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Jersey City just had a public referendum on short-term rentals that AirBnB spent millions of dollars lobbying against. It's good to see that the both the public

Jersey City just had a public referendum on short-term rentals that AirBnB spent millions of dollars lobbying against. It's good to see that the both the public and its elected officials are coming up to speed on the realities companies like Uber and AirBnb force upon them by skirting the law.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
> Jersey City just had a public referendum on short-term rentals that AirBnB spent millions of dollars lobbying against. Lobbied against and still lost by an enormous margin (70 percent of voters supported the new regulation). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/nyregion/airbnb-jersey-city-vote.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/nyregion/airbnb-jersey-ci... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21459486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21459486
- navigatr 7y ago
  Yep, nearly 70% of voters voted against allowing short-term rentals. AirBnb spent over $4 million on that local election alone[1]. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/airbnb-suffers-setback-in-jersey-city-on-vote-to-regulate-rentals.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/airbnb-suffers-setback-in-je...
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Proof that voting works (IMHO). Local residents won against a distant corporate entity.
    - ta999999171 7y ago
      Proof that it can. AirBnB aren't top competition.
    - Shivetya 7y ago
      well preying on ignorance is the game of politicians and they won. Yes I am saying it was a loss for the rest of us. why? politicians and their allies successfully portrayed the home sharing industry as the reason for rising rents when in fact it has long been because politicians and those using their connections which have been the cause. oh they hide it well but the idea is to keep their investments up and keep "those" people out. Those people being any group which they don't want to see where they live. If you got this far, good for you. Are there bad actors in the home sharing space. Yes, however you target them more directly but the restriction of requiring owners to be on site during the rental period severely limits the rights of the good ones. so yes there is some regulation needed but if it does not protect the little guy, and they weren't in this as they got rolled in with the rest, then it harms us all as whole. rents won't go down until more units are built and they won't be built for the same reasons they were not being built before home sharing industries showed up at the door.
      - goatinaboat 7y ago
        home sharing industry Is it “sharing” or is it “industry”? It can’t be both.
      - navigatr 7y ago
        You can blame some conspiracy theory involving politicians colluding to trick their constituents, or you can listen to the lived experiences of residents in Jersey City that have to live next to nuisance short-term rentals. Parties all night during the week, drunk people trying to enter the wrong apartments at 3AM, arguments between loud tourists in your once quiet building, and somehow sleeping 10 people in a two bedroom apartment. I don't blame residents for not wanting to live and work around that everyday. Most people don't want to live in flop houses.
        twobat 7y ago
        I think there already are laws against these kind of actions. Punish directly the ones that are wrong. The whole planet should not have to suffer because someone made a scandal at 3AM.
      - 7y ago
    - umeshunni 7y ago
      NIMBYs always win.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- cpascal 7y ago
  The official election results put it at 86% (46,062) in favor of the regulations (voted 'Yes' for public question #1). Even more interesting is the number of 'No' votes (7,416) is less than the number of signatures on the petition that forced the ordinance into a public referendum (~20,000 with ~9,000 certified). https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Hudson/98893/Web02.235350/#/cid/32 https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Hudson/98893/Web... https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/08/referendum-on-airbnb-regulation-could-be-inevitable-in-jersey-city.html https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/08/referendum-on-airbnb-regul...
kapuasuite 7y ago
These are the same elected officials who let taxi companies rip off passengers for the better part of a century by limiting competition through the medallion system, and protect hotel interests because they’ve been able to tack a ton of extra taxes onto every hotel bill?
- navigatr 7y ago
  These talking points died in 2016. Now that Uber isn't subsidizing rides with investor's money and raised their fares, Uber is actually more expensive than taxis in NJ. There's no reason ride hailing companies need to violate labor laws to do business.
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    Source? At EWR a few weeks ago while waiting for luggage, I wandered over to the taxi stand. The quoted fare (there was no line, by the way) was twice that of either Uber or Lyft to the same destination.
    - navigatr 7y ago
      I commute in NJ and used ride hailing apps until it was just cheaper to use taxis. I wouldn't use any liaison service at an airport, they're going to charge an arm and a leg for the purported convenience. Edit: I'm not doxxing myself, sorry. I'm within commuting distance of NYC.
      - listenallyall 7y ago
        Maybe if you stated what city/region, your anecdote would be more convincing. NJ is a small state but that's still nearly 10,000 square miles.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - epc 7y ago
      Were you going to NYC (or anywhere in NY)? NY and NJ do not have a reciprocity agreement, so taxis from NYC are allowed to charge 2x the fare between NYC and EWR and the same for NJ taxis to NYC. Uber/Lyft can pickup / dropoff in either state and don't appear to operate under the same restrictions.
bluecalm 7y ago
The difference is that AirBnB makes lives of the neighbors much worse. Is a parasitic business model. Uber just allows for deals between drivers and customers which a lot of people like. Let's have referendum on Uber and see what the results are before lumping those companies together.
- twobat 7y ago
  As a user of AirBnB accross Europe I did not make anyone's life worse. This is quite an offense. Are there bad people? Sure. But punish them directly. We already have laws for anti-social acts.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

