
Toronto convicts first Airbnb owner over zoning violation - rhschan
https://www.thestar.com/business/real_estate/2016/11/23/city-of-toronto-gets-first-zoning-conviction-of-airbnb-era.html
======
colmvp
I love Airbnb when it was small and largely just people who wanted to share a
spare bedroom. Now, it's just as commercial as any other listing website.

In Toronto, it's not uncommon to see tons of lockboxes outside some condos
which are largely for short term rentals, as well as have tenants deal with
experiences like this (copy and pasted from Toronto's subreddit):

"Have you ever wanted to live in a hotel, without the actual service of living
in a hotel? You can at the Ice Condos! When walking through the lobby on any
given day you're nearly guaranteed to see a few wide eyed, suitcase towing
AirBNB guests standing around. Don't except to be able to speak with the
concierge for anything - the AirBNB people will be arguing with them over the
fact that the concierge won't just give out the keys to suites because people
say they're supposed to be allowed in. Shout out to the guy last week who
yelled 'This isn't a fuckking hotel!' to the woman doing just that last week."

It's particularly why I find their branding and messaging deceitful. They
advertise in Toronto in a way that makes it seem like the company is merely a
benign platform that helps citizens fund things on the side (one of their ads
uses an Asian family with a kid, an appeal to emotion which I see through as
an Asian Canadian). Except it's disconnected from a reality where people buy
properties for the sole purpose of listing them on Airbnb as short-term
rentals.

~~~
woofyman
Why doesn't the home owners association crack down on the short term rentals?

~~~
aquadrop
Maybe it's unpopular opinion here, but why short term rentals are bad? I
personally love short term rentals, hotels suck compare to them. I hopped over
asia and europe with 4-10 days at one place at a time, using AirBnB and it was
great. I want home-like experience when I travel, I don't want to stay in
overpriced micro-rooms without kitchen where I can't even make a tea. Some
people mentioned that condo inhabitants 'don't like living in a hotel', but
what specifically is the problem? That many people are going in and out? I
don't really know if it's the problem itself if those are decent people. And
still most of the people would be full time If there are related issues, maybe
it's best to address the issues (I don't know what they are though, nobody
explained it)? Because AirBnb looks like a good platform to manage those
issues, turn chaotic market into more sane and organized. I think best
strategy would be for AirBnb and building-owners to work together, to keep
asshollish visitors outside (they are the problem, not short term rentals
itself), put more incentive for rent-givers to watch over who they rent
appartment/house to, etc

P.S. I never was on another side of the fence (i.e. living in the building
with many short term rental visitors), so maybe I don't
understand/underestimate something.

~~~
Symbiote
Short term (especially weekend) tenants don't care about the neighbours or the
building.

They'll have noisy parties, not know where the bins are and leave rubbish in
the hallways, and clatter their suitcase up or down the stairs at 4:30 to take
a cheap flight home.

> I think best strategy would be for AirBnb and building-owners to work
> together

I'd like to see a way for building owners, or local government, to get a feed
of every listing on AirBnB. They can then terminate leases, or whatever.

~~~
aquadrop
> Short term (especially weekend) tenants don't care about the neighbours or
> the building.

So probably the smaller period the higher rating/experience of the tenant. And
of course fines for landlords.

> I'd like to see a way for building owners, or local government, to get a
> feed of every listing on AirBnB. They can then terminate leases, or
> whatever.

You propose AirBnB give out gun to shot AirBnB :) That's not what I meant,
more like notifications who rented what, so building owners could report/fine
right landlord later.

------
pasbesoin
I've lived with crap neighbors. Not in an AirBNB setting. But I've read more
than enough about rotating, crap AirBNB neighbors to have more than a bit of
sympathy towards the anti-AirBNB side.

Zoning and regulations exist for good reasons, built up over decades.

AirBNB and its like "break" the paradigm by, in "crowdsourced" fashion, sort
of "flash-mob" overwhelming the existing system.

Yeah, those existing systems may have some faults and inefficiencies. But I am
not for throwing them out, wholesale.

Nor for neighbors shitting all over their neighbors for the sake of their own
profit.

Like Uber with its discrimination and "dumping" via investor dollar subsidized
rides. These "sharing" businesses have turned into parasites arbitraging the
limited resources to enforce existing law and regulation.

