4 ms·

I don't like how the article implicitly takes the city's side. Breaking monopolies is usually a good, just like uber and taxis.

duxup 8y ago
Is there a monopoly to break? Are all hotels in NY owned by the same group? There are other issues as well of course, that Airbnb guests (and the owners) who are running a hotel don't care at all if their guests bother the neighbors, leave trash outside, etc. It might be New York City, but it's also a community deciding how things are laid out and work, how they gather taxes, and etc in their city.
- golemiprague 8y ago
  I think what he wanted to say is to break regulations and zoning. Cities are too strict and Airbnb showed that it doesn't have to be that way, things kind of sort out themselves
- notmyaccount 8y ago
  If all the hotel, taxi, etc. owners group up to create a cartel to keep the status quo and not to disrupt the market, then that is also not exactly good. The choice of a community does not necessarily mean that it is the right choice.
  - duxup 8y ago
    Is what you're proposing, actually the case as far as hotels goes?
    - notmyaccount 8y ago
      I mean declaring a property to be short term rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market. AirBnb definitely solves a problem and generally at a much cheaper price. We need to update our laws to let it do that in a sustainable manner. Edit: Corrected rentable to short-term rentable
      - duxup 8y ago
        Well renting, and a hotel type "renting" are way way different. I'm not really sure there is a "problem" here. It's the locals who get to decide if their laws need updating or not. I'm willing to be a ton of Airbnb guests is not what the locals want.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        I mean declaring a property to be rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market. Simply false. These are the steps involved in "declaring" your property to be rentable: Step 1a: If you rent your place, ask your landlord for permission. Step 1b: If you live in a condo building, ask your condo association for permission. Step 1c: If you own your own house, ask your spouse for permission. Step 2: Put an ad on Craigslist advertising your rental. Step 3: There is no step 3. Declaring a property to be rentable is literally a trivial exercise unless you're going for short-term (aka "transient" or "hotel") rentals.
        notmyaccount 8y ago
        Totally my bad. I used the wrong word rentable, whereas I meant to write short-term rentals. For example, if I own a single-family home, my ability to rent it out is restricted by zoning rules. I would have to look up the Certificate of Occupancy and potentially make changes if I intended to rent my place out. It could even mean involving an architect because the building would have to meet the structural requirements for a rooming house. There are lots of redtapes.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - notahacker 8y ago
    I'm not convinced the people with resources to make $20m in hotel revenues from 18 shell corporations are the little guy being stamped on and the neighbours being buzzed by people wanting hotel service are the Big Bad Corporation here...
    - notmyaccount 8y ago
      I am not saying that they should go on breaking the laws. The laws are clear. But at certain times, the laws have been deliberately lobbied to create a hindrance for any new players in the market. Like in this case, applying for a permit to rent out apartments should have been much easier than the current cumbersome process is. Like NY Taxi Medallions. Before Uber, Lyft or other ride-sharing apps, there was only 13,587 yellow cabs in the city of 8.5 million people. Currently, there are an estimated 100,000 cabs in the city which resulted in a drop of medallion prices from $1.4 million in 2014 to just $140,000 now. It was an artificial bubble created by the taxi drivers community (and government) to keep the medallion price inflated. It is easy to see why they were against ride-sharing apps. Or California housing zones. We all know that California has a housing crisis and one of the potential solution is to have multi-story buildings. For that, we need easy rezoning of residential zones to allow multi-story building redevelopment. However, most of the community members refuse to allow for that since it would bring down the rent and property prices. So the community is not interested in allowing easy development of multi-story buildings.
