8 ms·

Detroit has outlawed Airbnb for R1 and R2 zoning

73 points by uptown 9y ago

vkou 9y ago
Given that hosts are receiving C&D notices, it is yellow journalism to say 'without anyone knowing it.'
- x0x0 9y ago
  I think it's pretty clear that 'without anyone knowing about it' means normally you would expect a debate and news coverage before something like this. It's quite surprising that there appears to have been none.
  - vkou 9y ago
    That sounds more like an indictment of journalists, then of the city. It's their job to report on important changes. Should the city have spent a few hundred thousand dollars on a PSA? People love calling those a 'waste of money.'
ChrisBland 9y ago
I understand that they are doing this to help keep housing costs affordable, but Detroit needs tourism income more than they need affordable housing at this point. They have plenty of land and run down houses that can be fixed up if AirBnb raises the cost of real estate in one area.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  thats a fine sentiment if you arn't having trouble affording housing...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- yardie 9y ago
  > Detroit needs tourism income more than they need affordable housing at this point. Part of the appeal of AirBnB was to live like a local. But if all the neighbors are other tourists than what makes it any more unique than any other resort full of tourists?
  - sp332 9y ago
    Almost everyone who could afford to leave Detroit has left by this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit#Table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit...
    - MSM 9y ago
      This is a little misleading. Was there a mass exodus? Absolutely, but it's turned / turning around. You would be hard pressed to find any decent apartment within a mile of downtown for less than 1k/mo. Many nice apartments in downtown go for $2k - $3k. I personally would love to live downtown and many of my peers share the sentiment, there just needs to be a larger supply of apartments on the market. Do I want to live four miles away from Detroit in a run down neighborhood? Not particularly- if I'm already getting into my car to drive to work, why not go a few more miles away into any one of the nice suburbs that surround Detroit?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- matt4077 9y ago
  Or, maybe, the demand for accommodation is relatively inelastic to the small increase in cost when people have to just stay in an actual Hotel, and that small raise in prices ends up staying in Detroit as well... It's hard to analyse such things without actual numbers. But it seems slightly icky to always go for the "Your're Detroit! You can't afford the luxury of zoning/safety regulations/firefighters/...".
- armenarmen 9y ago
  Agreed. Apparently the avg income in Detroit is $26k, houses without all the copper torn out can be had for under $20k. Seems like going after AirBnb hosts is a bad move for the city, if a good move for Hotel owners. Especially given young moneyed consumers preference for airbnb over hotels.
beal 9y ago
I think AirBnB would be a force to help people keep their housing, driving rents up but allowing people flexibility to generate more income if they are falling back. I'm interested to see how the company responds.
- vkou 9y ago
  > I think AirBnB would be a force to help people keep their housing, driving rents up but allowing people flexibility to generate more income if they are falling back. Until it becomes the new normal, and market rents will factor that in. Then, people who, for whatever reason, cannot rent half their apartment out on AirBnB will just be priced out.
  - encoderer 9y ago
    Right. The new normal will be apartments all over Detroit getting rented on Airbnb. By who exactly?
- bobthepanda 9y ago
  Or it could fuel housing bubbles to new heights. The fact that there are now housing lenders who use projected AirBNB revenues in determining creditworthiness is worrying.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    > The fact that there are now housing lenders who use projected AirBNB revenues in determining creditworthiness is worrying. Do you have a source for this?
    - bobthepanda 9y ago
      A startup doing this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/your-money/mortgages/loftium-airbnb-down-payment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/your-money/mortgages/loft... And now apparently Fannie Mae is moving into this space: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gig-economy-grows-up-as-lenders-allow-airbnb-income-on-mortgage-applications-1518094800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/gig-economy-grows-up-as-lenders...
bradleyjg 9y ago
Good luck with enforcement. AirBnB being mostly illegal in NYC hasn’t stopped us from (AFAIR) being the number one source of revenue for them. Nothing seems to deter them. Maybe some city should start looking at what criminal laws might apply (like RICO perhaps).
- matte_black 9y ago
  Could you go to prison for renting an AirBnB in NYC?
