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

sfgate.com

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

#61

Post by arebop »

wpietri wrote: post #32
geuis wrote: post #20

As a SF resident, I'm opposed to any regulation at all. I'm a long term renter (same house, 7 years) and my lease prevents subletting. That's exactly where the responsibility and regulation should lie, at the feet of the home owner. If I own a piece of property or have a lease that allows it, then I should have the free choice to do with that property what I want in regards to something like Airbnb. In my case, the o…

I have some issues with this ballot proposition, but you take it too far. The "property owners should be free to do as they please" thing is a good slogan, but it ignores negative externalities. E.g., I shouldn't be able to open up a paper mill or a hog farm in my condo, because the effects of that extend beyond the bounds of my property. That's why we have zoning, for example. We zone an area residential because man…

Segregation by use into residential/commercial/industrial zones is a characteristic of suburban rather than urban planning.

An alternative to zoning by use is to zone by intensity or pattern of activity. You can consider externalities such as traffic generation or noise or chemical pollution explicitly rather than assuming that e.g., every manufacturing process generates noxious fumes.

The more urban neighborhoods of SF including Pac Heights, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, SOMA, the Mission, the Castro, and Civic Center all include hotels right next to or above or below residential and other, complementary, uses [https://www.google.com/maps/search/san+francisco+hotel/@37.7...].

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

#62

Post by baddox »

wdewind wrote: post #59
baddox wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If these rules are already in leases, then why don't violators get evicted? I suspect the problem comes from laws which make evictions extremely difficult.

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

#63

Post by alwaysdoit »

dougmccune wrote: post #19
alwaysdoit wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the question I have is, should someone be able to do a housing swap? Say, let someone trade use their home in SF for a week in exchange for use of the other party's home in NY? Does that need to be regulated?

I agree that there's a huge grey area in terms of defining what crosses the line. I should be able to let my buddy stay at my place if I'm not here. I also don't have a problem if places that legitimately would have just been empty are rented to tourists (ie I'm traveling for 3 weeks and otherwise would just leave my place empty). The thing that's not OK is when someone realizes they can rent out their place as a per…

So isn't David Chiu's proposal, which requires the resident to live there at least 75% of the time, enough?

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

#64

Post by tedsanders »

harryh wrote: post #30
tedsanders wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a funny point, but consider this: Land (along with regulation) is what limits the supply of housing in SF. If you transform a house to a hotel, then yes, it's true, the supply of housing has fallen. However, at the same time, the supply of hotels has risen. If the world equilibrates, then perhaps a hotel is torn down elsewhere and its land is freed up for housing. So I don't think it's necessarily the case tha…

Just an aside but it's almost all regulation that limits the supply of housing in SF. There is essentially no lack of land due to our technical ability to stack things vertically.

This may not be important, but just to clarify my thoughts above: if we had unlimited land then things like maximum height regulations would no longer be a problem. In my mind it's the combination of limited land and regulation, not just the regulation, that raises house prices. (Not meaning to disagree with you, just to clarify.)

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

#65

Post by wdewind »

baddox wrote: post #62
wdewind wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If these rules are already in leases, then why don't violators get evicted? I suspect the problem comes from laws which make evictions extremely difficult.

Yes I think that's probably right, although I think eviction is a bit harsh. I will say that if there is no property damage the landlord has little incentive to fix it if the Airbnber is paying rent on time, even though quality of life for neighbors can go down.

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

#67

Post by fleitz »

dougmccune wrote: post #25
fleitz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major drivers of housing supply / demand in SF are rent control and permitting, not short term rentals. Exactly, how much of the city do you think AirBNB is renting out?

A random search on AirBnB for a date in December shows me about 900 "Entire Place" rentals available. I'm not saying that all those would definitely be long-term rentals in the city, but I have a hard time believing that there are about a thousand empty apartments/houses that would otherwise just be sitting empty were there not the lucrative AirBnB market.

So if AirBNB didn't exist there would be an extra 1000 units available... (I'd estimate you're realistically looking at 100 units tops)

825,000 people, assume 2.4 people per unit meaning SF will need ~340,000 housing units with a population growth rate of 0.9% each year SF will need an additional 3060 units.

So if we get rid of every AirBNB unit SF could potentially meet 1/3rd of it's additional supply for 1 year. aka. big fucking deal, what are you going to do next year?

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

#68

Post by fleitz »

dvcc wrote: post #2

I still think it is crazy that Airbnb has an evaluation of $10 Billion, when in its most active markets it is against the law. If the penalties come to pass, which they probably won't, I wonder how it will actually affect usage.

You may want to read up on Pablo Escobar and how much money you can make from a product that people want, but which is illegal.

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

#69

Post by mrgordon »

wpietri wrote: post #51
rwallace wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't buy this argument at all. They were proposing to build 134 condos at $5 million each. That isn't increasing the housing supply (much), it is giving away the one-of-a-kind waterfront for some pied-à-terres for rich out of state buyers.

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

#70

Post by wpietri »

arebop wrote: post #61
wpietri wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some issues with this ballot proposition, but you take it too far. The "property owners should be free to do as they please" thing is a good slogan, but it ignores negative externalities. E.g., I shouldn't be able to open up a paper mill or a hog farm in my condo, because the effects of that extend beyond the bounds of my property. That's why we have zoning, for example. We zone an area residential because man…

Segregation by use into residential/commercial/industrial zones is a characteristic of suburban rather than urban planning. An alternative to zoning by use is to zone by intensity or pattern of activity. You can consider externalities such as traffic generation or noise or chemical pollution explicitly rather than assuming that e.g., every manufacturing process generates noxious fumes. The more urban neighborhoods of…

I agree what I said was more simple than the full reality, but even San Francisco has a lot of space that is zoned purely one or the other:

http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=1569

I also agree that some people like living next to hotels, but some don't. And in the case of apartment buildings, it's not so much "next to a hotel" as "in a partial hotel".

So I think my broad point, that zoning regulations aren't some sort of pointlessly Orwellian government regulation, and are in fact rooted in reasonable preferences of residents, still stands.

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