As an aside, Jon Ronson's podcast 'The Butterfly Effect' presents the same issue with porn videos; before streaming sites and SEO producers were free to name their videos as they wished but now they need to name them so they appeal to multiple sub-genres and fetishes and that's why we get 'Step Daughter Cheerleader Orgy Volume 4' rather than some play on Edward Scissor Hands.
Maybe it's selective bias but I think of all north American metropolises Montreal would be particularly difficult to implement hotels in residential areas. Renters here have very strong rights, albeit backed by an understaffed authority. Tourism provides a substantial bulk to the local economy but it's not nearly enough that the local population will accept having fly-by-night partiers in otherwise quiet neighbourhoods. The article says downtown but I strongly suspect they mean neighbourhoods adjacent to downtown which have long been home to local workers and students, key to providing vibrancy and life which attracts the tourists to begin with (and the festivals).
You'd be correct iff a) the dwelling is occupied near-100% of the time AND b) hotels, hostels and similarly-zoned dwellings are routinely at capacity OR c) the dwelling rented is the principal residence of the owner.
Do you have data to support this w.r.t. Vancouver?
That requirement is as sensible as saying that vancouver should outlaw residents from vacationing outside vancouver to ensure there are no vacant properties. Its not the goal to maximize each minute within a housing unit, thats not something you want to focus on.
> b) hotels, hostels and similarly-zoned dwellings are routinely at capacity
There is no need to look at such thing. In this case you are trying to look at each potential dwelling unit as an abstract unit and each resident as a unit, but they have their own differences and imperfections. Looking at such a metric will push you to think policies like moving long term residents to hotels!
> Do you have data to support this w.r.t. Vancouver?
I can tell you people travel a lot more because of airbnb, and that there are way more cities that don't care about airbnb at all because it doesnt affect their housing market significantly.
> That requirement is as sensible as saying that vancouver should outlaw residents from vacationing outside vancouver to ensure there are no vacant properties. Its not the goal to maximize each minute within a housing unit, thats not something you want to focus on.
You do want people living in their homes for the vast majority of the time. You want them living there, hopefully being part of the community, getting invested in their lives there. The original argument is very sensible.
> There is no need to look at such thing. In this case you are trying to look at each potential dwelling unit as an abstract unit and each resident as a unit, but they have their own differences and imperfections. Looking at such a metric will push you to think policies like moving long term residents to hotels!
This is only sort of okay. No reasonable person who cares about housing would push to move long term residents to hotels. This is just a terrible premise to put forward.
> I can tell you people travel a lot more because of airbnb, and that there are way more cities that don't care about airbnb at all because it doesnt affect their housing market significantly.
Do they really? Like whom? AirBnB isn't particularly expensive, and all-in costs are more often than not more expensive than hotels. I don't know _anyone_ who says they travel more because of AirBnb.
> You do want people living in their homes for the vast majority of the time. You want them living there, hopefully being part of the community, getting invested in their lives there. The original argument is very sensible.
I vehemently disagree. People should be doing what they want, not what some other random person thinks they should be doing. Cities have dead periods all the time: people leave new york in the winter, or buenos aires in the summer.
The idea that a community grows stronger by putting a fence is a sad one to me.
> This is only sort of okay. No reasonable person who cares about housing would push to move long term residents to hotels. This is just a terrible premise to put forward.
It is the equivalent premise to saying that you should ban hotels so there are more long term residents, or known as, reduce short term housing stock to increase long term housing stock.
> Do they really? Like whom? AirBnB isn't particularly expensive, and all-in costs are more often than not more expensive than hotels. I don't know _anyone_ who says they travel more because of AirBnb.
You might also not hear anyone say they use cabs more because of lyft and uber but I assure you that they do. Hotels have not particularly suffered their market share because of airbnb, but airbnb is widely used in all major cities. Hostels probably took a hit, but nowhere near the usage airbnb has. Hotels ~=, Hostels -=, Airbnb ++++= => people are travelling more.
> I vehemently disagree. People should be doing what they want, not what some other random person thinks they should be doing. Cities have dead periods all the time: people leave new york in the winter, or buenos aires in the summer. The idea that a community grows stronger by putting a fence is a sad one to me.
A society's benefit takes precedent over the desires of individuals. A society wants people living in their homes most of the time. They want the majority of housing for residents with very few, specific examples such as resort towns.
> It is the equivalent premise to saying that you should ban hotels so there are more long term residents, or known as, reduce short term housing stock to increase long term housing stock.