Unfortunately, more and more people believe that "government is bad", so,
instead of digging in to fix and improve what we have, it's left to the crooks
to break the paradigm.

Again, as someone who's suffered under bad neighbors, repeatedly, I say...
well, a pox on your house.

(Not to mention our return to piecework labor with no benefits and no
insurance.)

------
JonFish85
If this starts becoming a pattern, that's how a $25B valuation becomes a $1B
acquisition, where common stock becomes worthless. I'm curious how quickly
Airbnb is pushing for an exit.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
At least in New York, I can personally trace certain political activity to
Airbnb behaving like asshats with their shareholders. Also, Airbnb are merging
with a Chinese competitor [1].

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-23/airbnb-
sai...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-23/airbnb-said-in-
talks-to-buy-chinese-home-rental-rival-xiaozhu)

------
ohwello
This is a good thing. But I'm not celebrating over Airbnb's corpse or
whatever. The first order effects of Airbnb are great.

It's a good thing to increase the number of travel accommodations so more
people can explore the world. I like Airbnb's mission better than that of a
lot of Silicon Valley startups.

It's unfortunate that, at scale, Airbnb becomes part of a larger problem:
there is not enough housing in many major cities. This is an unforced error we
are making as a civilization, because we have the technology to easily provide
enough housing in an affordable way (elevators, concrete).

Due to the limited supply of housing, the price will be bid up by the most
economically efficient use - shoving a stream of daily renters through your
condo building's lobby at the highest rate possible. A better outcome would be
new facilities dedicated for this use case.

When the pie is not big enough, we are inevitably going to have a lot of tough
fights over how to break it up. In this case, the poor locals who can't afford
a place to rent and richer locals who are annoyed by the foreigners in their
condo building lobby are going to win out over the people who want to explore
the world.

------
dominotw
Great news!!. Hope other cities like Chicago learn from this and start
enforcing it.

~~~
josho
> Great news!

Why is this great news? Am I missing something or are you simply against short
term rentals in general?

~~~
meddlepal
I'm strongly opposed to short term rentals because it's just giving rise to
alt-hotel property management landlords that reduce housing supply. I'm sort
of OK with it on an ad-hoc this is my primary residence and I have a spare
bedroom.

~~~
mahyarm
What are the numbers? Toronto has ~6000 fulltime units.
[http://insideairbnb.com/toronto/](http://insideairbnb.com/toronto/)

How many new 20 story condo buildings is that? 20?

In sf the numbers are about ~5000 units. But other data sources show there are
about 30k vacant units and 10k are not for rent because potential landlords
think the rental laws are too crazy and rather leave them empty. Not to
mention all the potential missing units that SF doesnt build due to strong
NIMBYism.

How strong is the NIMBY in toronto?

~~~
sanswork
Toronto has lots of units the problem isn't supply so much as people don't
want to live in hotels.

NIMBYism is fine when youre fighting against private individuals exploiting
your home for profit. It's not like AirBNB is an issue of it has to exist just
not here.

------
jeromegv
There was a shooting in a Airbnb house used for party in a quiet neighbourhood
this year, so this issue has been gathering attention.
[https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/03/20/man-shot-in-
th...](https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/03/20/man-shot-in-the-head-in-
north-york.html)

~~~
URSpider94
This is the house where the shooting took place ...

------
yladiz
I don't know Airbnb's demographics on travel (as in, who is hosting outside of
USA and Canada, and who uses it outside of USA and Canada) but I wouldn't
worry about this too much. Even if their usage is curtailed in the US, they
can push for marketing and usage in other countries (they are eyeing the
second largest home sharing company in China currently[1]).

However, I really wish Airbnb (and companies that use the same strategy, like
Uber) would really try to work with cities rather than fight them. I mean,
when you spend $8MM on tone deaf ads in San Francisco to fight some
proposition rather than working with the city to come to a compromise, it's
pretty bad. For example, the article mentions a specific bylaw for the area
where the user in question in this article lives. I know things move slowly in
law, but I feel it would be relatively simple to work with the city of Toronto
(and the county(?) of North York) to get the bylaw removed or amended. I
wouldn't be surprised if Airbnb demonizes the new SF law[2] once users get
fined by the city, and to me this seems backwards. I think it would be smarter
to try to work with the cities, and if you lose one, it sucks but that's life.

1: [http://qz.com/845185/as-the-us-and-europe-crack-down-on-
home...](http://qz.com/845185/as-the-us-and-europe-crack-down-on-home-sharing-
airbnb-turns-to-china/)

2: [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/overview-airbnb-
law-s...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/overview-airbnb-law-san-
francisco.html)