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    No, but the fines can become punitive to a level it no longer behooves you to continue. First offense: $1000 | Second offense: $5000 | Third offense: $7500 and so on (daily). Disclaimer: Invested in a startup that does AirBnB surveillance/reporting for jurisdictions.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      What’s the start-up? We have an Airbnb in our building that’s pissing me off.
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      Ha! This is the perfect investment for you in particular. Maybe you can find some kind of startup that annoys tech employees in growing cities until they leave :)
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - 9y ago
kdot 9y ago
Detroit has different problems than other cities. Slumlords are renting individual rooms in trashed homes not up to code. This restriction stops short term rentals in neighborhoods, leaving areas zoned as business (neighborhoods close to downtown and Woodward) free to host. Airbnb for the rich only. Seems backwards.
- bsder 9y ago
  I suspect this is targeted at low-end prostitution. A lot of prostitution enforcement targets the johns because they have more to lose. That vaporizes if the john can set up an AirBnB and get met there.
ejlangev 9y ago
A lot of this issue seems to be people operating in bad faith. Airbnb wants the narrative to be that most of their business is regular people renting out a spare room to make some extra money. Certainly that's a component of their business and one I think, and think most people would agree should be encouraged. Airbnb unfairly plays up this angle while ignoring the fact that many hosts are larger businesses that are taking up housing stock to run an unregulated hotel. There are also plenty of people holding multiple leases (especially in NYC) to rent one place out on Airbnb where you can easily make more than the rent per month. This has some socialized costs in that it reduces the housing supply which drives up rent for everyone else which cities may want to avoid. Hotels and some city people want to focus on the fact that there is unfair competition going on but also seem to recognize that the model is a threat to their bottom line. They seem to want defensive regulation to block all of it rather than just the part that is truly unfair to them some of which is fixed now that Airbnb collects and pays taxes. Not sure if they're at full parity with the hotels in terms of taxes and feels like they should be. Of course a city always has the option of removing these fees for everyone if they think it's unfair. There's plenty of hypocrisy to go around here.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > Airbnb unfairly plays up this angle while ignoring the fact that many hosts are larger businesses that are taking up housing stock to run an unregulated hotel. There are also plenty of people holding multiple leases (especially in NYC) to rent one place out on Airbnb where you can easily make more than the rent per month. Not just "many". In New York specifically, it's literally over 50% that are illegal, by virtue of being whole-apartment rentals. Whole-apartment rentals of less than 30 days are not legal. Ironically, many of the people that AirBNB used to use in their PR campaign as the faces of the "little guy" using AirBNB to "make their rent" were actually people who lived in rent-controlled apartments, which is (almost always) illegal in practice, even if the whole apartment is not being rented.
- CaptainZapp 9y ago
  Airbnb wants the narrative to be that most of their business is regular people renting out a spare room to make some extra money. Certainly that's a component of their business and one I think, and think most people would agree should be encouraged. No, it should absolutely not be encouraged. As a neighbor I do not appreciate a steady stream of different faces waltzing through the place where I live. I do not appreciate the pressure on resources, like the communal wash kitchen, which gets far more use since it suddenly has to serve commercial purposes, for which it's not intended. I don't appreciate the garbage lying around, the noise, the doors not locked and generally transient folks who don't give a shit about the place in which they live for a couple of days. Hotels and some city people want to focus on the fact that there is unfair competition going on but also seem to recognize that the model is a threat to their bottom line. It has nothing to do with that. It's a massive assault on the quality of life of the residents that actually live in such a house. Unless you never experienced that you really don't know how shitty such a situation can be.
wpasc 9y ago
Does Detroit need more regulation right now? For a city that's struggling to attract people to visit/live there, is cutting off a source of income for residents and an option for visitors in the city's best interests?
- matt4077 9y ago
  All governing is balancing of competing options, so any decision could be attacked by pointing at the right lobby and saying "But Detroit needs the income from Mercury Lollipop Manufacturers/Low-end tourism/The Church of the Sacrifice of Fluffy Animals". In this case, they've probably thought about and decided that almost all potential visitors will still be able to afford one of Detroit's surprisingly cheap hotels, and that the rest may not actually be the crowd you want to attract, anyway.
txsh 9y ago
Detroit is an interesting project in forest reclamation.

