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Airbnb rentals have entered the crosshairs of city officials who see a need for regulation and taxation of the service.
By Josie Grove
Short-term vacation rentals have proliferated in recent years, thanks to sites like Airbnb, which boasts hundreds of vacation apartments and rooms in Somerville. Airbnb handles payments between guests and hosts, but it has cut the state and municipalities out of the deal, and skirts the regulations governing hotels. Legislation on Beacon Hill could change the equation, and Somerville’s board of aldermen is considering how to regulate the short-term rental market.
State representatives Aaron Michlewitz (D-Boston) and RoseLee Vincent (D-Revere) sponsored a bill that would tax these transactions like hotel stays, including a tax comparable to the hotel tax. That bill has made it through revenue committee and was referred to Ways and Means in May 2016, and is awaiting further discussion.
Ward 2 Alderman Maryann Heuston is eager to regulate Airbnb. She expressed support for the state bill at last Thursday’s Board of Aldermen meeting, but thinks the city should consider regulations, in addition to taxation.
Ward 2’s Maryann Heuston is one of several aldermen who feel the time has come to look at regulation of the burgeoning short-term vacation rental industry.
Heuston is concerned about the impact of short-term rentals on housing prices in Somerville. ‘It is a concern, I don’t have the answers,” she said. “I think that if the state is moving forward, on something and we would realize local hotel taxes from that, we can let the state take the lead on that. But we might want to do some regulation locally just to make sure that our housing stock doesn’t get depleted.”
The effect of short-term rentals on housing in Somerville was also a concern for Ward 3 Alderman Robert McWatters. “Housing specialists and experts say that Airbnbs could be exacerbating the housing crisis, and we certainly have one in Somerville,” he said.
Ward 6 Alderman Lance Davis agreed short-term vacation rentals may be exacerbating the housing crisis, but has also heard from people who can afford to live in Somerville because of their Airbnb income. “But without question, in my view, this needs to be regulated and this needs to be taxed,” Davis said. “I’ve even had folks who run Airbnb businesses to say exactly that: we should be regulated and we should be taxed. Even within the community, there is an appetite for being responsible members of the community.”
Alderman at Large Bill White worries that without regulation, too many landlords will be irresponsible. “I see a strong danger, especially as we move forward with development, that people will be buying two- and three- family houses, especially absentee landlords, for the sole purpose of using them for Airbnb rentals,” he said. “An absentee landlord looking at that as an income generator would probably be able to outbid anyone looking to live there.”
Heuston pointed to examples of short-term rental regulation in other cities. San Francisco, for example, requires that the owners of short-term rental units be permanent residents of the city, and occupy their units at least 275 days of each year. Santa Monica, California has addressed the problem by banning short-term rentals outright.
Some short-term rentals are already banned in Somerville, said Ward 5 Alderman Mark Niedergang. “A lot of Airbnb rentals in the city are actually illegal, because it’s against the zoning code to rent out a whole unit [for short-term occupancy],” he said. “And that’s not being enforced by Inspectional Services at this point.”
All eleven aldermen signed on to the order to explore the possibility of taxing and regulating short-term rentals. The board’s Housing and Community Development Committee, Land Use Committee, and Finance Committee will all explore various aspects of the issue with city staff at upcoming meetings.
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some have had squatters move in and had difficulty getting them out
Please just do it at the state level.
You’d think one Somerville politician would acknowledge that paying $50
for an airbnb is better than paying $300 for a hotel room. And that less
than one hundred airbnbs per square mile in Somerville doesn’t affect
the housing market in significant ways. But, no-pant, pant, pant-tax and
regulate.
I live next to an Airbnb in Somerville. This particular Airbnb has 2 units and advertises itself as being capable of handling 22 guests.
Our experience is that trash containers overflow and don’t always get taken out. We’ve seen rats, squirrels and flies swarming the trash.
What used to have the feel of a neighborhood has become a revolving door of guests.
Guests don’t always obey parking regulations and the street is much dirtier since guests are often blocking the street during street cleaning operations.
This situation is much different than a resident renting out a room or a couch for a few days. These are absentee landlords with a commercial operation in residentially zoned neighborhood. Not only should they be charged a hotel tax, they should also have to meet the same standards a hotel would for maintain its property.
I appreciate that the city is looking into this. It’s not without its impact on the local community.
I am the owner of two fully regulated and taxed bed and breakfasts in Davis Square. In order to create my businesses I was first required to get them historically designated so they would qualify for a special class of zoning (historic bed and breakfast). I also needed to make them conform to safety regulations, including installing a fire sprinkler system and a monitored alarm system. I pay annual license fees for lodging and for food service, commercial, not residential property tax, and my guests pay 11.7% room tax, the same as for a hotel.
I have willingly conformed to all requirements in order to make a living doing the work that I love. What I object to is that airbnb has created a subclass of lodging establishments that, having few expenses and requirements, can undercut businesses such as mine. All I expect is a level playing field.
Ron, that is the same problem I had with Uber. I am not in or have anything to do with the taxi business. Just people like you go by the laws and pay the expenses that goes with the business while others can compete without those costs. And yes there should be a level playing field for regulated businesses. You should not be penalized for running a legitimate business by the books.