> Jersey City just had a public referendum on short-term rentals that AirBnB spent millions of dollars lobbying against. Lobbied against and still lost by an enormous margin (70 percent of voters supported the new regulation). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/nyregion/airbnb-jersey-city-vote.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/nyregion/airbnb-jersey-ci... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21459486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21459486

navigatr 7y ago
Yep, nearly 70% of voters voted against allowing short-term rentals. AirBnb spent over $4 million on that local election alone[1]. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/airbnb-suffers-setback-in-jersey-city-on-vote-to-regulate-rentals.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/airbnb-suffers-setback-in-je...
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Proof that voting works (IMHO). Local residents won against a distant corporate entity.
  - ta999999171 7y ago
    Proof that it can. AirBnB aren't top competition.
  - Shivetya 7y ago
    well preying on ignorance is the game of politicians and they won. Yes I am saying it was a loss for the rest of us. why? politicians and their allies successfully portrayed the home sharing industry as the reason for rising rents when in fact it has long been because politicians and those using their connections which have been the cause. oh they hide it well but the idea is to keep their investments up and keep "those" people out. Those people being any group which they don't want to see where they live. If you got this far, good for you. Are there bad actors in the home sharing space. Yes, however you target them more directly but the restriction of requiring owners to be on site during the rental period severely limits the rights of the good ones. so yes there is some regulation needed but if it does not protect the little guy, and they weren't in this as they got rolled in with the rest, then it harms us all as whole. rents won't go down until more units are built and they won't be built for the same reasons they were not being built before home sharing industries showed up at the door.
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      home sharing industry Is it “sharing” or is it “industry”? It can’t be both.
    - navigatr 7y ago
      You can blame some conspiracy theory involving politicians colluding to trick their constituents, or you can listen to the lived experiences of residents in Jersey City that have to live next to nuisance short-term rentals. Parties all night during the week, drunk people trying to enter the wrong apartments at 3AM, arguments between loud tourists in your once quiet building, and somehow sleeping 10 people in a two bedroom apartment. I don't blame residents for not wanting to live and work around that everyday. Most people don't want to live in flop houses.
      - twobat 7y ago
        I think there already are laws against these kind of actions. Punish directly the ones that are wrong. The whole planet should not have to suffer because someone made a scandal at 3AM.
    - 7y ago
  - umeshunni 7y ago
    NIMBYs always win.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
cpascal 7y ago
The official election results put it at 86% (46,062) in favor of the regulations (voted 'Yes' for public question #1). Even more interesting is the number of 'No' votes (7,416) is less than the number of signatures on the petition that forced the ordinance into a public referendum (~20,000 with ~9,000 certified). https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Hudson/98893/Web02.235350/#/cid/32 https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Hudson/98893/Web... https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/08/referendum-on-airbnb-regulation-could-be-inevitable-in-jersey-city.html https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/08/referendum-on-airbnb-regul...

kapuasuite 7y ago

These are the same elected officials who let taxi companies rip off passengers for the better part of a century by limiting competition through the medallion system, and protect hotel interests because they’ve been able to tack a ton of extra taxes onto every hotel bill?

navigatr 7y ago
These talking points died in 2016. Now that Uber isn't subsidizing rides with investor's money and raised their fares, Uber is actually more expensive than taxis in NJ. There's no reason ride hailing companies need to violate labor laws to do business.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  Source? At EWR a few weeks ago while waiting for luggage, I wandered over to the taxi stand. The quoted fare (there was no line, by the way) was twice that of either Uber or Lyft to the same destination.
  - navigatr 7y ago
    I commute in NJ and used ride hailing apps until it was just cheaper to use taxis. I wouldn't use any liaison service at an airport, they're going to charge an arm and a leg for the purported convenience. Edit: I'm not doxxing myself, sorry. I'm within commuting distance of NYC.
    - listenallyall 7y ago
      Maybe if you stated what city/region, your anecdote would be more convincing. NJ is a small state but that's still nearly 10,000 square miles.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - epc 7y ago
    Were you going to NYC (or anywhere in NY)? NY and NJ do not have a reciprocity agreement, so taxis from NYC are allowed to charge 2x the fare between NYC and EWR and the same for NJ taxis to NYC. Uber/Lyft can pickup / dropoff in either state and don't appear to operate under the same restrictions.

bluecalm 7y ago

The difference is that AirBnB makes lives of the neighbors much worse. Is a parasitic business model. Uber just allows for deals between drivers and customers which a lot of people like. Let's have referendum on Uber and see what the results are before lumping those companies together.

twobat 7y ago
As a user of AirBnB accross Europe I did not make anyone's life worse. This is quite an offense. Are there bad people? Sure. But punish them directly. We already have laws for anti-social acts.