Stopping short term rentals will not add low income housing to the city’s insufficient inventory. New York City’s ever present housing issues will not be solved by government overreach and overzealous enforcement. However the interpretation of this law as currently written by the Office of Special Enforcement makes no distinction between these scofflaws and individual homeowners with a single listing who are just trying to make ends meet. The spirit of the law was intended to go after egregious offenders, in extreme cases a single “host” having 400 listings.

This is the last opportunity for the community to speak up in defense of small homeowners and hard working families from being unfairly penalized for the violations of larger rental businesses.įormer New York City Councilmember Ben Kallos, who championed the initial law, acknowledged in a recent Fox5 interview, “this is really going after people who have more than one place.” According to the story, more than half of the city’s inventory listed on Airbnb are from hosts with multiple listings. Local law 18 is unbalanced and must be modified before adoption. The current language of Local Law 18 is a blunt instrument that will cause upheaval and stress for individual homeowners, when the real target should be larger operators who are competing with the powerful hotel lobby. The proposed law as currently written is a one-size-fits-all solution to a nuanced problem which is being caused by larger rental businesses operating multiple short-term listings in New York City. Local Law 18 would severely curtail short term rentals in New York City, and makes no distinction between individual homeowners with a rental unit in an owner-occupied building and larger rental businesses who have converted entire buildings into de facto hotels. This new law requires short-term rental hosts to register with the city and prohibits booking services from processing transactions for unregistered listings. On Wednesday, the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) will conduct a second and potentially final public hearing to solicit input about Local Law 18. CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Prohibiting short term rentals would severely impact homeowners’ ability to meet financial obligations and continue to live in the city.”Īdi TalwarAn evening view of Manhattan over the East River. “Undermining the ability of individual homeowners to rent property based on their needs is an imbalanced infringement upon owners’ rights, discourages home ownership, and represents a slippery slope towards government overreach.

Hoa covenants short term rental