"Our AirBnB Pays My Mother's Medical Bills"
New Orleans City Council hears attack after attack on property rights; votes to restrict STRs, but with exceptions possible
"Naked greed"
STR platforms are “the villain of the story”
“At the end of the day, if we cannot regulate this industry because it chooses not to be regulated, then we need to send the industry packing”
City Council President JP Morrell discussing Short-Term Rentals
This writer had the opportunity only yesterday to discuss with a homeowner a beautiful house in Algiers Point, here in New Orleans. He and his new spouse had purchased and renovated the house last year; they’re still putting finishing touches on the century-old double that sits only three blocks from the Mississippi River.
I inquired about the half they don’t live in.
“We put it on AirBnB for now, and we apply the income to my mother’s medical bills.”
He went on…
“Right now she can stay in Alabama, where I’m from, but it likely won’t be long till she needs to come stay with us, and she’ll move in next door. In the meantime, the income is essential for my family.”
About 5 blocks away, this writer knows another family who lives in a double. With two small sons, the Short-Term Rental income derived from the other side goes into the boys’ college fund. Dad teaches high school, and, as above, the income is essential to the family’s financial planning.
Leftists want to take this away, ignoring private property rights in the process. Indeed, a prominent Louisiana Leftist wants STRs banned because they contribute to … wait for it … you know what’s coming … CLIMATE CHANGE!
So for all their talk about holding up the little guy, and the working families, Leftist brutalists would deny working people the chance to make any money from their property.
“Let’s just Ban STRs!”
The STR discussion offers Leftist thugs the perfect opportunity to be as mean as they want to be….
The Advocate/Times-Picayune reports on today’s decision, which included a route for exceptions from Freddie King, with conditions…
The New Orleans City Council Thursday gave final approval to new limits on short-term rentals in residential areas. But the council also carved out an exception that would allow them to approve additional STRs on a case-by-case basis.
At the heart of the new rules is that the city will, starting July 1, limit STRs to one per square block, meaning one per four sides of a city block. A lottery system would determine at random which applicant in a square block would receive a permit.
Council Member Lesli Harris pulled her an amendment that would have used a first-come, first-served system rather than a lottery system.
While the Council stuck to much of the plan they’d discussed in meetings earlier this month, they also passed a change that could mean triple the STRs on some square blocks when compared to the Council’s original plan.
They approved Council Member Freddie King’s proposal which could allow up to two additional STRs on a block face — for a total of up to three — with the council’s green light.
Before applying, an STR owner or operator would need to notify neighbors within 100 feet of their property lines and hold a neighborhood meeting. Then, the City Planning Commission would make recommendations regarding the property and the Council would have 60 days to make a decision on those recommendations.
King said his amendment was a compromise that could help property owners that were renting out single rooms short-term, but advocates pointed out that those getting the additional STR permits could just as easily be renting out larger STRs, like half a duplex for instance.
“I look at this as an opportunity to allow the good actors to own a partial short-term rental while giving the community the neighbors the ability to be at the decision-making table,” King said.
Council Members Eugene Green and Oliver Thomas were the only council members to vote against the amendment.
Green said most of the people in his District D, which includes Gentilly, the 7th Ward, the Florida-Desire area, the Downman Road corridor and other neighborhoods, are opposed to STRs.
“I see the signs saying, 'My STR is my retirement,' but for the people that I've spoken to, their homes in their neighborhoods are their retirement,” he said. “And they are very, very concerned with any change that could take place in their investments.”
The Council had to rewrite its STR rules this month after a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last August struck down a key part of the short-term rental rules the city passed in 2019. It required property owners in residential areas to live full-time on a lot in order to operate an STR.
The new rules would allow an operator to live on site at an STR instead of an owner and would require that operator to resolve any issues in an hour. If they didn’t meet that deadline, they could receive a quality-of-life violation. After three quality-of-life violations, or a single more serious violation, the city would be able to take away an STR permit, and the STR operator wouldn’t be able to apply for a new one for four years.
Of course, whether the city will actually enforce the new rules remains to be seen. There are thousands of illegal STRs in the city, and though enforcement has increased in the last year, Chief Zoning Official Ashley Becnel said earlier this month that the city doesn’t have enough hearing officers to make judgments on potential violations, creating a backlog in cases.
The new rules also require a public dashboard of STRs with a property’s history of violations and updated owner contact information. Council Vice President Helena Moreno said that STR platforms like Airbnb and VRBO will need to turn over data to the city for the dashboard, though she noted they have not been willing to do so in the past.
Council President JP Morrell called STR platforms “the villain of the story” and said they should be helping the city enforce regulations and delist illegal STRs.
“They have a responsibility and a duty to help us police short term rentals because no matter how well staffed our office is, if you cannot list your short term rental on Airbnb, VRBO or HomeAway, you can't make money off it,” he said.
Citing lawsuits against STR regulations, Morrell accused the industry of “naked greed.” He added if the new rules don’t work successfully then the Council should ban STRs altogether, which many in the city have been calling for all along.
“At the end of the day, if we cannot regulate this industry because it chooses not to be regulated, then we need to send the industry packing,” he said.
Here’s a bit more of a glimpse into the inner workings of JP Morrell:
And the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center - fighting STRs very hard - posts this evidently unironically on their website. (We couldn’t help but get a wry chuckle out of this.)
Private property rights precede the government’s right to take them from you.
We only wish the public and government actors would stay ever-mindful of this fact.