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Airbnb Creates New Community Compact Promising It "Can Self-Regulate"
By
Emma Whitford
Published Nov 12, 2015
Modified Nov 12, 2015
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By
Emma Whitford
Published Nov 12, 2015
Modified Nov 12, 2015
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It's been a few weeks since Airbnb's global policy head Christopher Lehane told City Councilmember Jumaane Williams that in proposing higher fines for illegal hotel operators in NYC he was in fact waging "an attack on the middle class."
Now the home-sharing startup has released a cheery, pink-and-white Community Compact, pledging to "promote responsible home sharing" and acknowledging that a "dense, urban city may have different concerns than a historic vacation town or a non-traditional travel destination."
Councilmembers and advocates have long argued that Airbnb—which had 30,483 active units in NYC as of September 1st—should be transparent about New Yorkers who use the platform to operate illegal hotels. Unlike the cheery couples renting a spare room in Airbnb subway ads, these operators, they say, jeopardize the safety of longterm tenants, break state laws, and snatch up a significant portion of the city's already-dwindling affordable housing stock.
The state's Multiple-Dwelling Law prohibits New Yorkers from renting out entire apartments for under 30 days if the tenant on the lease is not present.
Airbnb's new compact pledges to pay the "fair share" of hotel taxes in states where such taxes apply—a moot point in NYC where the law prevents the startup from collecting taxes directly from its own users. (Airbnb has been pushing for the right to do so for over a year, and a spokesman told us earlier this afternoon that the company estimates it could generate $65 million in tax revenue for the state.)
In addition, the startup is pledging to provide large cities like New York and San Francisco with "anonymized information regarding hosts and guests in our community." Not a uniform dump of all of its user data, though. Rather, "We will work with individual cities to identify the specific types of data they need to craft fair, progressive rules."
Airbnb will also release annual "Home Sharing Activity Reports" that will detail income per average Airbnb host and safety records for Airbnb listings among other data sets, but exclude statistics like the number of Airbnb users with multiple listings in the city, or the number of days a listing is rented each year—both telltale signs of illegal hotel operation.
The compact also assures cities that "we will educate our hosts and work to help ensure they agree to a policy of listing only properties that are permanent homes on a short-term basis." But also, "Our community has demonstrated that it can self-regulate."
According to InsideAirbnb, 53% of the city's 27,469 listings are rented out for more than 60 nights per year, and 30% of them are managed by hosts who have more than one Airbnb listing to their name.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Schneiderman scoffed at the compact, calling it "a transparent ploy by Airbnb to act like a good corporate citizen when it is anything but."
"The company has all of the information and tools it needs to clean up its act," he added. "Until it does, no one should take this press release seriously."
Tagged
affordable housing
affordable housing crisis
airbnb
illegal hotels
Emma Whitford
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