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Is Airbnb allowed in your building? Our map shows which NYC addresses ban the rentals.
By
David Brand
and
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
Published Jul 24, 2023
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Christopher Werth/Staff
By
David Brand
and
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
Published Jul 24, 2023
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New York City landlords are adding thousands of addresses to a list that will keep tourists from crashing in their apartment buildings under a new anti-Airbnb law.
The measure allows property owners and managers to register on a “Prohibited Building List” confirming short-term rental bans as a condition of their tenants’ lease or residency agreements, forcing Airbnb and other platforms to block listings at the address. So far, the database features more than 8,700 buildings, according to records obtained by Gothamist via a freedom of information request.
The properties range from Midtown skyscrapers to two-story homes in Rockaway Beach. More than half are located in Manhattan, which is home to the city's highest concentration of Airbnb listings, according to data from Inside Airbnb, an independent group that advocates tighter regulations on short-term rentals.
This map shows all the addresses added to the Prohibited Building List as of late June. These buildings' owners don't allow tenants to post their apartments on Airbnb or other short-term rental listing sites.
Point locations may be slightly off due to the geocoding tool used. More addresses have been added to the Prohibited Building List since this map was created.
New York City is home to over 40,000 Airbnb listings, but only about a quarter are booked on a regular basis. Local lawmakers estimate that up to 10,000 short-term listings are illegal under city laws that ban the rental of full apartments for fewer than 30 days.
The city enacted a measure known as Local Law 18 in 2022 that requires hosts to register their short-term rental properties with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement. The measure is intended to stop Airbnb and other short-term rental companies from listing whole apartments on their platforms, a practice that housing advocates say removes thousands of apartments from the city’s already limited housing stock. Some owners have turned buildings into illegal hotels, earning large sums on the temporary lodgings while squeezing the supply of permanent homes.
Other landlords and property managers say they want to stop residents from renting out their units to tourists or partiers who can cause problems and headaches for neighbors.
“Neighbors generally don’t want transient occupants in their buildings,” said MD Squared CEO Michael Mintz, whose company registered around 140 Manhattan and Brooklyn buildings with the city’s banned listings database.
“We figured, given the issues that so many buildings have had with Airbnb and short-term rentals and managing that over time, that we’d register all our buildings,” he added.
The city already has laws on the books that prohibit full apartment rentals under 30 days, but enforcement has been tricky because Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com and other platforms continue to list those properties.
The new measure will bar the bookings behemoths from processing payments for properties that appear on the Prohibited Buildings List. It will also block payments for units that do not meet the city’s requirements that hosts share the same living space they’re renting to guests, among other provisions.
Christian Klossner, the executive director of the Office of Special Enforcement, said the database simply allows owners to record that they have already barred the listings as part of their lease or residency agreements.
He said the verification system is set to go live on Sept. 5. The enforcement deadline has been delayed twice since registrations opened, most recently in the wake of lawsuits filed by Airbnb and three short-term hosts to halt enforcement of the new registration requirement.
In court papers filed in response to the lawsuits, Klossner said the city received nearly 14,000 complaints about illegal short-term rentals between 2017 and 2022 and cited “late-night partying and excessive noise, overflowing trash, strangers with access to common areas, fires, loud fighting, drugs, crime [and] elevators damaged by constant suitcase traffic” among the problems.
The city received 2,021 such complaints last year, he said.
“The illegal conversion of permanent residences into [short-term rentals] constitutes a public nuisance and endangers the health, safety and comfort of not only city tourists and visitors, but also those who permanently and legally reside in residential buildings,” Klossner said.
Airbnb’s opposition to the new laws may further complicate enforcement.
Lawyers for Airbnb told Gothamist that the registration process is too cumbersome, and hosts argue it violates their privacy rights. The registration rule also requires hosts to resolve outstanding building violations and to post information about fire exits within their properties.
A staff shortage at the Office of Special Enforcement also threatens to jeopardize the crackdown, Gothamist reported last month. The agency’s staffing levels are down 50%.
“They’re missing half the team, and they really need full capacity to get this done,” said Councilmember Carlina Rivera, who co-sponsored the new law.
Owners and tenants in non-prohibited buildings can register to list legal short-term rentals, like spare bedrooms, but few have managed to do so successfully since the portal opened in March.
By July 7, city officials had approved just 121 registrations out of 1,407 applications, according to court documents filed in one of the lawsuits.
Tagged
new york city
housing
airbnb
David Brand
David is a reporter covering housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 908-310-3960.
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Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
Jaclyn is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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