ROBERT McCULLOUGH, president of an influential umbrella group representing some 20 neighborhoods in Southeast Portland, figured he might have an in with Mayor Charlie Hales when it came time to lodge a sensitive complaint with city hall.
“The good news is I know the mayor,” McCullough joked with the Mercury on Thursday, October 23. “I live four blocks from him. He knows where to find me.”
Earlier in October, his group, Southeast Uplift, had sent Hales and the rest of Portland City Council a blunt letter raising pointed concerns about the city’s new rules for short-term rentals, including those offered through the controversial listings website Airbnb.
One concern was deemed particularly “worrisome”: Despite finding some 488 short-term rental listings within Southeast Uplift’s footprint—from Montavilla to Buckman to Sellwood—the group says it received just nine applications for official licenses along the lines of the city’s new rules.
And the group joined that finding with a request for something Hales has been decidedly loath to consider: actual and meaningful punishment when hosts or listings sites fall short of the city’s new rules. Like, for instance, when they fail to register—a seemingly common violation, according to Southeast Uplift.
“We have adopted this odd set of rules,” says McCullough. “But is anyone paying attention to them at all? The answer appears to be ‘no.'”
Southeast Uplift’s letter arrives at an important time for Portland City Hall, which is mulling over rules for a proposed expansion of short-term rentals to apartment houses and condominiums, first detailed by the Mercury [“Help with Baggage,” News, Oct 8].
(Those rules would put a cap on available units and require explicit consent from landlords—and they would join existing rules for single-family homes that call for smoke detectors and permits, and a guarantee that any rooms for rent are part of someone’s primary residence.)
Other advocates have voiced similar concerns about enforcement—on top of fears that allowing property owners to offer long-term units for short-term use will deepen Portland’s housing woes.
Whether any of that fretting makes a difference remains an open question.
Hales’ office, which didn’t immediately remember receiving Southeast Uplift’s letter, says it won’t budge on beefing up enforcement of short-term rental violations absent a groundswell of support from the rest of the city council.
That stance is driven, in part, by financial realities.
“The council may say they want to have dedicated resources” for active enforcement, says Hales policy director Jackie Dingfelder, a former state senator who’s been asked to find as much consensus as possible on the proposed new rules. “But it’s not in the current proposal.”
Right now, the only way the city might know if something’s amiss is if someone lodges a complaint. Actively seeking out and policing unlicensed rentals—which may or may not pass safety inspections or have a property owner’s permission—would require dedicated staff. And the job would still be a pain.
Workers would have to spend hours combing through listings and digging out addresses, which aren’t immediately made public on sites like Airbnb, and then cross-check those addresses against the city’s permitting records, says Mike Liefeld, boss of enforcement for the Portland Bureau of Development Services.
Inspectors might even have to call hosts directly to (awkwardly) ask them to volunteer that information.
That would all be a lot simpler if the city, as part of its new rules, insisted on obtaining an up-to-date roster of hosts’ addresses from Airbnb and other listings sites. But Airbnb has traditionally challenged attempts to obtain that kind of data. Although Portland’s revenue bureau collects hotel taxes from Airbnb, it’s allowed to ask only for limited lists of addresses, for audit purposes.
“If we’re adding this large new issue, and it’s a priority,” says Liefeld, “then we have to talk about what we can’t do or what new resources are necessary.”
But some of Hales’ resistance comes down to philosophy. He’s also worried about stepping on the neck of a new market he’s come to cautiously embrace.
“The mayor,” Dingfelder says, “is concerned about over-regulation and putting a chilling effect on this opportunity economy.”
Sources say Hales has already raised Airbnb’s ire by agreeing to keep a citywide cap on short-term rentals in apartment and condo housing—no more than 10 percent of a building. Bowing to earlier concerns about enforcement, Hales has promised to issue a report in 2016 that looks more deeply at violations and affordability.
But city commissioners may yet force some changes.
On Monday, October 27, the mayor’s office met with bureau staffers and representatives from all four commissioners’ offices to see what issues had emerged since the proposed rules for apartments and condos were formally released on October 20.
Sources familiar with the discussions tell the Mercury that enforcement—especially how to pay for it—was a big subject. Commissioners could attempt to demand addresses from listings sites, to make things easier. They might also try hiking the cost of a permit for apartment and condo dwellers. Hales has proposed $100 for a two-year permit, short of the $180 charged for would-be hosts in single-family homes.
Tax revenues also came up in those discussions. Bloomberg this month reported that Portland is weighing legal action against listings sites VRBO, HomeAway, and FlipKey amid concerns they’re not paying as much as the city believes they owe in hotel taxes. Thomas Lannom, the city’s revenue director, declined to tell the Mercury how much the city’s taken in from short-term rentals since July 1, citing state law.
McCullough, the president of Southeast Uplift, acknowledged that his neighbors have yet to receive any formal complaints about dangerous or troublesome listings—despite their eagle-eyed report showing hundreds of Airbnb’s hosts still seemingly content to be scofflaws.
But if city leaders don’t get more serious about enforcement, he argues, it’ll be a matter of time.
“It’s the law now. We don’t oppose it,” he says. “But now that we have it, we want to do it right.”
As long as the rooms are safe and sanitary, let the market determine what works best.
Another pristine example of City officials playing favorite to a “growing economy” over equitable and accessible housing. Unlicensed and unregulated landlords can and will exploit their low income tenants’ needs while cashing in minimum wage earned rent checks. Just wait until the landlord tenant civil disputes start pouring into the courts and Hales will be sitting on his hands with this muddled up unenforced policy hoping Multnomah County will clean up his mess.
Rising rents during an historic low in vacancy is the only real issue here. Airbnbs are not a CRIME TRAIN or anything else. However, people FROM HERE are having a much more difficult time living close-in, and that’s a problem.
Then again, some homeowners are solving it by offering rooms on Airbnb. huh.
I complained to a property management agent back about ten years ago, that there were so many office vacancies, yet none of the small, one man offices were being listed. He relented to rent me the small, vacant office I wanted, but at the same price as a huge office, as he works on commission, and the land lord gives him no incentive to rent the small spaces.
Bank foreclosed houses are kept off the market, in order to keep demand in excess of supply, other wise, real estate ought to be selling at ten cents on the dollar by now. The Federal Reserve buys stock in unlimited quantity as bears sell. This has been going on since 1994, at least. Can the markets be manipulated indefinitely?
http://nickguarino.com
I’m usually against Hales, but kudos to him for being the one to push the sharing economy. As for McCullough and his “good thing I know the mayor” shit; eat it you socialist bastard. we don’t need someone regulating our ability to share with each other and take back the economy to the point where we might actually be able to pay rent and still have money left over for a fucking cheeseburger. Your’e just scared you can’t be so wealthy without a thousand other people being poor.
I’m just curious what kind of kickbacks / reacharounds Hales is getting for all this. I mean seriously, a more thorough sucking of the corporate cock? I can’t remember when.
Hales seems to be in awe of these “21st-century” concepts millenials are coming up with. “Sharing economy! Hackathons! Micro-apartments! No-parking apartments!”
Not all the ideas are bad, of course, but it’s strange to see such a blanket acceptance of anything new-age, trendy, and/or somehow related to the tech-sector.
He referred to Portland’s “possibly antiquated taxicab regulations” at a council meeting over the summer, so we’ll likely see Uber moving in at some point. And, just like the AirBnB meeting, the councilors will all express their concern at the variety of problems with the proposal, then unanimously approve it.
City Officials and dedicated citizens spent thousands of hours over the last year developing a reasonable short-term rental policy and procedure that is now largely being ignored by airbnb and its Portland hosts. At public hearings in April and July airbnb hosts begged for and eventually received a reasonable licensing procedure. Now airbnb hosts just want to ignore it.
City Officials had no problem announcing the Tax Payment agreement with airbnb, but now won’t tell us how much was paid in the third quarter of 2014. I think an interim public statement is appropriate as we consider expanding licensing to apartments and condos.
airbnb complains that the data New York’s Attorney General used to declare over 70% of airbnb listings to be out of compliance is “out of date” and inaccurate”. Yet airbnb refuses to release updated and “more accurate” information. Portland is supposed to be airbnb’s first “shared city” partner, yet they won’t take any action to meaningfully support compliance.
The City may say it “lacks resources” for enforcement, but then why not use some of the $1,000,000+ that airbnb should pay The City in Lodging Tax to cover that cost.
Also, San Francisco’s new ordinances includes monetary charges for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th violations ranging from $500 to $5,000 and eventually $10,000. Portland needs to put some teeth into its current rather vague enforcement policy.
Check out http://www.TheAirbnbAnalyst.com to see how cities around the world are working to regulate airbnb.
“We don’t need someone regulating our ability to share with each other”- true, Portland Bound, but AirBnB is not “sharing” it is an uninsured, black market motel scheme with an army of lobbyists.
“and take back the economy to the point where we might actually be able to pay rent and still have money left over for a fucking cheeseburger.”
AirBnB rentals are pushing rents up, and that’s why losers like Portland bound don’t have money to go on a date- they just fuck cheeseburgers. Well, Portland Bound- enjoy the secret sauce. Your AirBnB guests will surely enjoy sharing your couch. Meanwhile the natives are restless and we can and will sabotage AirBnB.
C’mon FrankieB, I know you like to lend your extensive knowledge of housing policy to these articles. It involves housing, after all, which you seem to think you know everything about. Calling Frank Biggs! We need your opinions here, or can you at least call somebody a “dumbass” or “little bitch”? You know, people are probably renting to Californians, or worse yet, post-op transsexuals! You’re missing a real opportunity here, Frank!
whoa just saw this reverend bite me- thats stupid, your believing what a real estate investor wants you to believe. similar to opponents of 92 wanting you to believe it will actually raise grocery prices; in the short term yes it probably will. it’s all about weather your a straight bitch or got the spine to push change and get past that initial hump- bitch.
waynewignes88@gmail.com