Post by High Priestess on Nov 29, 2015 15:42:23 GMT
Someone in Roanoke may be bothered by what you do with your bedroom. In fact someone may be watching, spying to see what you do with your bedroom. See the story here:
www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-airbnb-hosts-run-afoul-of-the-law/article_1f416c14-d93d-514e-8b8f-4807395f8a3d.html
"Keisha Graziadei-Shup had a problem. She thought she had a pretty good solution for that problem, as well.
Between those two things lies a cautionary tale about the rise of what’s been called “the sharing economy” and how this new way of doing business sometimes comes into conflict with old-fashioned things such as, well, the law.
Back to her problem. She needed money. She and her husband had bought a house in northwest Roanoke. Soon after they bought it, she lost her job. Five months of sending in applications went by, still no job. Eventually, she decided to create her own job. The Hollins University graduate – a double major in Spanish and communications – decided to put her language skills to use by starting her own translation and tutoring company.
At this point, this may seem a classic tale about a millennial entrepreneur – she’s 28 – or maybe the growing demand for Spanish speakers, or both. This isn’t about either of those, however. Instead, it’s about something else.
Starting your own company can be tough, and the money doesn’t always roll in right away. She was eventually able to cobble together four part-time jobs to pay the bills.
That’s when she hit upon another potential source of revenue: Renting out one of the rooms in her house through the website Airbnb.
For those of you who don’t know about Airbnb, perhaps you’ve heard of Uber. Uber is a ride-sharing app on your phone. Need a ride? Use the app to find someone who’s going your way – for a fee, which Uber handles via credit card. It may sound a lot like a taxi, except it’s not a taxi. It’s just somebody with a car who has signed up to be an Uber driver. Across the country – indeed, across the world – taxi drivers are complaining that Uber is basically running an unlicensed taxi service. Uber says nope, we don’t own any of these cars, we’re just providing the software to let riders find a driver. Why can’t you pay some stranger to give you a lift?
Airbnb is the Uber of the hotel business. Airbnb doesn’t own a single hotel, yet now rents more rooms than some of the major hotel chains – more than Marriot, more than Hilton. It’s been reported that 17 percent of the overnight stays in New York are booked through Airbnb. These are basically people who have a room to rent; they list it on Airbnb; someone books it and the software company takes a cut of the action.
Perhaps some of you have sensed already the conflict we’re coming to here: Is Airbnb more like letting a friend sleep over in your spare bedroom, or is it more like running a small hotel?
If the former, the government couldn’t care less. If the latter, well, the government does care. There are pesky little things called zoning laws – you can’t be running a business in a residential district, even if it is a hip, cool thing that’s all the rage with Internet users.
[NOTE TO AUTHOR OF THIS STORY: Having paying guests at one's home is NOT a commerical use of property, see here: globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/819/colorado-short-term-rentals-commercial]
Graziadei-Shup had been listing a room on Airbnb for a year – hosting “professors, students, musicians, young professionals, married couples on road trips” — when one day she got a notice from the city: You need a permit.
More accurately, she needed a homestay permit, which in return required a special exception variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals and a building inspection. All that would run $500 — $100 for the application, $250 to run the required legal notice in the newspaper and the rest for the inspection.
An official sign got posted in her yard. Notices got mailed to neighbors – who didn’t know what Airbnb was and weren’t happy to find out. “My neighbors who are either retired or close to it, who simply don’t understand social media, got all freaked out like we were running a brothel or something,” Graziadei-Shup says. “Strangers! God forbid there are strangers in our neighborhood!”
She’d been bringing in about $100 month through Airbnb; so that $500 just wiped out five months profit. “This is the epitome of government overreach,” she says, “and all the city is doing is stifling economic creativity for no good reason and making it more difficult for young entrepreneurs to live and work in Roanoke.”
Let’s cut now to the city planning department. City officials feel they’ve actually been trying to accommodate the sharing economy. The city could have just said no – and ruled that Airbnb listings are no different from running a hotel. Instead, in July the city created a new category called “homestay permits” specifically to deal with Airbnb rentals.
Chris Chittum, the director of planning, building and development, explains it this way: “A homestay is essentially a small scale hotel operation in a residence. The special exception process is designed to permit uses that are not necessarily commonplace in a neighborhood setting and could have potential impacts. There is a public hearing, so it gives neighbors notice and an opportunity to be heard if they have concerns or if they want to support the request . . . Adding this use to a dwelling is considered a change of use under the [building code] that requires a Certificate of Occupancy (as do all changes of use). That is what triggered the inspection.”
The maximum number of guests allowed at any one time is four. The maximum length of stay is 14 days. So far, six homestay permits have been approved. One was denied and a second request withdrawn after planning staff recommended it be denied. And yes, the city has been checking Airbnb listings to see who’s in the city and sending them a notice – which is how Graziadei-Shup wound up this fall before the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Roanoke’s attempt to create a gray area for Airbnb rentals contrasts with that of other localities in this part of Virginia, which simply haven’t done anything. Here’s the way codes work, though: If something isn’t specifically permitted, then it’s assumed to be forbidden That means people renting out rooms in their home through Airbnb are likely in violation of some zoning law somewhere.
What Roanoke sees as an attempt to update its zoning rules to account for a new form of economic activity still feels to Graziadei-Shup like the heavy hand of government regulation. “Whose business is it what I’m doing with my personal residence if it hasn’t changed anything?”
Airbnb lists 106 rooms available in the Roanoke Valley; and 209 in Montgomery County.
We predict somebody somewhere will care."
This author's view is a good example of lack of vision. Just because something is forbidden by law, doesn't mean that the law is right. Consider the case of another city -- Berkeley, CA -- which had laws prohibiting short term rentals, but wisely chose not to enforce those laws, once the Airbnb phenomenon arose. The city of Berkeley wisely understood that it would be idiotic to try to make criminals out of literally hundreds of hosts. So instead of enforcing existing law, they worked to write new law, to catch up to the phenomena of modern times.
See this blog on our associated GlobalHosting Blog site which discusses this issue:
www.globalhostingblogs.com/2015/11/26/a-question-of-legality/
www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-airbnb-hosts-run-afoul-of-the-law/article_1f416c14-d93d-514e-8b8f-4807395f8a3d.html
"Keisha Graziadei-Shup had a problem. She thought she had a pretty good solution for that problem, as well.
Between those two things lies a cautionary tale about the rise of what’s been called “the sharing economy” and how this new way of doing business sometimes comes into conflict with old-fashioned things such as, well, the law.
Back to her problem. She needed money. She and her husband had bought a house in northwest Roanoke. Soon after they bought it, she lost her job. Five months of sending in applications went by, still no job. Eventually, she decided to create her own job. The Hollins University graduate – a double major in Spanish and communications – decided to put her language skills to use by starting her own translation and tutoring company.
At this point, this may seem a classic tale about a millennial entrepreneur – she’s 28 – or maybe the growing demand for Spanish speakers, or both. This isn’t about either of those, however. Instead, it’s about something else.
Starting your own company can be tough, and the money doesn’t always roll in right away. She was eventually able to cobble together four part-time jobs to pay the bills.
That’s when she hit upon another potential source of revenue: Renting out one of the rooms in her house through the website Airbnb.
For those of you who don’t know about Airbnb, perhaps you’ve heard of Uber. Uber is a ride-sharing app on your phone. Need a ride? Use the app to find someone who’s going your way – for a fee, which Uber handles via credit card. It may sound a lot like a taxi, except it’s not a taxi. It’s just somebody with a car who has signed up to be an Uber driver. Across the country – indeed, across the world – taxi drivers are complaining that Uber is basically running an unlicensed taxi service. Uber says nope, we don’t own any of these cars, we’re just providing the software to let riders find a driver. Why can’t you pay some stranger to give you a lift?
