AFP
“A shot in the foot”, New York bans short-term tourist apartments
If in recent weeks you have tried to book an apartment to spend a short vacation in New York, you may have been surprised by the limited offer on platforms such as Airbnb or VRBO. A new local law prohibits from this week renting apartments for stays of less than a month, leaving a good part of the 36,000 tourist apartments in the city out of the question. The new law only allows the rental of rooms as long as the landlord lives in the apartment and is present during the stay of his visitors, who cannot be more than two at the same time nor can they lock the doors of their room. To do this, hosts will have to register with the mayor’s office and pay $145 every two years. But permissions are granted in drops. Of the more than 3,800 applications registered so far, fewer than 300 have been approved. Fines for violators range between $1,000 and $7,500, although users will not be affected. The mayor’s office wants to put an end to an “illegal” practice, which generates “noise, garbage and safety problems” for both visitors and permanent residents. “Many residential buildings do not have adequate security personnel to deal with travelers,” alleges the Office of Special Enforcement of the legislation, in charge of enforcing this ordinance approved in January 2022, after years of attempts to regulate this market. – “No are welcome” -For one of the largest platforms operating in the market, Airbnb, “the city is sending a clear message to millions of potential visitors who will now have fewer accommodation options when they visit New York: they are not welcome,” it says in a statement sent to AFP by Theo Yedinsky, global policy director of the platform. In a city with rents that average around $5,000 a month, one of the objectives of the new ordinance is for many of these tourist apartments to go on the market and alleviate the city’s chronic housing deficiency. But many believe that it will create a bigger crisis than it hopes to solve. The organization RHOAR, which brings together small owners of a maximum of two homes, assures that eliminating short-term rentals “will threaten the ability of homeowners to meet their mortgages, possibly creating an additional housing crisis,” and putting them “at serious financial and personal risk.” This is the case of Tricia T. (prefers not to give her last name), 63 years, who rented the lower part of his two-story family home in Brooklyn. Recently retired, if she has to do without the average $3,000 a month she earned in rent, she may have to reconsider going back to work, she told AFP by phone. “Almost everyone in the organization owns their home and “They bought it thinking they had the right to do whatever they wanted” with it, he says. “Maybe in the long run, more people will rent it indefinitely,” which isn’t an immediate option in his case, since he’s going to try to stick to the law and try to rent it for the moment for periods longer than 30 days. “Everyone is waiting to see what is going to happen from now on because no one can believe that this is a permanent change,” he says, as his organization tries to that an exception be made for small owners of tourist apartments.- “Shooting in the foot” -In a city that in 2019 – before the pandemic – received 66.6 million visitors who spent 47.4 billion dollars and generated 283,000 jobs, according to data from the Office of the State Comptroller, the new law could contribute to increasing hotel prices and scare away people with fewer means. “There are many young people who visit New York who cannot afford to stay in a hotel or eat in a restaurant… and they’re not going to be able to do that if you can’t pay $400 a night,” says Joe McCambley, 66, a former Airbnb user, who believes the city is making “a big mistake and sticking shot in the foot.” “They’re eliminating competition. Someone is paying politicians to do it,” says his son Luke McCambley, 33, who during the Covid pandemic rented his own apartment to supplement his income. According to a report prepared by Boston University professor Michael Salinger for Airbnb, the new regulations are not “economically justified” nor will they solve one of the problems it aims to correct: the long-term housing shortage in the city. Salinger considers this regulation a “hard blow” to the city’s tourism economy and to thousands of New Yorkers and small businesses in suburban neighborhoods who depend on home-sharing and tourism money to make ends meet. The average income from this type of rental rose to $5,000 in 2021, according to its report. Although more restrictive, New York follows cities like San Francisco, which limits these rentals to a maximum of 90 days per year, in regulating this sector that has changed the appearance of the historic centers of many tourist cities in recent years.af/ag
2023-09-08 10:30:59
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