      - jacques_chester 8y ago
        Breaking the law because you find it morally repugnant is one thing. Breaking the law for a buck is a very different thing.
        notmyaccount 8y ago
        Haha. I mean yes I kinda agree with what you said.
      - greenyoda 8y ago
        > Like NY Taxi Medallions. Before Uber, Lyft or other ride-sharing apps, there was only 13,587 yellow cabs in the city of 8.5 million people. Before Uber, yellow medallion cabs were certainly not the only taxis available in NYC - they're just the only ones that can be legally hailed from the street. There have always been lots of car service companies in NYC that you can call to request a taxi. Some of these even offer online booking.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    If not the community itself, who do you propose gets to determine what the right choice is?
    - notmyaccount 8y ago
      You have to look at the overall benefit, not just the benefit of the local community. I gave certain examples why the community choice might be due to their own selfish reasons in the reply to comment above yours.
      - rootusrootus 8y ago
        I am still confused what exactly you propose. Who gets to determine overall benefit? Don't we have communities for this exact reason to begin with?
- pmichalina 8y ago
  It’s not “the community”. It’s a bunch of loud mouthed busy bodies and bureaucrats flexing their authority because it gets them a hit of that dopamine.
  - duxup 8y ago
    You mean elected officials? It's certainly not the neighbors who want this.
- dehrmann 8y ago
  The part that I wish someone would break is hotel/tourism tax. It's a tax that locals rarely pay, but visitors pay all the time, and since visitors don't vote where they visit, it's a form or taxation without representation.
  - duxup 8y ago
    I get what you're saying, but any travel would then be " taxation without representation". Ultimately the locals have to be the ones to make the call on local taxes. I get what you're getting at but I'm not sure I see a good way around that. Folks who can't vote on local taxes, tax free? Everyone would just shop the next town or state over.... I think that's just too expansive of a view on taxation and representation to make sense.
  - Swizec 8y ago
    > it's a form or taxation without representation. Immigrants, even permanent residents, pay all the taxes and have none of the representation. Felons too (while in prison and up to 2 years after). I have a feeling “taxation without representation” stopped being an applicable argument as soon as USA won the independence war.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Immigrants and permanent residents have representation, as do felons. Congresspeople represent all the residents of their district, not just the citizens. While non-citizens are not allowed to vote on their choice of representative, they are allowed to call their local congressperson and express their opinions on upcoming legislation, and can volunteer in political campaigns. Permanent residents are also allowed to donate money to political campaigns. At least in CA and NY, non-citizens do regularly take advantage of their rights within the US political system.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    I don't think "taxation without representation" means what you think it means. This city is run by and for the benefit of New Yorkers; if you don't like it, don't visit. Presumably of they try to charge more than visitors are willing to pay they would lose tourist dollars.