~~~
s0rce
This assumes the law is simply antiquated and most of the locals would be
happy or otherwise wouldn't care if it was repealed. However, it is possible
that many Toronto citizens could be against short term home rentals. See the
numerous complaints about condos turning into hotels and prom parties in
suburban homes. I'm not sure where I stand, I've used Airbnb a few times,
mostly my more positive experiences were when I rented a room, the whole homes
felt much more commercial.

------
edblarney
It's really odd that hotel prices have not changed that much.

Maybe hotels are really for corporate/business stays - and that AirBnB has
simply expanded the personal travel market.

Like how airlines make 50% of their profit off of business travellers ...
Hotels are 1st class, AirBnB is 'coach' (purely from economic perspective, I
understand people might value things differently).

Or it could be that the extra safety/quality/taxation requirements of hotels
make them uncompetitive vis-a-vis AirBnB.

------
OrdaGarb
I enjoyed this interview by NPR:

Airbnb: Joe Gebbia

A chance encounter with a stranger gave Joe Gebbia an idea to help pay his
rent. That idea turned into Airbnb — a company that now has more rooms than
the biggest hotel chain in the world.

[http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-
this](http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this)

------
omouse
Awesome, excellent stuff.

------
trhway
if mix of short and long term residents is such a problem why not build condo
buildings which specifically permit (basically intended for) AirBNB short
terms? Why such a hard binary choice - either long term condo or crappy hotel.
Why there can't be option in between - normal condo building in normal
location which explicitly allows short term from the start?.

~~~
wool_gather
Maybe this will happen eventually, but you don't just call up your buddy on
the weekend and decide to throw up a new building. Even if it's as small as
three or four condos, you're talking about a large amount of money and a long
process of design and review before you're allowed to break ground.

Plus, if this is your intention, then no matter how you spin "It's cool, these
are _totally_ condos, just for short term rental!" you _actually are building
a hotel_ , and zoning plus public opinion might get in your way.

------
chuinard
Airbnb is a joke. Who the hell would actually rent their home out to a
complete stranger for a $100 payday one weekend?

Not to mention you can just rent out a single room in your home. Like you want
some stranger to temporarily live with you for a day or two and invade your
privacy, all for just a few dollars.

The site was clearly meant to look one way yet allow people to run illegal
hotels. The only people I've ever heard renting out on Airbnb are ones who buy
homes specifically for Airbnb.

Airbnb is everything that is wrong with SV, so disconnected from the real
world. I just don't understand who would let totally random strangers from the
internet live amongst them or even just their possessions.

~~~
antisthenes
> Like you want some stranger to temporarily live with you for a day or two
> and invade your privacy, all for just a few dollars.

It's not just a few dollars. Some stays are easily in the $1000+ range, for
less than a week's stay. Idk what salary bubble you're in as a software dev,
but that's a lot of money to some people.

> Who the hell would actually rent their home out to a complete stranger

Everyone on couchsurf disagrees with you. Oh and they usually do it for free.
And as a short term landlord you do have some control over who stays at your
place. In fact the more you charge, the higher end clientèle you will
typically get.

> Airbnb is everything that is wrong with SV, so disconnected from the real
> world. I just don't understand who would let totally random strangers from
> the internet live amongst them or even just their possessions.

There are many issues wrong with SV, but Airbnb is the least of its worries.
This says more about you than SV or Airbnb. Not everyone is misanthropic to
this degree.

> The site was clearly meant to look one way yet allow people to run illegal
> hotels. The only people I've ever heard renting out on Airbnb are ones who
> buy homes specifically for Airbnb.

