The Los Angeles City Council on Friday, April 29 approved a motion to strengthen enforcement of a city ordinance banning unauthorized and non-compliant Airbnbs and other short-term rental operations.
Councilor Nithya Raman and Councilors Bob Blumenfield, Mike Bonin and Paul Koretz’s motion called for the Planning Department to report within 90 days on:
– recommendations on how the city can deal with non-compliant hosts who rent properties listed as primary residence but are not used as such, conversion of affordable housing stock to short-term rentals, conversion of multi-family residential structures in short-term accommodation – short-term rentals, short-term rentals engaged in commercial uses/activities and properties rented for periods longer than permitted;
— enforcement mechanisms such as citations, fines, license revocations and criminal penalties;
— home sharing regulation and enforcement models from other cities, including San Francisco, Austin and New Orleans;
— strategies to ensure that all home-sharing platforms that operate in the city enter into platform agreements requiring them to share data with the city;
— strategies for implementing and improving data collection; and
— what staffing or dedicated unit, office or department is needed to consolidate various aspects of home sharing compliance and enforcement into a multi-disciplinary team.
“In our city, we cannot afford the consequences of losing additional affordable housing to an already desperately short supply,” Raman said.
“Failing to fully and properly enforce the Home Sharing Ordinance means we are losing homes, subjecting tenants to displacement pressures and inviting major nuisance and quality of life issues into our communities. Today’s vote is an essential step in our ongoing efforts to stabilize and protect our neighborhoods.
A McGill University study prepared for Better Neighbors LA found that a third of short-term rental listings advertised by the city have been illegal since the home-sharing ordinance went into effect in 2018.
“We passed short-term rental regulations in Los Angeles to stop landlords from converting Angelenos’ homes into rogue hotels, but enforcement is so lax that operators and platforms are breaking the law and worsening our housing crisis. affordable housing,” said Mike Bonin, who co-authored the 2018 Home Sharing Ordinance. “We were hemorrhaging valuable rental stock, and that needs to stop.”
The Planning Department will also write a report within 90 days for a plan to create a centralized digital database or platform to better coordinate the tracking of non-compliant properties. The platform would be used for monitoring and enforcement purposes.
The motion also called on the department to ensure within 90 days that the public can see if any property in the city has a home-sharing license, a home-sharing license renewal or an extended home-sharing license.
“In addition to fighting runaway parties and violent crime in short-term rentals, we are seriously concerned about violations of the Home Sharing Ordinance, such as the illegal conversion of our affordable housing stock, the hosts who engage in commercial and rental activities. homes that are not a primary residence,” Koretz said.
“In fact, we see a number of home sharing ordinance violations every day in my district, and we need to seriously look at the program and the mechanisms and resources needed to effectively enforce the ordinance.”
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