73 points by uptown 9y ago

vkou 9y ago

Given that hosts are receiving C&D notices, it is yellow journalism to say 'without anyone knowing it.'

x0x0 9y ago
I think it's pretty clear that 'without anyone knowing about it' means normally you would expect a debate and news coverage before something like this. It's quite surprising that there appears to have been none.
- vkou 9y ago
  That sounds more like an indictment of journalists, then of the city. It's their job to report on important changes. Should the city have spent a few hundred thousand dollars on a PSA? People love calling those a 'waste of money.'

ChrisBland 9y ago

I understand that they are doing this to help keep housing costs affordable, but Detroit needs tourism income more than they need affordable housing at this point. They have plenty of land and run down houses that can be fixed up if AirBnb raises the cost of real estate in one area.

throwaway2048 9y ago
thats a fine sentiment if you arn't having trouble affording housing...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
yardie 9y ago
> Detroit needs tourism income more than they need affordable housing at this point. Part of the appeal of AirBnB was to live like a local. But if all the neighbors are other tourists than what makes it any more unique than any other resort full of tourists?
- sp332 9y ago
  Almost everyone who could afford to leave Detroit has left by this point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit#Table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit...
  - MSM 9y ago
    This is a little misleading. Was there a mass exodus? Absolutely, but it's turned / turning around. You would be hard pressed to find any decent apartment within a mile of downtown for less than 1k/mo. Many nice apartments in downtown go for $2k - $3k. I personally would love to live downtown and many of my peers share the sentiment, there just needs to be a larger supply of apartments on the market. Do I want to live four miles away from Detroit in a run down neighborhood? Not particularly- if I'm already getting into my car to drive to work, why not go a few more miles away into any one of the nice suburbs that surround Detroit?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
matt4077 9y ago
Or, maybe, the demand for accommodation is relatively inelastic to the small increase in cost when people have to just stay in an actual Hotel, and that small raise in prices ends up staying in Detroit as well... It's hard to analyse such things without actual numbers. But it seems slightly icky to always go for the "Your're Detroit! You can't afford the luxury of zoning/safety regulations/firefighters/...".
armenarmen 9y ago
Agreed. Apparently the avg income in Detroit is $26k, houses without all the copper torn out can be had for under $20k. Seems like going after AirBnb hosts is a bad move for the city, if a good move for Hotel owners. Especially given young moneyed consumers preference for airbnb over hotels.

beal 9y ago

I think AirBnB would be a force to help people keep their housing, driving rents up but allowing people flexibility to generate more income if they are falling back. I'm interested to see how the company responds.

vkou 9y ago
> I think AirBnB would be a force to help people keep their housing, driving rents up but allowing people flexibility to generate more income if they are falling back. Until it becomes the new normal, and market rents will factor that in. Then, people who, for whatever reason, cannot rent half their apartment out on AirBnB will just be priced out.
- encoderer 9y ago
  Right. The new normal will be apartments all over Detroit getting rented on Airbnb. By who exactly?
bobthepanda 9y ago
Or it could fuel housing bubbles to new heights. The fact that there are now housing lenders who use projected AirBNB revenues in determining creditworthiness is worrying.
- dsacco 9y ago
  > The fact that there are now housing lenders who use projected AirBNB revenues in determining creditworthiness is worrying. Do you have a source for this?
  - bobthepanda 9y ago
    A startup doing this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/your-money/mortgages/loftium-airbnb-down-payment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/your-money/mortgages/loft... And now apparently Fannie Mae is moving into this space: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gig-economy-grows-up-as-lenders-allow-airbnb-income-on-mortgage-applications-1518094800 https://www.wsj.com/articles/gig-economy-grows-up-as-lenders...

bradleyjg 9y ago

Good luck with enforcement. AirBnB being mostly illegal in NYC hasn’t stopped us from (AFAIR) being the number one source of revenue for them. Nothing seems to deter them. Maybe some city should start looking at what criminal laws might apply (like RICO perhaps).