Again, that's not the case. Hotels are purpose built, temporary places for people to stay. AirBnB is made on the premise of converting existing long-term housing in to short-term rentals.
> You might also not hear anyone say they use cabs more because of lyft and uber but I assure you that they do. Hotels have not particularly suffered their market share because of airbnb, but airbnb is widely used in all major cities. Hostels probably took a hit, but nowhere near the usage airbnb has. Hotels ~=, Hostels -=, Airbnb ++++= => people are travelling more.
I don't have any numbers here and without doing it, I'm not going to hand wave at it anymore.
>A society's benefit takes precedent over the desires of individuals. A society wants people living in their homes most of the time. They want the majority of housing for residents with very few, specific examples such as resort towns.
Okay, then if society > individuals, definitely you should not regulate airbnb over long term residents, because short term residents are a higher portion of society. Way to shoot yourself in the foot!
> Again, that's not the case. Hotels are purpose built, temporary places for people to stay. AirBnB is made on the premise of converting existing long-term housing in to short-term rentals.
Unless you have the strange assumption that hotels take no space whatsoever, they also convert long term housing to short term housing.
> I don't have any numbers here and without doing it, I'm not going to hand wave at it anymore.
One of the biggest new companies in the world, valued at multiple tens of billions, takes a 15% cut on short term rentals, hotels stocks are doing fine and you honestly believe people are not travelling more?
I suggest you talk with people you know and ask them how many times they stayed at a hotel in their lifetime and how many times they stayed at an airbnb. The answer will surprise you.
> That requirement is as sensible as saying that vancouver should outlaw residents from vacationing outside vancouver to ensure there are no vacant properties. Its not the goal to maximize each minute within a housing unit, thats not something you want to focus on.
I think you're confused about what I'm saying here. I'm not stating that this is legislation I'd hope to have passed--I'm saying that your point (short term rentals don't decrease effective housing availability in Vancouver) can only be true if certain conditions are met--your main point here, being covered in c) 'the dwelling rented is the principal residence of the owner.' This agreement with AirBnB is a step towards acknowledging this.
Mostly, though, I think your response indicates more strongly that you're just confused about Vancouver as a city. Things that work elsewhere in the world (eg: flat expansion) don't work for Vancouver due to ocean to the west, the US border on the south, and mountains/other townships already experiencing housing pains on the north and east. Things that most other places care about (eg: AirBnB tourism) don't apply so much to Vancouver, as almost all our tourists either go to Whistler or arrives on cruise ships (and thus needs no AirBnB). The hotels and hostels have more than enough capacity to handle the rest.
It's a fact of the matter that landlords buying multiple apartments to rent out temporary AirBnBs reduces housing stock, just as it's a fact that refusing to rezone certain areas of Vancouver reduces potential house stock.
> I can tell you people travel a lot more because of airbnb
I agree, but it's not pertinent to discussion w.r.t. Vancouver.
> and that there are way more cities that don't care about airbnb at all because it doesnt affect their housing market significantly.
I agree, but it's not pertinent to discussion w.r.t. Vancouver.
> It's a fact of the matter that landlords buying multiple apartments to rent out temporary AirBnBs reduces housing stock, just as it's a fact that refusing to rezone certain areas of Vancouver reduces potential house stock.
In a pre-hotel era, it could have been also argued that hotels reduce the housing stock. After all, if long term residents dont use them, you could build residents in that place.
It has to be made absolutely clear that favoring long term residents over short term residents is a matter of power not of economics. It is a modern attempt at a tariff, or at an import restriction.
Vancouver might not be able to expand sideways but it can expand up. But lets say for the sake of argument it is impossible to build even a single dwelling unit more. Who is to say what each unit provides as maximum value? Why do you think that long term residents are more valuable to the city than short term residents even when they pay less, and where do you draw the line between allowing airbnbs or banning hotels. Or putting tourist quotas or tariffs.
> I agree, but it's not pertinent to discussion w.r.t. Vancouver.
It is very much pertinent to vancouver. They have a disease that would exist with or without airbnb, which is the affordability of the housing stock. Airbnb might aggravate that like eating ice cream aggravates your indigestion. That doesnt mean the proper solution is to 'regulate' ice cream.
> In a pre-hotel era, it could have been also argued that hotels reduce the housing stock. After all, if long term residents dont use them, you could build residents in that place.
Sure, in a pre-hotel era, but then someone thought "hey what about people coming to visit our city?" and hotels were born.
> It has to be made absolutely clear that favoring long term residents over short term residents is a matter of power not of economics. It is a modern attempt at a tariff, or at an import restriction.
