3 meetings this week will allow LA officials to take public's pulse on short-term rentals

Short-term rentals. Yea or nay?

The city of Los Angeles is preparing to develop rules on short-term rentals and is taking public feedback at three “listening sessions” this week.

The first meeting will be held tonight at Mar Vista. Two others will follow on Thursday in North Hollywood and on Saturday downtown. 

A city questionnaire being circulated online gives an idea of what regulations city officials are considering:

• Should the City allow a home and/or apartment to be rented on a short term basis (less than 30 days) to guests?
• Should short term rentals only be allowed when the home is the host's primary residence?
• Should residents also be able to rent out their primary residence on a short-term basis when they are away?

Keep up with LAist.

If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.

Subscribe

It’s easier than ever to find a short-term rental on sites like Airbnb. But critics of the company worry that the proliferation of short-term rentals are changing the feel of neighborhoods. They're also concerned that thousands of long-term rental units in L.A. are getting converted to short-term rentals, because landlords can charge higher rent.

The fear is that L.A.’s already-severe housing shortage will get worse without regulations.  A report by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy estimates that the city has lost an average of 11 housing units every day since October 2014.  

Airbnb says listing a short-term rental does not mean the city’s losing a long-term rental unit. The company says most of its hosts are middle class and trying to make extra income by renting out their properties on occasion. A new report it worked on with UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs found that 92 percent of Airbnb listings for entire homes are rented for less than six months in a year.  Eighty percent of entire home listings are rented for less than 90 nights a year, according to researchers.

"Opponents have asserted that Airbnb is removing ‘thousands of housing units’ from the rental market, a statement that is both baseless and mathematically impossible," Airbnb's regional policy director David Owen said on its website.

Schedule of short-term rental listening sessions: