City sovereignty: insights from inside airBnB for new urban policies (the case of San Francisco) 2018/11/13/apunts/01

https://pad.femprocomuns.cat/p/sharebcn2018citysovereignty

City sovereignty: insights from Inside AirBnB for new urban policies (the case of San Francisco)

Share Barcelona 2018 - Sharing Cities Summit - 12-15 November 2018

http://www.share.barcelona/sharebcn2018/sharing-cities-summit-2018/

Collaborative notes to be transferred to Teixidora.net, documentation to share and reuse.

https://www.teixidora.net/wiki/SHAREBCN2018

Conference notes

Peter - I'm from the office of short term rentals in San Francisco and we are responsible for regulating short term rentals in San Francisco.

What was the impetus to start inside AirBnB?

Murray - I live in Brooklyn NY and I had finished some anti-gentrification projects, some journalists had published some concerning data that was different from what was being advertised by these companies.

Because I posted data publicly the office in the city of SF and they started using the data without asking me or telling me and they produced a report. The city put out a report that showed the negative impact.

Sometimes there is a political process that a city needs to go to in terms of having consensus before looking to regulate.

Peter - There was a lot of confusion or a lack of clarity about the impact short term rentals were having on neigbhourhoods. The data in SF really helped focus our energy and the strength of the conversation was really able to move forward. We able to hand data to inspectors and planners and aggregate data on people who were taking advantage. Data really empowers the agent on the ground.

What data is available? 224 data points that could include location, neigbourhood, how many people are looking at it, amenities nearby.

Murray - You can only see publicly available information. You cant see bookings or the exact address. You could see streets but airbnb removed that when cities started pursuing them for enforcement. The data can't tell us if its social housing or rental housing.

Peter - Overseeing registration and enforcement. There was no platform libility. We hadn't figured out how to get data into our day to day work. Absent input and absent cooperation from the platforms we had to find other ways to work. The mayors office published a letter on the front page of the SF chronicle to Short Term rental companies.

It often feels like whack a mole.

The apply for a license, they have to prove that they live there for over 90 days. The city issued 2000 licenses on this system.

Murray - It is difficulty for cities working with permit systems. 10% or 20% of compliance.

Peter - Legislation 2.0

The idea of some kind of platform accountability, a requirment for platforms to follow the rules of the city.

Leg 1.0 host based enforcement

Leg 2.0 platform enforcement

Anything good is not easy.

When cities try to bring in legislation. The immediatiate reaction is usually a law suit.

Platforms are required to inform host of registration needs.

Platform Libaility - In the past we were finding hosts responsible, but platform liability mean that we would fine the platform per day per listing.

It's tough to tell people no but its a good thing, preserving the availability of housing

Murray - This is a very unique result. Because you cant enforce them. In SF there was a drop of 50%

Get the data and democratise the data

From a policy point of view, cities are struggling to regulate this issue.

Every city has its own circumstances, in San Francisco it is expensive to live there, so it is not possible to turn houses into hotels.

Platforms will cooperate when they need, but they need rules, and the rules need to be clearly set out for them, if you continute to meander and don't let out concrete rules...

I don't think it is reasonable to expect platforms to comply

Peter - Negotiation is great if it helps you find a middle ground. Cities are now having this discussion about regulation.

Murray - When we got around to legislating things became very clear. We ended up creating our own api. We ended up creating a platform ourselves that platforms could use to exchange data.

Questions

Is there any relevant difference between european cities to those at the US? do you see patterns in the data.

Murray - If we talk about the data as a whole the most popular listings are Entire apartments. Entire apartment listings are a minority in Barcelona and I think this could be a result of regulation.

The number of hosts that have multiple listings varies from city to city depending on local enforcement.

Peter - narratives -  short term rentals are for people to rent out their home,or if it for teachers...

20% of your inventory can make up 80% of your bookings.

when you want to bring clarity, maybe Barcelona is unique

Q. Enric Senabre - We are surrounded by people imaging the perfect city of the future. Do you see this kind of process taking place with regards other kinds of data that we are collecting in cities.

public policies to be improved

Peter -  Data needs to be used responsibly.  Data needs to be safeguarded. The way platforms are effecting our urban space is huge. Give the affordability crisis cities could scrape data from rental platforms to get a real time view of the situation in the city.

Murray - I work with civic hackers and open data initiatives. Propery use data should be in the public domain.

Peter - Collection of data is not about tracking people but managing the environment.