New York City, the nation's biggest commercial property market, is set to begin strict enforcement of regulations on short-term rentals on Tuesday after a five-year push led by City Council member Carlina Rivera.
The city's Short-Term Rental Registration Law, or so-called Local Law 18, requires hosts of short-term rentals to register with the New York City Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement and forbids booking platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com from processing transactions for unregistered short-term rentals. Failure to comply with the rules, designed to protect renters and neighboring tenants, could lead to penalties for hosts and booking services.
Airbnb unsuccessfully argued in a lawsuit it filed against the city in June that implementing the law equates to “a de facto ban against short-term rentals in New York,” with the short-term rental giant also describing the law as “the most extreme and oppressive regulatory scheme yet." A New York State Supreme Court judge dismissed the lawsuit last month.
Back in 2018, Rivera was the primary sponsor of the bill, which later led to the creation of the law regulating short-term rentals. Given the influence of the law in New York, one of the world’s biggest travel destinations and the biggest U.S. market for residential rentals, Rivera is Person of the Week.
WHO: Carlina Rivera is a New York City council member whose district covers such Manhattan neighborhoods as the East Village, Flatiron District, Gramercy Park, Rose Hill, Kips Bay, Murray Hill and the Lower East Side.
STREET CRED: Born and raised in the district she represents, Rivera has introduced and passed legislation related to affordable housing among other issues during her time in the council. She also supported the tech hub at the new Zero Irving mixed-use office building at 124 E. 14th St. near Manhattan’s transit hub of Union Square.
WHAT HAPPENED: In a 2018 interview with New York’s local cable news channel NY1, Rivera said she heard “countless horror stories” in the Lower East Side and East Village, not just about “public safety” concerns due to a “revolving door of guests” who come through those short-term rental platforms. But knowing certain units were rent-regulated, some landlords “were warehousing those apartments,” she said, taking units off the regular rental market to collect more in short-term fees than they would in monthly rent.
WHY IT MATTERS: Some Airbnb hosts have said they couldn’t afford to live where they are in the city without the additional income, and some travelers have complained about having fewer options for stays in the city, saying the law will make it hard for families who can’t afford to shell out for several hotel rooms. As of Jan. 1, Airbnb said it had about 38,500 non-hotel listings for New York on its platform that had each been booked at least once. The San Francisco company said the impact would be “exacerbated” by uncertainty about the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement's expected processing time for short-term rental registrations.
Editor's Note: CoStar News has launched a new feature called Person of the Week, highlighting someone whose actions, statements or issues have affected the commercial real estate industry. If you'd like to nominate someone for consideration, please email news@costar.com.