
Airbnb Suffers Big Defeat in Jersey City - dangoldin
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/nyregion/airbnb-jersey-city-vote.html
======
shartshooter
70 percent of voters supported the new regulations.

 _The new restrictions allow homeowners to rent out portions of their homes as
long as they’re present during a guest’s stay. But they prohibit renters from
listing their apartment and bar owners from renting a property on a short-term
basis most of the year if they don’t live on-site, effectively banning large-
scale Airbnb operators who had converted hundreds of condos and townhouses
into makeshift hotels. It would, however, hurt residents who were making extra
cash by renting out a second home for days at a time through Airbnb._

It sounds reasonable to me. I used to love staying in Airbnb’s but can’t stand
the cheapness of it all as of late due to them turning into pure investments
and no longer real homes.

~~~
cycrutchfield
> I used to love staying in Airbnb’s but can’t stand the cheapness of it all
> as of late due to them turning into pure investments and no longer real
> homes.

That's nice that you prefer one type of rental over the other. Why not allow
both, so that others who prefer not having a homeowner intruding on their
privacy don't need to deal with that?

~~~
baot
Because local housing naturally has a limited supply making it a natural
monopoly in addition to the fact that, since it's very difficult to live
without housing, it is a one-sided market without alternatives.

So, as much as you'd like to pretend it's just a matter of personal freedoms,
bypassing housing codes via the guise of a tech company just enables negative
externalities that restrict the personal freedoms of others. And the 'others'
are the people who actually live there, making them more important than you.

~~~
least
Local housing has an artificially limited supply, actually. There's an
absolute limit on housing per unit of area, but we get nowhere close to
approaching that limit anywhere in the US. The real issue is zoning laws
prohibiting building of new housing or favoring single family homes over
apartment buildings creating markets where supply doesn't increase. If you
address this and allow for building of higher density housing, prices will
decrease and services like AirBNB stop being as big of an issue.

It doesn't help that local government politicians are frequently homeowners
(and their constituents as well) that have a vested interest in keeping
housing prices high. AirBNBs, apartment buildings, and high rises are going to
negatively impact the value of their properties.

~~~
baot
Not if there's induced demand. Areas without zoning laws have been tried, we
usually tear them down.

~~~
least
Induced demand for housing, a thing that costs actual money to purchase, would
just be an indicator that supply hasn't reached equilibrium with demand.

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cddotdotslash
Airbnb will loathe the day it decided not to fight back against people buying
10 to 15 apartments and renting them via large scale operations on their
platform. They had to know it was happening, and, while it may have helped
them achieve their initial growth rates, it's dramatically turned public
opinion against them. I don't know a single renter or home owner in NYC who
actually wants Airbnb guests in their building.

~~~
asah
Owner-occupied, full-time rental and part-time rental can co-exist, but not if
all sides "dig in."

Consider the urban reaction if (a) buildings got to tax AirBnB stays and use
the proceeds for improvements and/or reduce owner HOA costs, (b) the
profile/reputation/support system were shared between AirBnB and building
staff/management, so guests weren't unaccountable strangers and building staff
and AirBnB could coordinate during emergencies.

As travelers, owners have also benefitted from AirBnB, which has been life-
changing for providing kitchens, affordability and traveling with friends and
family. AirBnB also solved the problem of large events taking away housing
stock needed for everyday travel.

~~~
rhizome
Jesus Christ, AirBnB didn't invent vacation rentals. There was even a movie
about them 35 years ago. The non-Martha Plimpton girl from The Goonies was in
it.

~~~
2rsf
they haven't, but they made it super accessible to my mother and the nice old
lady upstairs both as a host and a visitor

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docdeek
While more than 96,100 Jersey FTA: City residents use Airbnb when traveling,
the defeat underscored the difficulty that sharing economy companies
increasingly face in mobilizing users as a constituency.

Seems a bit NIMBYish doesn't it? As in residents happy to use AirBnB in
someone else's neighborhood but damned if they'll extend the same to people
visiting their own.

~~~
greenbush
Of course, AirBnB doesn't reveal the period of time that 96,100 residents used
it and what percentage are still active. AirBnB has been around for more than
10 years, so the 96,100 users are over that long span of time!

~~~
docdeek
Indeed, though the population of Jersey City is about 270,000 so it’s about a
third of that population - that’s a significant number even if some have used
it only once and then never again 9 years ago.

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zarkowsky
You can still rent out a room of your apartment if you are living in it
yourself. The issue is about units that the owners are not residing in
themselves.

~~~
cycrutchfield
Why would I want to stay in a room of somebody's apartment?

~~~
danielbarla
This was the entire premise of Airbnb; you get a cheap lodging (sometimes
literally on an air bed), and the owner (optionally) might even make you
breakfast. It then kind of evolved into a gray area, with some businesses
essentially running large numbers of apartments. Many argue that at that
scale, it is disruptive to others living nearby, and should be regulated as a
normal hotel operation, etc.

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tempsy
I’ve been consistently surprised how insulated Airbnb has been to the level of
criticism that Uber and Lyft have more publicly faced for many years
now...maybe a part of it is that the impact Airbnb has on a city is much more
subtle so most don’t necessarily pay attention unless it’s directly impacting
their life.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Have they been? I don't know if they were anti-AirBnB protests on the streets,
but their meatspace ads have been defaced in the past. At least on HN, AirBnB
has been getting comparable levels of criticism to Uber, for roughly the same
reason - they're burning down society for profit, piece by piece.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/cP124](http://archive.is/cP124)

------
armitron
Airbnb destroyed my neighborhood (crime, noise and rent saw dramatic
increases) and was a factor in me moving to Germany with my entire family. I
am hoping more ppl get the message and ban them outright.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
> Airbnb destroyed my neighborhood (crime, noise and rent saw dramatic
> increases)

Where was this?

~~~
armitron
Colorado, sorry for not being more specific.

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baby
That’s a shame. Airbnb really changed the game for my friends and I. We’ve
been travelling all over the world with airbnb.

~~~
bnjms
Then you've no loss. You can still stay in houses with people living in the
home. Just not the fake ones where someone pretends to live on site and all
the stuff is an Ikea show room.

~~~
ryanSrich
I used AirBnB when it first launched and was absolutely floored that people
would actually want to spend the night(s) in a random strangers house with
them present. This was after me experiencing it first hand. It was quite
terrible.

Fast forward to AirBnB becoming what it is today where the majority of users
select “entire house” and it makes more sense.

The problem now is that they are essentially the same price as a cheap hotel,
which for my money is the far superior option (the hotel), so we’re back to
AirBnB making no sense to me again.

Perhaps I’m an outlier and the whole couch surfing market is that big, but it
seems like AirBnB is balancing being a hotel (entire house) without really
being a hotel. That’s a tricky spot to be in when regulators come knocking.

~~~
zamfi
For some people, the fact that it’s like a hotel (entire place to yourself)
but a) in a residential neighborhood, and b) with a kitchen and other
amenities of home that are usually missing or very expensive in a hotel
(laundry, parking, etc.)

If an actual hotel is the superior option to you, then, sure.

~~~
em-bee
exactly this. i'll take an airbnb serviced apartment over a hotel any time.

