The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved an ordinance requiring hotels and short term rentals like those offered through AirBnb to obtain a police permit in order to operate.
Under the new ordinance, short term rental owners will have to submit information such as business and tax details and building and safety information to Los Angeles police to obtain a permit. Owners will also have to divulge any previous criminal history.
Proponents say the requirement will help the city better manage short term rentals and address public safety concerns over rental party houses, human trafficking, drug sales and prostitution. But opponents, including the Los Angeles Police Commission, small businesses and some hotel owners, say the permits will be too onerous.
To that end, Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson requested a report within 45 days from the city attorney, housing and planning departments on an alternative to the police permit.
Issues with the police permit process
According to a report by the police commission, the new law is expected to push the current annual batch of about 5,000 permits to 14,000.
“Current staffing is insufficient to handle this additional burden,” the report states.
Ray Patel of the Northeast Los Angeles Hotel Owners also called the language regarding the requirements “vague.”
“The police department or the police commission can make those requirements up as time goes along,” he said. The ordinance, he added, puts the onus on the hotel owner for violations by a guest.
“What does the city do with a big building or even a limited service small building sitting in the middle of the town that is empty that can no longer operate as a hotel?” Patel said. “And from the owner's perspective, you know, if they had a loan on their mortgage, well, how are they going to pay that loan down now?”
Ed Colman, a 71-year-old who’s been an Airbnb short term rental host for nine years, said the police permitting process is unfair and would add “a whole other layer of bureaucracy.”
“I'm not open to the public. I'm not a hotel. I'm not like a hotel,” Colman said. “No one can walk off the street and rent the room in my home. It's by invitation only. These are our private residences by law. That's what the Home Sharing Ordinance states.”
Under the city’s Home-Sharing Ordinance, hosts have to submit a federal or state issued ID plus two forms of documentation showing that the home they want to rent out is their primary residence. Some of the criteria to get a permit also include no pending citations from law enforcement or city agencies. The permitting process also states that “hosts must not engage in any commercial uses for purposes of a party or an event.”
Colman said adding a police permit requirement to the list will just squeeze him even more.
“I've been living in this home for 40 years and I depend on the income from my guest room to allow me to remain in my home,” he said.
Heather Carson, co-founder of the Homeshare Alliance Los Angeles, said the city is already behind in issuing permits under Home Sharing Ordinance.
“The idea of adding an additional permit makes absolutely no sense when they can't even process the current permits properly,” she added.
The city council voted unanimously earlier in the week to move the proposal forward with the addendum, even though some members expressed concerns.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said during a hearing on Tuesday that police permits work for some businesses that serve hundreds of people on a daily basis, but those aren’t the same as something like an Airbnb, “where someone would sleep for a couple of nights.”
And Councilmember John Lee, who echoed the concerns of the Asian American Hotel Association, said he thought the process of developing the ordinance had moved too quickly.
“Stakeholders have not been aware of this proposed expansion of the police permitting process until a few weeks ago,” he said.
How the police permit came about
The new ordinance was part of a deal that the city council struck with the local union, Unite Here Local 11, last month. Under the proposal, new hotel developers would be required to replace any housing that is demolished during construction, either by buying new housing or constructing new projects. Also included in the deal were provisions “to address nuisance hotels and prevent the use of short-term rentals as ‘party houses,’” according to council president Paul Krekorian’s office.
“We need hotels to welcome the thousands of visitors we receive, but new hotel construction cannot come at the cost of our current housing stock,” Krekorian said. “Irresponsible hotel and short-term rental operators cannot be allowed to endanger the public safety or impair the quality of life in our neighborhoods.”
The new deal between the council and the union is meant to replace a March 2024 ballot measure that would have required hotels to have vacant rooms made available for unhoused people.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said the ballot measure was born out of members’ “inability to pay rent.”
“This replacement ordinance will replace that housing one for one at the same affordability levels, which means that no more housing will be displaced by luxury hotel developments,” he said. “And that's a major gain, not just for our members, obviously, but for all Angelenos.”
The police permit requirement for short term rentals and hotel owners, Petersen said, was included “to curb the abuse of Airbnb and others in taking housing that's meant to be for residents and illegally converting it into hotels.”
Airbnb did not immediately comment on the ordinance.