You are correct Ron. Same thing as what Uber is doing to taxi companies. Same service different rules and different costs. Level playing field is the right thing to do.
A quick search on the Air BnB website brings up plenty being advertised in Somerville. I found a few that advertise free on-street parking with use of their guest pass. I can see Air BnB as a cheap alternative to hotels and I have stayed in a few that were very nice when travelling. However, I do see a problem with them being in residential neighborhoods, especially since the neighbors are unaware of them. Also, using residential parking permits to enhance their business is unfair to the hundreds who pay for business parking permits in the city. https://www.airbnb.com/s/Somerville–MA–United-States?checkin=09%2F30%2F2016&checkout=10%2F03%2F2016&guests=2&zoom=14&search_by_map=true&sw_lat=42.36910043195358&sw_lng=-71.12797898899112&ne_lat=42.41475500703602&ne_lng=-71.08746690403018&ss_id=cumam5dv&s_tag=iAzERohN
I understand the concerns from the “legitimate” hotel/bnbs. I undersand the concern from the residents. But I have to say that airbnb provides a great service, not just to property owners but to travelers AND residents.
I have used it while traveling. It’s often cheaper, but not always. But also, they generally offer customers residential style living. I enjoy this for 2 reasons. You live like a local while you are there, and it’s easier for me to travel with my family (access to multiple bedrooms and kitchen w/o luxury price). As a resident, I also like having access to airbnb units nearby. We have lots of family and friends that visit often throughout the year, and we often don’t have enough space in our condo to host them. It’s nice to be able to get an airbnb down the block for them and treat that as an extension of our home.
The people who are renting through Air BnB are running businesses. They are using their property as a money-making entity. They should be taxed at the business rate, and should be paying for business parking permits. If you look at the offerings on their web site, they seem to be primarily located in residential neighborhoods that are not zoned for commercial uses. Zoning matters, it is there so that you have an expectation that a residential home is just that and not an unregulated business.
Our neighbor has been renting his empty apartment on Airbnb on the sly. Not only have we started to see trash lying around the building, we’ve also had to put up with bad guests. I’m all for taxing them.
Bingo. Who do you think is behind “regulating” Airbnb?…
“You’d think one Somerville politician would acknowledge that paying $50
for an airbnb is better than paying $300 for a hotel room.”
The governments jurisdiction ends at the sidewalk. “Regulating” AirBnb violates several rights as well other laws. Forcing anyone to adhere to these “regulations” violates the Constitution in a myriad of other ways, such as the right to life, liberty and happiness, the right to travel, the right to have privacy in your own home. “Inspections” are nothing more than warrantless searches, which our 4th Amendment protects us against. This also interferes with “interstate commerce” contained in the UCC.
While it makes sense that neighbors don’t want to deal with extra trash and illegally parked cars on street sweeping day, the fact is there are already laws for that, so why not just enforce those? Out of the 100 or so times we’ve had people stay, only one person managed to get a ticket due to street sweeping. Truth is, not a whole lot of people bring cars. I’d say that less than 20 people actually brought a car with them, over the course of 1 1/2 years.
When we moved to Somerville, these regulations did not exist, we moved here specifically because our landlord was ok with us doing this, and we have a great relationship with him that we worked hard to create. We pay him $1200 more in rent than his last tenants did and he’s happy. He’s using that to put his kids through college.
I also invest in improvements for the property and take care of it more than all of the other tenants combined. I’m picking up trash, making home improvements to loose railings and many other things, and I’m helping ease the load that he has to deal with. He’s older now and should be enjoying his life, and I’m younger and working my way up.
I can’t believe that Somerville created a regulation that you can’t cook for people in your own home. No one needs their behavior regulated behind closed doors, that is not the purpose of government, it is just government over-reaching like they always do. Not that I want to cook for my guests, I don’t and I likely never will, but people do not need to be robbed of their liberty in this way.
And 25% of the home/apartment? Owner HAS to live there? WTF is that BS? Who even came up with that? Again, no one has the right to tell other people what to do. This is not the hotel business, this is home sharing and hospitality.
I also drive Lyft, and I’ve talked to several hotel managers in my car about this. Each of them has said they don’t even see a dent in bookings. So what does that mean? It means that AirBnb’s existence is allowing people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to travel to do just that. I know for a fact that if it weren’t for AirBnb, I would never have been able to attend a conference in San Diego two years ago that ended up changing my life. Really.
Ron, list your bed and breakfast on AirBnb, take advantage of the service. Get with the times and stop complaining.
Bottom line, we don’t need to government telling us what we can and can’t do with our private space. Enforce the laws that already exist for parking, ticket for excess trash, etc, and stop thinking you have the authority to tell people what to do in the privacy of their own space. GTFO.
“Ends at the sidewalk”? You’re ignorant. Govt. Can tell you how many can live there, how to store trash , how many pets, and much more. Keeping the quality of life for the rest of us.
City Hall cries about apartments being taken up for Airbnb renters, but says nothing about the hundreds of apartments being lost in Somerville every year by developers turning them into condos. Because the City gets a ton of money from condo conversions through the increased property taxes. (Extracted from the new condo owners, not the developers.)