Reactions to Council’s moratorium on short-term rental licenses
4th June 2018 · 0 Comments
By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer
On May 24, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously in support of a nine-month moratorium on the issuance or renewal of whole home short-term rental licenses across most of the city.
Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer introduced two successful motions related to short-term rentals at the hearing, one broadening the scope of an on-going city planning commission study surrounding the impacts of short-term rental licenses, as well as the aforementioned moratorium, temporarily banning the issuance of licenses to applicants without a homestead exemption.
“This is pushing the pause button until the planning commission releases its recommendations and we have a good comprehensive study out to guide us through the legislative process,” Councilwoman Gisleson Palmer said.
Housing advocates support the council’s decision, noting research from local groups like the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative indicating that short-term rentals accelerate gentrification and displacement of residents through both increases in home costs and the removal of homes from the market.
“The city’s permissible short term rental laws have enabled and encouraged intense disruption in housing markets due to speculative investments, leading to higher purchasing costs and higher property values. These are commercial ventures driven by profit, and that’s impacting costs for New Orleanians,” Breonne DeDecker, the initiative’s executive director, said.
Permit holders who rent a room within their home or the other side of a shotgun would not be impacted. “We are calling for a one-home, one-host policy,” said Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center Executive Director Cashauna Hill. “We don’t want policy that hurts struggling homeowners or average New Orleanians, particularly for the benefit of large corporations.”
Councilwoman Gisleson Palmer agrees with Hill’s distinction between whole home residential permit-holders (who typically receive temporary permits) and other types of permits. “We don’t think the sharing economy is a bad thing, and we want our residents to be able to participate in that and participate in our tourist driven economy,” she said. “But we live in a city where the majority of residents rent, and we need a fair and equitable process based in zoning that maintains affordable housing.”
Opponents of the motion argue that the moratorium prematurely halts rental licenses, before the planning commission study’s release, and disrupts ongoing dialogue between short-term rental platforms and the city. “The unfortunate decision to halt the renewal of temporary short-term rental permits punishes responsible New Orleans residents who have followed the letter of the law,” HomeAway’s Director of Communications Philip Minardi said in a statement. “We look forward to a more collaborative and open dialogue in the weeks to come.”
AirBnB also objected to the moratorium, sending a letter to the council prior to the vote promoting the company’s contribution of more than $6 million in hotel taxes and their cooperation with the city in enforcing permit violators, with the removal of more than 3,000 illegal listings from their website.
“It is disappointing the city council chose to punish many law-abiding New Orleans residents who depend on home sharing to support their families,” said Laura Rillos, Public Affairs Manager with Air BnB. Rillos also pointed to a Loyola study released in 2016 indicating that Air BnB had no discernible impact on New Orleans’ housing market.
That study doesn’t align with recent findings from housing advocates, who began analyzing data from short term rental platforms following 2016 city-wide regulations. Those laws established the current permitting system and data sharing agreements with rental platforms, which critics say allow renters to abuse the system and violate already overly permissible regulation.
“Loopholes make it easy for commercial entities to gobble up thousands of homes for hotel rooms, and we can’t enforce what little restrictions we do have in place,” DeDecker said. “And the top ten operators in the city control 568 units of housing. This isn’t mom and pop.”
DeDecker, Hill, and other local advocates also argue that extant regulation removes accountability from short-term rental platforms. “There are still thousands of illegal listings online,” Hill said.
Community members present during the council vote overwhelmingly supported the motions, and the issue of rising housing prices and potential connections to a surge in the number of short term rental units isn’t new. Several new council members, including Gisleson Palmer, campaigned on reforming short-term rental regulations.
“In my district, the breakdown is crazy,” Gisleson Palmer said. “We have three times as many temporary (whole home) permits as we do accessory (one half shotgun or bedroom). I’m worried about proliferation and commercialization.”
Palmer represents District C, which includes the Bywater, Marigny, and parts of St. Roch, neighborhoods where the number of whole home short-term rentals has doubled, and in some cases tripled, since 2016 regulations passed.
“I’m glad we have a council member interested in long term neighborhood sustainability, “ says District C resident Nick Payne. “Politicians like to talk about neighborhood resilience, and they need to realize these neighborhoods would never have recovered after the storm if they had just been full of vacation rentals. Banning whole home rentals will also keep out the bachelor frat parties.”
The coming months will likely bring much debate surrounding the issue, which will only accelerate after the planning commission releases its findings. At the time of this story, the mayor’s office had no comment.
This article originally published in the June 04, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
