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Big City
It’s too early to say whether Local Law 18 will help alleviate New York’s housing crisis, but landlords of homes with empty rooms are willing to open them up for long-term rentals.
By Ginia Bellafante
Ginia Bellafante writes the Big City column, a weekly look at New York City politics, culture, and life.
If you were making plans to go to New York City for Presidents’ Day weekend and logged on to Airbnb on Wednesday morning, the first two listings that popped up might have disappointed you. One was for a hotel room on Park Avenue South, and the timing was for a townhouse in Jersey City, advertised for its proximity to the PATH exercise to Manhattan, useful because Jersey City is rarely actually in New York City.
When Airbnb arrived 15 years ago, it positioned itself as the traveler’s immersive option over hotels that, implicitly, were aimed at other congenitally boring and fundamental people. At its best, the platform rooted other culturally curious people in neighborhoods where they might not have done so. gravitated, largely because there were no hotels, and where they were now forced to spend their money at the local bakery, Malaysian restaurant, or vintage denim store.
At worst, as critics have argued for years, it worsened New York’s housing crisis, as many rental apartments — stacked like investment homes in a single construction — were now loyal to budget tourism. That trend was reversed in September, when Local Law 18, passed last year by the city council, went into effect, virtually banning rentals of less than 30 days. Technically, this way of doing business was already illegal under New York State’s Multiple Dwelling Law, enacted in 1929 to create greater safeguards against the risks of living in rental housing.
But Airbnb has thrived despite the loopholes. As of May 2022, there were more than 10,500 listings for apartments or entire houses in New York City on the site. In December, while demand for Airbnb’s New York City area fell 46 percent, expansion in Jersey City and Newark topped 53 percent.
Local Law 18, which had a huge push from hotel owners and the affiliate unions that see house-sharing platforms as serial killers out to get one Hilton at a time, is tricky, because it does not effect an outright ban. Someone can become a host by registering with the city’s Office of Special Enforcement, but the process is long and tedious, and the office maintains the right to reject your petition. Of the 5,661 applications received by early February, 1,387 have been granted and 955 have been denied.
How effective the new regulations have been in advancing the cause of affordable housing, part of the goal, is not entirely clear, but the consequences for many homeowners who have depended on income from short-term rentals — not for a Wolf induction range or a trip to Morocco, but simply for the purpose of getting by, seems fairly unambiguous.
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