matte_black 9y ago
Could you go to prison for renting an AirBnB in NYC?
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  No, but the fines can become punitive to a level it no longer behooves you to continue. First offense: $1000 | Second offense: $5000 | Third offense: $7500 and so on (daily). Disclaimer: Invested in a startup that does AirBnB surveillance/reporting for jurisdictions.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    What’s the start-up? We have an Airbnb in our building that’s pissing me off.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Ha! This is the perfect investment for you in particular. Maybe you can find some kind of startup that annoys tech employees in growing cities until they leave :)
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- 9y ago

kdot 9y ago

Detroit has different problems than other cities. Slumlords are renting individual rooms in trashed homes not up to code. This restriction stops short term rentals in neighborhoods, leaving areas zoned as business (neighborhoods close to downtown and Woodward) free to host. Airbnb for the rich only. Seems backwards.

bsder 9y ago
I suspect this is targeted at low-end prostitution. A lot of prostitution enforcement targets the johns because they have more to lose. That vaporizes if the john can set up an AirBnB and get met there.

ejlangev 9y ago

A lot of this issue seems to be people operating in bad faith. Airbnb wants the narrative to be that most of their business is regular people renting out a spare room to make some extra money. Certainly that's a component of their business and one I think, and think most people would agree should be encouraged. Airbnb unfairly plays up this angle while ignoring the fact that many hosts are larger businesses that are taking up housing stock to run an unregulated hotel. There are also plenty of people holding multiple leases (especially in NYC) to rent one place out on Airbnb where you can easily make more than the rent per month. This has some socialized costs in that it reduces the housing supply which drives up rent for everyone else which cities may want to avoid. Hotels and some city people want to focus on the fact that there is unfair competition going on but also seem to recognize that the model is a threat to their bottom line. They seem to want defensive regulation to block all of it rather than just the part that is truly unfair to them some of which is fixed now that Airbnb collects and pays taxes. Not sure if they're at full parity with the hotels in terms of taxes and feels like they should be. Of course a city always has the option of removing these fees for everyone if they think it's unfair. There's plenty of hypocrisy to go around here.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> Airbnb unfairly plays up this angle while ignoring the fact that many hosts are larger businesses that are taking up housing stock to run an unregulated hotel. There are also plenty of people holding multiple leases (especially in NYC) to rent one place out on Airbnb where you can easily make more than the rent per month. Not just "many". In New York specifically, it's literally over 50% that are illegal, by virtue of being whole-apartment rentals. Whole-apartment rentals of less than 30 days are not legal. Ironically, many of the people that AirBNB used to use in their PR campaign as the faces of the "little guy" using AirBNB to "make their rent" were actually people who lived in rent-controlled apartments, which is (almost always) illegal in practice, even if the whole apartment is not being rented.
CaptainZapp 9y ago
Airbnb wants the narrative to be that most of their business is regular people renting out a spare room to make some extra money. Certainly that's a component of their business and one I think, and think most people would agree should be encouraged. No, it should absolutely not be encouraged. As a neighbor I do not appreciate a steady stream of different faces waltzing through the place where I live. I do not appreciate the pressure on resources, like the communal wash kitchen, which gets far more use since it suddenly has to serve commercial purposes, for which it's not intended. I don't appreciate the garbage lying around, the noise, the doors not locked and generally transient folks who don't give a shit about the place in which they live for a couple of days. Hotels and some city people want to focus on the fact that there is unfair competition going on but also seem to recognize that the model is a threat to their bottom line. It has nothing to do with that. It's a massive assault on the quality of life of the residents that actually live in such a house. Unless you never experienced that you really don't know how shitty such a situation can be.

wpasc 9y ago

Does Detroit need more regulation right now? For a city that's struggling to attract people to visit/live there, is cutting off a source of income for residents and an option for visitors in the city's best interests?

matt4077 9y ago
All governing is balancing of competing options, so any decision could be attacked by pointing at the right lobby and saying "But Detroit needs the income from Mercury Lollipop Manufacturers/Low-end tourism/The Church of the Sacrifice of Fluffy Animals". In this case, they've probably thought about and decided that almost all potential visitors will still be able to afford one of Detroit's surprisingly cheap hotels, and that the rest may not actually be the crowd you want to attract, anyway.

txsh 9y ago

Detroit is an interesting project in forest reclamation.