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Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

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Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#31

Post by afarrell »

bpodgursky wrote: post #12
snappy173 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Strictly interpreted, the 3rd amendment prevents the government from being able to force homeowners to quarter soldiers. If you think about the real intent of the bill though, it's obvious that the mindset is "you are free to use your own house without government interference." that's a real stretch. that would nullify all zoning ...

Maybe? But then again, the 2nd amendment doesn't allow nuclear weapons, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. Would be easy to interpret it as, the right to use residential properties for lodging purposes (hotel, apartments, B&Bs) cannot be violated, without letting you set up industrial operations.

What does "easy" mean here? It is easy to say, "the third amendment really means that A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Amendments." In fact I just did. However, to actually believe that original meaning of the third amendment as believed by the people who negotiated it was to prohibit the federal government from banning boarding houses strains credulity. It similarly strains credulity to believe that those who negotiated the 15th amendment had a genuine meeting of minds over their belief that the due process clause implied that states and municipalities could not regulate boarding houses.

Dot get me wrong: If it wasn't for Airbnb I probably wouldn't be married and I too share a geeky desire to see the 3rd amendment used in anger.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#32

Post by mc32 »

cstejerean wrote: post #29
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers. This is a case where the government needs to listen to the people, and determine if the majority want more freedom or a nicer neighborhood.

Then your neighbors should put that in their HOA rules. The city is getting involved to protect hotels not "neighbors".

That's a good point. However, I _think_ they genuinely have good intentions for renters, except they are doing it in the most knee-jerk constituency visible way, for whatever reason.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#33

Post by paulmd »

cstejerean wrote: post #29
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers. This is a case where the government needs to listen to the people, and determine if the majority want more freedom or a nicer neighborhood.

Then your neighbors should put that in their HOA rules. The city is getting involved to protect hotels not "neighbors".

Absolutely not. There are significant negative externalities associated with transient populations.

For starters: Occupational safety (branches falling down and crushing you on a tire swing), fire safety, bedbugs, noise/loud parties, litter, criminal occupancy, secondary vice (drug dens/prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). The problem of a bunch of sailors coming into port has been recognized since antiquity. Skeezy/short term motels have a reputation for a reason, and are regulated for even better ones. You yourself may be a perfectly upstanding citizen who just couchsurfs for a weekend to check out a cool area, but others are not.

It's unreasonable to expect neighbors to file daily lawsuits against their neighbors to keep a modicum of peace. It's a known problem and it's perfectly reasonable to preempt it by either requiring a formal lease with a minimum term of a month or more, or requiring more identification/scrutiny of the clients and some formal standards of the rentiers.

Analogously, it's perfectly fine for banks to scrutinize large cash transactions. Some of them are legit, some of them are tied to crime. But you need to look and be sure because it's high-risk activity. If you don't want that level of scrutiny, send a check/transfer/CC payment and your reputation will speak for itself.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#34

Post by [deleted] »

bunderbunder wrote: post #22
swehner wrote: post #4

First amendment, for sure. I'm guessing this is about this, "The new law would require Airbnb and other short-term rental websites to post registration numbers on listings or email the number and name of the host to the Office of Short-Term Rentals, The City’s agency tasked with enforcing the regulations." (From http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-regi... ) So "their" "free speech rights" are "vio…

If they win this case, I'm starting a betting pool on how long it is until some corporation claims that reporting employee income to the IRS violates free speech.

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#35

Post by argonaut »

swehner wrote: post #4

First amendment, for sure. I'm guessing this is about this, "The new law would require Airbnb and other short-term rental websites to post registration numbers on listings or email the number and name of the host to the Office of Short-Term Rentals, The City’s agency tasked with enforcing the regulations." (From http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-regi... ) So "their" "free speech rights" are "vio…

Read the article more carefully. Airbnb's first amendment argument is not related to having to send info to regulators, it's related to something else entirely.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#36

Post by gshulegaard »

sp332 wrote: post #25
mc32 wrote: post #17

When does Campoes term out anyway? There certainly is a struggle between ownership rights and the right of cities to regulate business within their jurisdiction. As a renter, I can sympathize with wanting to avail more rental properties to renters, but I am also very uneasy with politicians dictating what you can and cannot do with your property when that act in and of itself is not otherwise illegal. It's not confis…

But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers. This is a case where the government needs to listen to the people, and determine if the majority want more freedom or a nicer neighborhood.

Who cares what your neighbors want? Seriously.

In the Seventeenth Century many American colonists were fleeing England due to religious persecution because their religion didn't happen to be the the dominant/majority held belief [1].

The idea that government should govern based on what the majority want is a fallacy. The specific topic of tyranny of the majority and ways to combat it were discussed in the Federalist papers and, in my belief, is ultimately the reason the Founding Fathers structured American government the way it did (federation, checks and balances, republic, etc.).

I am not trying to argue that AirBnB is good, but it's not bad because your neighbors don't like it.

[1] https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#37

Post by ProAm »

mc32 wrote: post #17

When does Campoes term out anyway? There certainly is a struggle between ownership rights and the right of cities to regulate business within their jurisdiction. As a renter, I can sympathize with wanting to avail more rental properties to renters, but I am also very uneasy with politicians dictating what you can and cannot do with your property when that act in and of itself is not otherwise illegal. It's not confis…

> but I am also very uneasy with politicians dictating what you can and cannot do with your property when that act in and of itself is not otherwise illegal

The list of things you cannot do is already extremely lengthy and much to the chagrin of homeowners. I assume you've only rented and never owned, but wait until you see what your property taxes go to, what you are allowed to build, not build, must maintain, must pay for on behalf of citizens that do not own (Denver is currently trying to raise property taxes to subsidize builders and ease purchase pain of new homeowners who currently cannot afford to buy for example). I think people are up in arms over this because Airbnb is a large player in the startup community, but the uproar of politicians creating policy for it's citizens is not absurd.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#38

Post by mdorazio »

cstejerean wrote: post #29
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers. This is a case where the government needs to listen to the people, and determine if the majority want more freedom or a nicer neighborhood.

Then your neighbors should put that in their HOA rules. The city is getting involved to protect hotels not "neighbors".

That's a pretty simplistic way of looking at it. There are a baotload of regulations on hotels for very good reasons, as other commenters have pointed out. If you turn your home into a de facto hotel then those same regulations should apply to you as well. To me, Airbnb is a case of many people wanting to have their cake and eat it too - they want the rental income, but not the downsides of adhering to short-term rental regulations.

Think if you started a bakery and went through the laborious process of getting a business license, getting your kitchen health inspected and certified, etc. and then a week later someone next door just started selling bread out of their home to undercut you on price, regulations be damned. I would be rightly pissed off and expect the local government to shut down the home operation.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#39

Post by randycupertino »

gshulegaard wrote: post #36
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers. This is a case where the government needs to listen to the people, and determine if the majority want more freedom or a nicer neighborhood.

Who cares what your neighbors want? Seriously. In the Seventeenth Century many American colonists were fleeing England due to religious persecution because their religion didn't happen to be the the dominant/majority held belief [1]. The idea that government should govern based on what the majority want is a fallacy. The specific topic of tyranny of the majority and ways to combat it were discussed in the Federalist…

I'd rather my neighbors not run a crackhouse and a brothel on airbnb out of our building, thanks.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#40

Post by nostromo »

sp332 wrote: post #25
mc32 wrote: post #17

When does Campoes term out anyway? There certainly is a struggle between ownership rights and the right of cities to regulate business within their jurisdiction. As a renter, I can sympathize with wanting to avail more rental properties to renters, but I am also very uneasy with politicians dictating what you can and cannot do with your property when that act in and of itself is not otherwise illegal. It's not confis…

But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers. This is a case where the government needs to listen to the people, and determine if the majority want more freedom or a nicer neighborhood.

> But your neighbors might not want you to let out your place to an endless parade of strangers.

This is the argument NIMBYs have been using against regular old renters since the beginning of time.

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