Toronto can learn from New York, Santa Monica about regulating Airbnb, officials say
Mayor's executive committee votes to have staff report on regulations early next year
The mayor's executive committee voted Wednesday night to have city staff report back with proposed regulations on short-term rental sites like Airbnb, following presentations from officials from Santa Monica, Calif. and New York City who pulled no punches about how their cities have dealt with the issue.
John Tory moved a motion to have staff issue the report no later than the end of of the second quarter of 2017 and it passed unanimously..
Santa Monica Mayor Tony Vazquez and New York City council member Helen Rosenthal were among the speakers who spoke to the committee. They visited Toronto to share how their two cities are regulating short-term rentals. Both cities are currently facing lawsuits by Airbnb.
Vazquez told CBC News the need for regulation became clear to him when the city found "monster mansions" in the north end were being rented out as weekend party houses, sometimes for as much $30,000 per weekend, negatively impacting Santa Monica's hotel industry.
"These homes were basically turned into big rave parties," Vazquez said. To him, a shared economy means sharing a home; not renting it out for the weekend, he said.
To help solve that problem, those looking to list short-term rentals in Santa Monica are required to register as businesses — which costs just one dollar — allowing the city to look into whether they're complying with regulations. The fines from enforcing those regulations have generated over a million dollars in revenue, Vazquez said.
Fine for illegal rentals hotly-contested in New York
In New York, anyone who posts what is considered an illegal rental on the Airbnb website can be fined $7,500, according to a new law implemented just days ago. The measure applies to rentals of fewer than 30 days when the owner or tenant is not present.
Under a New York law passed in 2010, it was building owners who were liable if tenants rent out a single-family or two-family home for fewer than 30 days at a time when the owner is not present, Rosenthal told CBC News.
Rosenthal said that in retrospect New York's legislation should have targeted short-term rental platforms like Airbnb in the first place, rather than owners and tenants.
"What we urge you to do in Toronto is to regulate the platform itself. If you're regulating the platform and the platform doesn't take responsibility for whoever's posting, then you can issue a violation on the platform," she said.
Critics of the regulations have said New Yorkers may not know whether they can legally rent out their homes, with Airbnb arguing it does not have the ability to remove listings that violate the 2010 law.
"In typical fashion, Albany backroom dealing rewarded a special interest — the price-gouging hotel industry — and ignored the voices of tens of thousands of New Yorkers," Josh Meltzer, Airbnb's head of public policy in New York, said at the time.
'Absent owners' mean trouble, councillor says
Ahead of the vote, at least one councillor, James Pasternak, leaned toward Toronto regulating the rentals.
"Where Airbnb works best in communities is where the Airbnb is owned or occupied, the owner is there on site to greet people and to manage the property and make sure people are respecting the local community. If you have absent owners, that's where the trouble starts," Pasternak told CBC News.
Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong was less explicit about his position, saying only that there are legitimate concerns about the "collateral effects" of using homes and condominiums for commercial purposes, including noise, garbage and parking.
A report released by Airbnb earlier this week indicates that 9,500 homes — less than one per cent of Toronto's housing units — hosted at least one rental from the service. Homesharing in Toronto, it said, is a "relatively small phenomenon as it pertains to the city's housing units," adding hosts rent only occasionally.
Meanwhile, Rosenthal and Vasquez are making the case that Toronto look to their cities as examples of the impact of the service.
"Don't make the same mistake New York made," Rosenthal said.
With files from The Associated Press