Airbnb is the Uber of the hotel business. Airbnb doesn’t own a single hotel, yet now rents more rooms than some of the major hotel chains – more than Marriot, more than Hilton. It’s been reported that 17 percent of the overnight stays in New York are booked through Airbnb. These are basically people who have a room to rent; they list it on Airbnb; someone books it and the software company takes a cut of the action.
Perhaps some of you have sensed already the conflict we’re coming to here: Is Airbnb more like letting a friend sleep over in your spare bedroom, or is it more like running a small hotel?
If the former, the government couldn’t care less. If the latter, well, the government does care. There are pesky little things called zoning laws – you can’t be running a business in a residential district, even if it is a hip, cool thing that’s all the rage with Internet users.
[NOTE TO AUTHOR OF THIS STORY: Having paying guests at one's home is NOT a commerical use of property, see here: globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/819/colorado-short-term-rentals-commercial]
Graziadei-Shup had been listing a room on Airbnb for a year – hosting “professors, students, musicians, young professionals, married couples on road trips” — when one day she got a notice from the city: You need a permit.
More accurately, she needed a homestay permit, which in return required a special exception variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals and a building inspection. All that would run $500 — $100 for the application, $250 to run the required legal notice in the newspaper and the rest for the inspection.
An official sign got posted in her yard. Notices got mailed to neighbors – who didn’t know what Airbnb was and weren’t happy to find out. “My neighbors who are either retired or close to it, who simply don’t understand social media, got all freaked out like we were running a brothel or something,” Graziadei-Shup says. “Strangers! God forbid there are strangers in our neighborhood!”
She’d been bringing in about $100 month through Airbnb; so that $500 just wiped out five months profit. “This is the epitome of government overreach,” she says, “and all the city is doing is stifling economic creativity for no good reason and making it more difficult for young entrepreneurs to live and work in Roanoke.”
Let’s cut now to the city planning department. City officials feel they’ve actually been trying to accommodate the sharing economy. The city could have just said no – and ruled that Airbnb listings are no different from running a hotel. Instead, in July the city created a new category called “homestay permits” specifically to deal with Airbnb rentals.
Chris Chittum, the director of planning, building and development, explains it this way: “A homestay is essentially a small scale hotel operation in a residence. The special exception process is designed to permit uses that are not necessarily commonplace in a neighborhood setting and could have potential impacts. There is a public hearing, so it gives neighbors notice and an opportunity to be heard if they have concerns or if they want to support the request . . . Adding this use to a dwelling is considered a change of use under the [building code] that requires a Certificate of Occupancy (as do all changes of use). That is what triggered the inspection.”
The maximum number of guests allowed at any one time is four. The maximum length of stay is 14 days. So far, six homestay permits have been approved. One was denied and a second request withdrawn after planning staff recommended it be denied. And yes, the city has been checking Airbnb listings to see who’s in the city and sending them a notice – which is how Graziadei-Shup wound up this fall before the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Roanoke’s attempt to create a gray area for Airbnb rentals contrasts with that of other localities in this part of Virginia, which simply haven’t done anything. Here’s the way codes work, though: If something isn’t specifically permitted, then it’s assumed to be forbidden That means people renting out rooms in their home through Airbnb are likely in violation of some zoning law somewhere.
What Roanoke sees as an attempt to update its zoning rules to account for a new form of economic activity still feels to Graziadei-Shup like the heavy hand of government regulation. “Whose business is it what I’m doing with my personal residence if it hasn’t changed anything?”
Airbnb lists 106 rooms available in the Roanoke Valley; and 209 in Montgomery County.
We predict somebody somewhere will care."
This author's view is a good example of lack of vision.
If something isn’t specifically permitted, then it’s assumed to be forbidden.
See this blog on our associated GlobalHosting Blog site which discusses this issue:
www.globalhostingblogs.com/2015/11/26/a-question-of-legality/