Under the new restrictions, short-term renters will need to register with the city and must be present in the home for the duration of the rental

Under the new restrictions, short-term renters will need to register with the city and must be present in the home for the duration of the rental

Home-sharing company Airbnb said it had to stop accepting some reservations in New York City after new regulations on short-term rentals went into effect.

The new rules are intended to effectively end a free-for-all in which landlords and residents have been renting out their apartments by the week or the night to tourists or others in the city for short stays. Advocates say the practice has driven a rise in demand for housing in already scarce neighbourhoods in the city.

Under the new system, rentals shorter than 30 days are only allowed if hosts register with the city. Hosts must also commit to being physically present in the home for the duration of the rental, sharing living quarters with their guest. More than two guests at a time are not allowed, either, meaning families are effectively barred.

  • merridewEnglish
    312·
    10 months ago

    How is a law ending the stealth conversion of residentially zoned areas into commercial a net negative for housing?

    • SCB@lemmy.world
      619·
      10 months ago

      Apartments are not commercially zoned, and neither are AirBnBs.

      Both should be added to mixed zoning. That would be dope. Stores on the bottom, or alternating floors, with very dense buildings above current height restrictions, is basically the ideal solution.

      • merridewEnglish
        271·
        10 months ago

        Apartments are residentially zoned. Hotels are commercially zoned (for good reason).

        Turning residential homes into unregulated mini-hotels at scale depletes housing stock, and is a nuisance to residents.

        This law effectively blocks residential homes from continuing to be used as hotel businesses operating out of residentially zoned areas, allowing residential units to once again be used as housing, and removing the nuisance to residents.

        Please explain why you see this as a NIMBY net negative for housing.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
          312·
          10 months ago

          Mixed use zoning is absolutely the way forward everywhere, but most especially for already-dense cities like NYC. “Nuisance to residents” is always, and will always, be a terrible reason to do anything. A nuisance isn’t a health concern, but a preference. Their preferences are irrelevant when the market is on fire.

          There are 40k AirBnBs in NYC, and a housing shortage of literally millions of units. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/05/25/new-yorks-housing-shortage-pushes-up-rents-and-homelessness#:~:text=The problem is acute in,%2C and Houston (5).

          This is not a big enough number to actually dent the housing shortage, and a not-insignificant number of these people are doing part-time rentals to make ends meet, which means they’re gonna get evicted. Meanwhile, the landlords people are bemoaning will simply rent their properties at the AirBnB rate to not lose income since the net housing has not meaningfully shifted.

          • Blooper@lemmy.world
            4·
            10 months ago

            I agree with your sentiments about multi-use, multi-story buildings. I am, however, a bit baffled as you how you seem to have confused New York fucking City with the suburbs. NYC is the most dense city in the US. In fact, a quick wiki search has the NYC metro area occupying the top 12 spots for density.