Home-sharing models and their impact 2018/11/14/apunts/01

https://pad.femprocomuns.cat/p/sharebcn2018homesharing

Julie Wilson: to what extent home-sharing platforms are about sharing in the initial sense?

Peter Byrne:

when we analyze extractivist vs cooperative platforms, we find they work on 80-20: 20% of the participants make about 80% of the profit. The other 80% may be about renting a room....

Emmanuel Mounier:

short-term rental is business vocabulary, because it is a business model that has existed for a long time: bd and breakfast is an old model.

What is new is that citizens are being included in this business.

Kenneth Haar:

insideairbnb.org shows the figures on AirBnB, and the figures in Europe are pretty much the same as those in the US.

Narratives:

Sito Veracruz:

the narrative about sustainable tourism is a new one, and is now including social sustainability.

Julie Wilson: what is the difference in impact in urban contexts versus rural contexts?

Peter Byrne:

In our first months we were surprised at how many calls we received from rural contexts: rural towns in California, ski towns in Colorado... where housing had been converted into short-term rentals.

Murray Cox:

the lobbying been done at the European Commission is aimed at allowing cities to regulate this sector to protect their citizens.

Kenneth Haar:

It's about restricting the options of cities when they start regulating these platforms. In Brussels they are very concerned about the wave of regulations they have seen. It is conceived as a problem that cities act in away that goes against European Law.

The European Commission conceives this as a problem.

Emmanuel Mounier:

this interpretation of the EU law is different from the Treaties

Murray Cox:

Kenneth pointed out some fears with the European Commisionbut there is hope: on Monday a number of cities met and one of the principles that they all supported is that cities should be allowed to decide their future.

The main arguement that the plaforms have is that they are solely intermeidaries.

the cities are gathering together in Europe and they're fiighting, especially for the right of housing.

Julie Wilson: let's discuss alternatives, like non-monetized platforms, and their potential to counter the negative effects of homesharing platforms

Julie Wilson:

Video from the homeexchange.com platform:

Why is home exchange fundamentally different from rental. No money changes hands between users. There is no speculation, because there is no money to earn

the second reason is more cultural, every host is a guest too.

Antoher difference is that the cultural immersion is really at the core of the concept.

When you travel ¿with home exchange? there are a lot of homes in central cities. Users of homeexchange want to have a cultural immersion, they want to have an experience, so they live in an area of Barcelona, and not in the center of the city. This is the kind of exchange we want to foster among members as much as we can.

To conclude. Homeexchange is a highly accessible way to travel, 50% are families, we have countless comments from parents who tell us that without homeexchange they would never have the opportunity to travel with their kids.

Sito Veracruz (FairBnB)

Differences of FairBnB:

1. We have a one host one home policy.

2. We not only comply with regulations: we are supporting cities in their attempts to regulate and even be open to be more restrictive.

3. We want to invest part of our profits in the community, in the neighborhood affected.

In Venice we just want to work with residents because there are a lot of foreign investors.

4. We are a cooperative. We aim to become a multi-stakeholder cooperative, to include, neigbhours, hosts, residents.

The focus should not only be the donation but the solidarity with neigbhours.

Julie Wilson: let's talk of alliances: Any examples of formal or informal alliances that have managed to take on the platforms?

Peter Byrne:

formal or informal alliances exist in multiple levels:

1. One of the key alliance for San Francisco is to work with data providers such as Inside AirBnB

2. San Francisco have also offered support and advice to other cities (like Santa Monica...).

Kenneth Haar

AirBnB is involved in the struggle over data, and there is a bias at the European level that favors them.

Murray Cox:

There is a power imbalance between the local level and the regional, national and international levels.

Activists may have influence at the local level, some at the regional level, but no influence on the national level.

The hotels are lobbying to protect their commercial interests.

I met with ABTS a network of neighbourhood groups in Barcelona and we discussed the experience in Venice.

Julie Wilson: how do you see the issue of regulation in the future?

Kenneth Haar

There is a lot being tried out at the moment. The main effort is to protect the stock of apartment that can be rented to locals.

Some neigbourhoods limit the number of apartments that can be rented out to tourists.

In some ctiies like my own, Copenhagen, a plicy that has been very effective is that you have live there to be able to rent.

Let's hope that in the future the EU will have affordable housing as a priority, that is not what is going on at the moment,

From the Europena Commission, there is now an investigation into whether Barcelona, Paris, Brussels and Berlin's regulations of housing are in the brinks of the EU law --this is the situation now.

I hope that somewhere along the line the commision will be forced to take action.

Emmanuel Mounier

The fact that there is an investigation is reassuring.

Sito Veracruz:

Accommodation should be regulated within zonification of the city, just ike restaurants or offces...

I am optimistic that there will be more data. It should be funded by public institutuions. because it is in our interest.

What Murray is doing is great but it needs to be supported in a more open way, with more funding.

Peter Byrne:

We're seeing 3 phases:

Initial phase: an outright ban. It's illegal but there are no checks and balances

The second wave - residency requirement

The third - the mechanism of data transparency and platform liability

There is pre-emption happening at national and supra-national levels. Lobbying of platforms looking to supplant city sovereignty

And there is a trend of legal action against cities: SF was sued by AirBnB, and it has happened to many other cities: Santa Monica, New York...

Murray

Whats the impace on cities that have housing pressure. People buying up and renting not to residents but to tourists instead.

Yearly Caps, Permit Systems,

And any regulation is not going to work unless you establish a way to enforce it.

About the one host one rent rule: the impact of one host with 20,000 rentals is the same as 20,000 hosts with 20,000 rentals.