet of a particular broker is absurd; you may as well ban truckers from entering your city because they might deliver lead-based paint. If airbnb went away, someone else would fill the niche; there's obviously plenty of demand for short-term rental broking. And you're always going to have to deal with bad neighbors -- often of the much more permanent variety. It would be a lot more constructive to think about the behavior you want to prohibit than tertiary factors like who arranged for a lease or how many days it was for. The whole point of inconsiderate jerks -- and if you'd ever had one for a neighbor you would know this -- is that they don't care what you think! They're not thinking "gee, I'd better not be such an asshole, because I'm going to be living next to this guy for years!". They're thinking "I like cranking my death metal to 11 at 3am and there's no law against it so they can suck it." That is, if they're even aware of your existence at all. Because that's the kind of people they are. What's the worst you're going to do, not lend them your lawnmower?

Seriously, I don't care if airbnb succeeds or fails. They don't pay me, I don't own their stock, and I don't pretend that they're making the world a better place or any of that tripe. They're just one more private corporation that wants to make a buck, and they seem to have found a much better way to serve a particular market than the dozens of other substantially indistinguishable competitors. Good for them. If it turns out that the only people who lease short-term rentals are inconsiderate jerks, then airbnb won't be doing much business once those inconsiderate jerks are sitting in jails. The anti-airbnb crowd seems to be shooting the messenger, while the pro-airbnb crowd seems to be elevating a glorified classified-ad publisher to sainthood for doing nothing more interesting than connecting willing buyers and sellers. Everyone needs to get over it and focus instead on what matters. This company just isn't interesting enough to justify having a strong opinion about it.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#132

Post by aidenn0 »

skuhn wrote: post #120
Redoubts wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly should they do?

Don't make all of your money from a property tax that does not increase as your costs to provide services increase. There are options besides property tax for raising tax revenue. City-level local income tax is the first thing that comes to mind.

Are you proposing abolishing property tax? Because nowhere in ubernostrom's post did he talk about city revenues, just about the perverse incentives to land-owners by Prop 13, and those will exist unless property tax is eliminated.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#133

Post by gkop »

owlmonkey wrote: post #129
gkop wrote: post #36

The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws. But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income f…

I don't follow your train of thought on in-laws. Because they're small, they're unlikely to serve for 'hosted' rentals and more likely to be only short term rentable up to 90 days. e.g. when the existing renter in the in-law goes on vacation. So why does this proposition want to ban that use case entirely instead of just restrict it to 75 days?

There is recent legislation enabling the legalization of unpermitted in-laws and creation of new in-laws. Therefore short-term in-law rentals are disallowed by Prop F, idea being the new in-laws are hoped to contribute to regular (mostly rent-controlled I believe) housing. See http://hoodline.com/2015/09/supervisors-approve-in-law-legis... .

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#134

Post by skuhn »

aidenn0 wrote: post #132
skuhn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't make all of your money from a property tax that does not increase as your costs to provide services increase. There are options besides property tax for raising tax revenue. City-level local income tax is the first thing that comes to mind.

Are you proposing abolishing property tax? Because nowhere in ubernostrom's post did he talk about city revenues, just about the perverse incentives to land-owners by Prop 13, and those will exist unless property tax is eliminated.

I didn't respond directly to ubernostrom, and my comment doesn't discuss whether prop 13 creates a perverse incentive for landowners in any respect (although: it does).

I'm saying that if you tie your revenue stream (i.e. taxes) to something that is essentially fixed at 1970's levels, but you have to buy things with it in 2015 money, you are going to not have a good time.

You can still keep property tax as part of your revenue stream, but these governments need to diversify. I would personally rather they diversified into income tax than some of the alternatives, such as red light cameras.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#135

Post by smsm42 »

bsder wrote: post #109
tg3 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the burden of short-term visitors? I've heard that said before, but I've never heard any actual examples of problems that occur from short-term visitors that aren't present with long-term residents.

Bedbugs are one of the big ones that I have heard reported where landlords had to pump a lot of money in. The risk obviously goes up linearly with the number of unique visitors. A very genuine problem when one tenant of a multi-unit decides to do AirBnB. As for detached dwellings? If you're hosting out of country people, how do I, as your neighbor, prosecute them if they damage my property (bust a fence, hit my car,…

You can prosecute the owner of the property, and no reasonable court would deny you on that.

> Clearly people DO recognize this as a risk or it wouldn't be explicitly banned by so many HOA agreements.

That's circular reasoning - we ban it in HOA agreements because it's dangerous, and it's dangerous because look - it's banned in HOA agreements!

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#136

Post by smsm42 »

pbreit wrote: post #20

AirBnB needs to step up and suggest what it thinks are some of the right ways to handle this. The fact is, many/most leases and HOAs forbid short term rentals, and for good reasons. As well, many areas are zoned non-commercial, again for good reasons. But people certainly should have some degree of autonomy when it comes to their personal property. The question is, what is it? What I never understood is why short ter…

I'm not sure why you are placing onus to fix it on AirBnB. The assumption somehow seems to be that any little stupid local regulation, even if obviously bought and paid for by very specific interests in most transparently corrupt way, is sacred and businesses have absolute moral obligation to abide by it. I have no idea where that comes from. Rather, it should be the burden of local government to find solution that is acceptable both for residents and businesses and does not do unnecessary harm.