So? The long-term residents are the people that live in the city and actually make it what it is. They get the final say in what goes on in their own city that they pay taxes to. It's not about power--unless you mean the economic power to continue to afford to live in their city.
> Vancouver might not be able to expand sideways but it can expand up.
Sure, and I mention that as another way of alleviating housing strain--but that still doesn't absolve AirBnB renters.
> But lets say for the sake of argument it is impossible to build even a single dwelling unit more. Who is to say what each unit provides as maximum value? Why do you think that long term residents are more valuable to the city than short term residents even when they pay less, and where do you draw the line between allowing airbnbs or banning hotels. Or putting tourist quotas or tariffs.
I mean, your argument here is basically "wealthy travelers with the help of a large, wealthy corporation should be allowed to break local laws because it might be better for the economy."
> They have a disease that would exist with or without airbnb, which is the affordability of the housing stock.
Sure.
> Airbnb might aggravate that
This is a far cry from your original statement of "Short term rentals do not diminish housing stock"
> like eating ice cream aggravates your indigestion. That doesnt mean the proper solution is to 'regulate' ice cream.
So, a child eats ice cream, gets an upset tummy and demands government reconciliation therefore government regulation is silly?
A better metaphor would simply be a child eating ice cream despite being told not to by her parents, discovering that it gave her a terrible bellyache because she has lactose intolerance, and then deciding that she should regulate her ice cream intake carefully to avoid bellyaches in the future.
But I think you're just mistaken about the impetus for Vancouver to do this. I'm a fan of this regulation as I think it solves the extant problems of AirBnB (eg: people effectively operating hotels in areas without proper zoning without going through the relatively important legal hurdles to license one) while keeping the core principle in tact (ie: if you're going on vacation, it's fair to want to rent out your property for a short term occupant when you're not using it).
Post regulation: short term rentals are legal, provided that a) you acquire a license from the city to operate (note: this also protects consumers to some extant from scams), b) it's your principal dwelling, c) it's an actual legal dwelling (eg: not a hollowed out bus in an industrial park), and d) you have permission from the owner/strata.
Pre-regulation: short term rentals are illegal.
Effectively, this regulation expands the capabilities of AirBnB (good) while also limiting the effects of diminished housing in the city caused by AirBnB (good) while also providing some government-backed consumer protection (good). Literally the only people that this regulation hamstrings are property owners who own multiple residential apartments/houses that they do not live in who've been already breaking the law by allowing short-term rentals while not renting it out to long-term residents (which clearly and obviously diminishes housing stock). Sounds like a win in my books.
> Sure, in a pre-hotel era, but then someone thought "hey what about people coming to visit our city?" and hotels were born.
And someone thought what about even more of those people and airbnb was born...
> So? The long-term residents are the people that live in the city and actually make it what it is. They get the final say in what goes on in their own city that they pay taxes to. It's not about power--unless you mean the economic power to continue to afford to live in their city.
Thats your opinion. What would new york be without tourists? Or vancouver? Definitely a different city.
And they pay taxes for services they consume, not to get a privilege over stranges, that, by the way, also pay taxes. In fact, the visitors do more for the city than the actual tax paying residents. Because they bring money in, that increases the revenue of the city as well as of the individuals. If that were the bar to measure, then it would be the visitors that get to vote over the locals, since they do so much more to fill the coffers.
> I mean, your argument here is basically "wealthy travelers with the help of a large, wealthy corporation should be allowed to break local laws because it might be better for the economy."
If your main concern is companies breaking the law, then I have a proposition to satisfy you and me at the same time. Do away with the laws, and now there are no law-breakers.
> This is a far cry from your original statement of "Short term rentals do not diminish housing stock"
You are switching the definition of housing stock: they dont diminish it, they increase it. More people fit in the same space thanks to airbnb, because it extends utilization rates and adds density: it just does so at a cost to the long term resident over short term residents.
We disagree on the definition of dweller, cities require more than just vacation seekers to function. And the longer term renters aren't taking up those dwelling since it's more profitable for owners to rent out short term, but the reason that anyone wants to rent short term is because it's an interesting place to be, which it won't be if it's all people on vacation.
It's no quandary at all, the visitors and the landlords agree. Only a minority disagrees.
If the rate of visitors reaches a rate where where the occupancy rate of airbnbs is makes them less interesting than long term units, congratulations, you have found market equilibrium.
So people who simply want to live in a city near to where they work and their children go to school have to be subject to market corrections where a single massively financed pseudo-hotel can massively distort a major cost of living assignment? Ridiculous. This is where common-sense regulation is needed.