Maybe in the US, where credit is so easily available. This is definitely not
the case for a lot of less fortunate places in Europe and 3rd world countries.

~~~
criddell
Do you know if European cities generally have zoning laws similar to American
cities?

------
baybal2
scrap zoning

~~~
JonFish85
Cool. When a coal fired power plant moves in next door, you might think twice.

~~~
wfh
Zoning isn't there to prevent the coal fired power plant from being built next
to your house, it's to make it less bureaucratic to build in zoned areas - no
need to get individual "planning permission" for any new permitted structure.

Countries that don't use zoning would still prevent the scenario you envisage.

~~~
baybal2
Countries following a rule "you own the land, use it whatever way you like"
are living just fine as well

------
skylan_q
I'm behind. What's the buzz about zoning violations here?

~~~
Kpourdeilami
A short term rental for the span of fewer than 7 days is considered a zoning
violation

~~~
skylan_q
Yes, it is. I want to understand the excitement over this ruling and I want to
understand the purpose of the zoning violation.

------
icebraining
Without making any judgement on the issue, this will probably mean a general
reduction of housing prices, and hence a bunch of people going underwater, no?

~~~
criddell
I've always found the way people cheer on rising property values a little odd.

The basic things everybody needs are food clothing and shelter. How is it a
good thing that something everybody needs should get more and more expensive?
I think the relative amount I spend on food and clothing has dropped over the
past 25 years, but my housing expenses have skyrocketed.

~~~
jdavis703
You're totally right. Rising property values are a bad thing. As a society we
shouldn't be spending resources on arbitrarily defined lines on land. We
should be using that money to do things like funding scientific research, or
rebuild infrastructure, not making some landlord rich.

~~~
sauronlord
Citation needed.

Landlords do not get rich in the manner you insinuate. They get wealthy in the
very long run. But not rich.

Toronto cap rates are hovering around 4-6%: in other words they are BLEEDING
cash from the landlords' own pockets.

~~~
criddell
Cap rates don't take into account a property's appreciation, does it? If I own
a building and the property value doubles but I don't increase my rents, my
cap rate stays the same even though my wealth has increased a lot, right?

~~~
sauronlord
Cap rate is the net cashflow divided by the purchase price. In other words:
the current cap rate is a function of the price you paid (ie : appreciation up
until now)

Another investor will not buy for a higher price unless the rents also
increased (ie: cap rate is in a certain acceptable range)

The statement "...property doubles in value but I don't increase my rents...."
Is misleading since presumably no sane investor would pay double price for the
same income stream. If the cap rate is 5% for a 1 million dollar property then
it earns 50k per year. The property price that other investors are going to
pay will be a function of a cap rate they are OK with ( which bakes in the
price and earnings ratio). 2.5% cap rate means 2 million dollars still earning
50k year. No thank you

Additionally, the equity in an investment is not wealth... yet. It has to be
sold to get money that can be used to put food on the table.

------
grogenaut
Article specifically states it is a vrbo listing not air bnb during the
incident. However doesn't mean it wasn't also on Airbnb. Still a bit of
headline attention grabbing.

~~~
dominotw
where does it say it was a vrbo listing?

~~~
grogenaut
Looks like I got an article treatment most people didn't see. Wtf. It was an
explicit sentence that disappeared when I refreshed the article.

------
josho
> Under an old North York bylaw, ... short-term home rentals must be seven
> days or more.

Seems like an arbitrary law.

There's got to be a better way to structure laws for short term rentals in a
sharing economy. Or is the sharing economy similar to the tragedy of the
commons in that the end state is an end to sharing because of abuse and we all
end up with commercial short term rental properties that are run more like a
hotel than a spare room.

~~~
detaro
Given that they had created a company to rent out the house and are selling it
now it sounds like this _was_ a "commercial short term rental property", not a
"spare room".

~~~
josho
Seems like I wasn't clear. By commercial I meant something more than an
individual with a business license, something more along the lines of a hostel
experience where there is a lobby and staff like a security guard.

~~~
amscanne
That would be a _responsible_ commercial enterprise. This property (and many
other AirBNB) properties are commercial, but effectively skirting all
regulations that would normally apply.

This specific house was rented and a massive party thrown where someone was
shot. Hostels and hotels spend money (e.g. security) to ensure the environment
is safe and this kind of thing doesn't happen.

AirBNBs can be responsible, but it means things like actually renting spare
rooms, having someone nearby (you or a neighbour) meet guests and keep an eye
on things, etc.

