Monday, October 26, 2015
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO
Travelers worldwide may love using Airbnb to book vacation stays, but the company that revolutionized home-sharing faces a hostile ballot measure in the city where it was founded.
Proposition F on the Nov. 3 San Francisco ballot would limit short-term rentals to 75 days a year and require hosting companies such as Airbnb to yank listings that violate the limit.
The city would be required to notify neighbors when a person registers to host. The measure would enable pricey lawsuit damages against violators, including the hosting platform. Current city law limits un-hosted rentals to 90 days. There are no limits on hosted rentals.
Airbnb, by far the largest home-share platform in the city and in the world, has donated $8 million and counting to defeat the proposed ordinance. It has saturated television with ads, even trying to sway voters last week with a botched billboard campaign reminding people of the hotel taxes its service collects.
Backers of the measure say the demand for vacation stays is sucking up scarce housing, adding to the city’s unaffordability and destroying what makes San Francisco neighborhoods unique.
Airbnb and other opponents argue the measure will pit neighbor against neighbor and drive out residents who can stay in the city only by sharing their homes short-term.