Why do you call it distortion? Its the opposite: the distortion is having empty properties, hotel taxes and zoning.
You make a weird argument: you mention the people that work in the city and want to live near it, and this argument has at least 2 flaws. The first one is that in a numbers game, the people that lose out on this exchange is a much smaller number than all the rest. That is, a small proportion of people see their conditions relatively worse because of how a third party does with their property. IF you put it up to a vote of all people involved, they would lose out big time.
The second is that you dont take into consideration that airbnb has made it cheaper and easier to travel for people of that socio-economic status as well. Its not only hipsters and software engineers that user airbnb. You have to weigh in the benefit of the consumer.
are you suggesting that the number of tourists and landlords combined is more than the number of people that disagree with housing units existing as permanent airbnb listings?
>>The most important is that Vancity can deny the ability for commercial operators pretending to be residential operators and punish those that persist.
Watch now for a big increase in business licenses as those operators begin to do business under strawmen.
Great question, I'm also Canadian but have European citizenship, maybe I'll be able to use this to get information from my municipal government that I can't get as a Canadian.
I've had to deal with this at work (anticipatory only so far), but what I can't seem to figure out is what the inquiring European needs to provide to us to prove that the data we have is actually theirs. We don't capture pii data in most instances, so if someone requests their info under GDPR and provide us an IP and a time do we take them at their word?
The trains should only run on tracks that are completely enclosed (More control on the environment will realize better reliability, and as an aside nicer living space. Raised tracks are ugly.), Also they should run on rubber wheels like the Montreal metro has since 1966.
Both metros should have barrier between platforms and tracks since they know where the doors will open. It's sad but a non-negligible cause of delays are due to people jumping on the tracks.
As someone who's lived in both Montreal and the Washington DC area (and used Metro for commuting in both), I have to say that a mixture of raised and buried tracks are really the only way to have a practical system if you want it to work beyond the dense downtown area. Many of the more open places in metropolitan Montreal like Lachine don't have any Metro stops due to the expense of digging tunnels to there. In contrast, you can take the Washington Metro from Fairfax, VA and Rockville, MD. both well over twenty miles from downtown DC.
Yes I totally agree with you, I'd love it if the metro was far more expansive than it currently is in Montreal. For me the solution is to expand the metro system to the west island, south shore, etc but forget about burying it and just put it above ground in a tube. Initially it sounds silly but the current rolling stock and tracks aren't up to the task of dealing with Montreal weather, but maintaining one system is (I think) more feasible than our current system (metro, trains, upcoming light rail, etc)
Every now and again I look at the 1960s photos of the implementation of the metro system and the main idea that I take away from it is that something of that scale is pretty much impossible today.
Looks like the subway constructed there was done using cut & cover tunnels, which is commonly done today, its only when you get below a certain depth or have preexisting structures that you'd use a tunnel boring machine.
For rail those tend to be fairly reliable, though most rail alignments buy two or three so they can bore from both ends, and have a spare in case it pulls a Bertha (Seattle's recent highway tunneling nightmare).
What is different today is how impacts are considered. Politically savvy communities are able to cause perfectly good rights of way with existing rail to not be used for light rail or commuter rail. Happened over in Bellevue, much to the detriment of the city and its surrounding towns. Microsoft ain't too happy about that one!
> Both metros should have barrier between platforms and tracks since they know where the doors will open.
This only works for environments with one type of rolling stock only. It's not uncommon that you take a ride in a decades-old train (e.g. the oldest trains in the Munich subway hail from 1971, they are expected to run for essentially over 50 years!), switch lines at a station and end up in a train that rolled off the factory line 2 years ago. Each new train generation has, for example, different door widths, door positions, even the number of doors per wagon can change.
Admittedly I hadn't thought of that, but I don't think there's that much variety in rolling stock for a given location, and when speccing out replacements I don't think it's too much to ask that the doors are in the same place (cars are purchased in dozens...), maybe I'm wrong. Montreal is a much smaller network than New York.
>when speccing out replacements I don't think it's too much to ask that the doors are in the same place (cars are purchased in dozens...)
that pretty much only works if you have 1 generation of rolling stock currently in use, and you know (or forsee) that you want to install platform doors. considering that the new york subways were built before platform doors were a thing, I can totally see how door location wasn't even a concern when purchasing rolling stock.
Exactly. The generations don't HAVE to have different dimensions. There's no worldwide metro standard across all dimensions leading to "common" models, every subway system requires custom made. Of course they can work them in, like they do in Montreal (where I see them working harmoniously)