It's one thing to zone non-commercial (which has very little to do with individual short-term rentals) and another ban short term rentals altogether.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#137

Post by smsm42 »

rl3 wrote: post #111

Serious question: has subterranean housing ever been considered for SF? If you can't build out or up, may as well build under. Feasibility aside, the only problem I see is it'd create a literal underclass—as opposed to the proverbial one that exists now as a result of absurd rent prices.

Or you can just live outside of San Francisco, and take 20 min train :)

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#138

Post by tmuir »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #131
tmuir wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some towns don't have noise ordinances. Thus, lets assume someone rents out their house. The renters hire a band with a powerful PA system, and play from dusk til dawn. How will you deal with the tenants? You have precisely zero recourse, because they aren't breaking any laws. Isn't it obvious that these situations are far more likely to happen with short term tenancies than people who rent for a year, or own? It's s…

Seems to me that your complaint is about a lack of noise ordinances (which does not apply to SF, the subject of this article), a matter that should be fairly easy to correct and much less controversial than this whole airbnb kerfuffle. I don't think short-term tenants are any more likely than long-term tenants or owners to be terrible neighbors; I've seen some awful examples of both. Unfortunately, people who are inc…

No contortion of logic allows you to escape the fact that Airbnb has vastly increased the number of people renting out homes and apartments. The demand for short term vacation rentals certainly existed previously. Airbnb lowered the barriers to entry for a huge volume of new supply, private primary residences. The short term residential rental market simply did not exist at anything close to the current volume before Airbnb. It is an undeniable cause and effect relationship. So saying that blaming Airbnb for problems stemming from short term residential rentals is "shooting the messenger" is more than a little intellectually dishonest.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#139

Post by joeevans1000 »

beatpanda wrote: post #96

>I have been a part-time homesharer You have not. You are a rentier. You are running a business. Please stop this violence against the English language. I use hospitality exchange websites to actually share my home, that is offer my home as a place to stay free of charge. What people do on AirBnB, VRBO, and others is not sharing, it's commerce, and we have different words for describing that. Appropriating the langua…

Absolutely agree. He tipped his hand a little there. It's clear at the end he may be biased against the proposition for personal reasons. He cites very valid reasons against the proposition, but these are points for adjustment in the proposal down the road. Something like this will pass sooner or later in one form or another. The basic gist of the proposition will be approved by some means sooner or later.

Re: I Have Read Prop F

#140

Post by smsm42 »

gkop wrote: post #36

The Sharebetter campaign website mentioned is totally biased, it's true, and it does seem likely that hotel interests are in no small part behind Yes on F. And I have no doubt F contains (perhaps really bad!) flaws. But this Medium post is also rife with misleading statements and hyperbole, and therefore hypocritical in light of the author's "here's the facts" tone (not a huge surprise since the author earns income f…

> who is calling it the "Airbnb Law"?

I think a lot of people do, not only in SF. Same for Uber laws, etc. Of course, they don't call it exactly that, but the intent is clear.

> Clearly this is referring to

Judging laws by "clearly this is referring to" is rather risky proposition, unless you are one of the nine people who have the power to actually decide such questions (aka The Supreme Court). Because otherwise you won't be deciding it, the judge or jury would, and what is clear to you may not be as clear to them. And you can land in a big trouble for it.

Not to mention being pursued by regulators is a very expensive and complicated thing even if you win. And regulators can be very zealous in their prosecutions, and they would try to twist every letter against you. There are numerous cases where judges had to rebuke regulators and prosecutors for excessive zeal and misinterpretation of the law. You do not want to be on the wrong end of that. So any law that leaves opening for that is extremely dangerous for the citizen.

> SF judge would want to jail somebody over renting out on Airbnb illegally?

It doesn't have to get to the judge even. It can be just "do you want to close your business now or do you want to risk prosecution that can land you in jail?" Criminalization of regular business behavior is dangerous because it grant immense powers to prosecutors by leveraging the threat of imprisonment - even if imprisonment itself does not follow. I.e. if prosecutors want something from you (like testify on unrelated case) and they discovered you let your friend stay in your apartment and took money for it, or even helped one friend to star at other friend's house (and you had no idea if any money changed hands, but prosecutors say they did so you are prosecutable now for "assisting") - they can threaten you with 6 months in jail now. Would you risk it, relying on the kindness of SF judges, or would you just bend over and do what the prosecutors tell you to do? Criminalizing common behavior may not land you in jail immediately, but it makes you more and more dependent on the good mood of the law enforcement. It is not a good thing.

> If it's a paid rental.

"Paid" is a very stretchable term. Any consideration can be considered payment. Did they offer to pay for your tickets on the game you go to see together as thanks for hosting them? This can be treated as the same as rent - you hosted them and got something in exchange. Etc., etc.

> And remember, up until this year it was completely illegal to rent for less than 30 days.

"It was worse in the past" is not really an argument for it being good currently. You can always think of something worse.

> The reason Prop F bans in-laws

is that they want less rentals unless it's under conditions under which people do not want to rent. Somehow it does not sound to me like and argument for, but a rather strong argument against.

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