duxup 8y ago

Is there a monopoly to break? Are all hotels in NY owned by the same group? There are other issues as well of course, that Airbnb guests (and the owners) who are running a hotel don't care at all if their guests bother the neighbors, leave trash outside, etc. It might be New York City, but it's also a community deciding how things are laid out and work, how they gather taxes, and etc in their city.

golemiprague 8y ago
I think what he wanted to say is to break regulations and zoning. Cities are too strict and Airbnb showed that it doesn't have to be that way, things kind of sort out themselves
notmyaccount 8y ago
If all the hotel, taxi, etc. owners group up to create a cartel to keep the status quo and not to disrupt the market, then that is also not exactly good. The choice of a community does not necessarily mean that it is the right choice.
- duxup 8y ago
  Is what you're proposing, actually the case as far as hotels goes?
  - notmyaccount 8y ago
    I mean declaring a property to be short term rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market. AirBnb definitely solves a problem and generally at a much cheaper price. We need to update our laws to let it do that in a sustainable manner. Edit: Corrected rentable to short-term rentable
    - duxup 8y ago
      Well renting, and a hotel type "renting" are way way different. I'm not really sure there is a "problem" here. It's the locals who get to decide if their laws need updating or not. I'm willing to be a ton of Airbnb guests is not what the locals want.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      I mean declaring a property to be rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market. Simply false. These are the steps involved in "declaring" your property to be rentable: Step 1a: If you rent your place, ask your landlord for permission. Step 1b: If you live in a condo building, ask your condo association for permission. Step 1c: If you own your own house, ask your spouse for permission. Step 2: Put an ad on Craigslist advertising your rental. Step 3: There is no step 3. Declaring a property to be rentable is literally a trivial exercise unless you're going for short-term (aka "transient" or "hotel") rentals.
      - notmyaccount 8y ago
        Totally my bad. I used the wrong word rentable, whereas I meant to write short-term rentals. For example, if I own a single-family home, my ability to rent it out is restricted by zoning rules. I would have to look up the Certificate of Occupancy and potentially make changes if I intended to rent my place out. It could even mean involving an architect because the building would have to meet the structural requirements for a rooming house. There are lots of redtapes.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- notahacker 8y ago
  I'm not convinced the people with resources to make $20m in hotel revenues from 18 shell corporations are the little guy being stamped on and the neighbours being buzzed by people wanting hotel service are the Big Bad Corporation here...
  - notmyaccount 8y ago
    I am not saying that they should go on breaking the laws. The laws are clear. But at certain times, the laws have been deliberately lobbied to create a hindrance for any new players in the market. Like in this case, applying for a permit to rent out apartments should have been much easier than the current cumbersome process is. Like NY Taxi Medallions. Before Uber, Lyft or other ride-sharing apps, there was only 13,587 yellow cabs in the city of 8.5 million people. Currently, there are an estimated 100,000 cabs in the city which resulted in a drop of medallion prices from $1.4 million in 2014 to just $140,000 now. It was an artificial bubble created by the taxi drivers community (and government) to keep the medallion price inflated. It is easy to see why they were against ride-sharing apps. Or California housing zones. We all know that California has a housing crisis and one of the potential solution is to have multi-story buildings. For that, we need easy rezoning of residential zones to allow multi-story building redevelopment. However, most of the community members refuse to allow for that since it would bring down the rent and property prices. So the community is not interested in allowing easy development of multi-story buildings.
    - jacques_chester 8y ago
      Breaking the law because you find it morally repugnant is one thing. Breaking the law for a buck is a very different thing.
      - notmyaccount 8y ago
        Haha. I mean yes I kinda agree with what you said.
    - greenyoda 8y ago
      > Like NY Taxi Medallions. Before Uber, Lyft or other ride-sharing apps, there was only 13,587 yellow cabs in the city of 8.5 million people. Before Uber, yellow medallion cabs were certainly not the only taxis available in NYC - they're just the only ones that can be legally hailed from the street. There have always been lots of car service companies in NYC that you can call to request a taxi. Some of these even offer online booking.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  If not the community itself, who do you propose gets to determine what the right choice is?
  - notmyaccount 8y ago
    You have to look at the overall benefit, not just the benefit of the local community. I gave certain examples why the community choice might be due to their own selfish reasons in the reply to comment above yours.
    - rootusrootus 8y ago
      I am still confused what exactly you propose. Who gets to determine overall benefit? Don't we have communities for this exact reason to begin with?
pmichalina 8y ago
It’s not “the community”. It’s a bunch of loud mouthed busy bodies and bureaucrats flexing their authority because it gets them a hit of that dopamine.
- duxup 8y ago
  You mean elected officials? It's certainly not the neighbors who want this.
dehrmann 8y ago
The part that I wish someone would break is hotel/tourism tax. It's a tax that locals rarely pay, but visitors pay all the time, and since visitors don't vote where they visit, it's a form or taxation without representation.
- duxup 8y ago
  I get what you're saying, but any travel would then be " taxation without representation". Ultimately the locals have to be the ones to make the call on local taxes. I get what you're getting at but I'm not sure I see a good way around that. Folks who can't vote on local taxes, tax free? Everyone would just shop the next town or state over.... I think that's just too expansive of a view on taxation and representation to make sense.
- Swizec 8y ago
  > it's a form or taxation without representation. Immigrants, even permanent residents, pay all the taxes and have none of the representation. Felons too (while in prison and up to 2 years after). I have a feeling “taxation without representation” stopped being an applicable argument as soon as USA won the independence war.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Immigrants and permanent residents have representation, as do felons. Congresspeople represent all the residents of their district, not just the citizens. While non-citizens are not allowed to vote on their choice of representative, they are allowed to call their local congressperson and express their opinions on upcoming legislation, and can volunteer in political campaigns. Permanent residents are also allowed to donate money to political campaigns. At least in CA and NY, non-citizens do regularly take advantage of their rights within the US political system.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  I don't think "taxation without representation" means what you think it means. This city is run by and for the benefit of New Yorkers; if you don't like it, don't visit. Presumably of they try to charge more than visitors are willing to pay they would lose tourist dollars.