Towns big and small are still trying to get their heads around the online, disruptive AirBnB services for short term rentals.
Some towns are heavy handed. New York City has issued subpoenas for over 20,000 Airbnb listings. Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to identify city’s ‘illegal hotels’.
New York City regulators want Airbnb to hand over details on 20,000 apartment listings.
NYC wants to better regulate short-term rentals.
Today we issued a subpoena to @AirBnB because they refuse to provide the transparency we need to protect New Yorkers’ homes. pic.twitter.com/aAATz3lHWL
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) February 19, 2019
The subpoena is part of New York’s larger legal battle against the short-term rental platform.
NYC regulators want to find landlords hosting “illegal hotels” in their apartments.
The city first passed laws regulating rentals of a few days in unoccupied apartments in the summer of 2018.
“We want to make sure there’s not illegal hotels. We want to make sure that something that is supposed to be an occasional business is not a full-time business.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio @NYCMayor – Today we issued aAirb subpoena to @AirBnB because they refuse to provide the transparency we need to protect New Yorkers’ homes.
Airbnb claims to have removed over 5,000 listings in New York and introduced a ‘One Host, One Home’ that only allows people to place one property on the site at a time.
Fair housing advocates claim that Airbnb jacks up the price of housing in lower-income communities and brings the regular flow of strangers into residential buildings.
Meanwhile, other assembly members claimed that city regulators have increased their efforts to to crack down on individual hosts — some even said enforcers have trailed people around homes in Brooklyn.