In victory for Airbnb, city voters reject proposal to curb short term rentals
Amid a long-running battle over affordable housing in a city often seen as dominated by tech workers, voters rejected a proposal to limit short term rentals.
Amid a long-running battle over affordable housing in a city often seen as dominated by tech workers, voters rejected a proposal to limit short term rentals.
On Tuesday, voters in San Francisco rejected a ballot measure that would have put stricter limits on how long people can rent out their homes using short-term rental services such as Airbnb.
In a long-running debate over affordable housing in a city increasingly dominated by workers from Silicon Valley, the measure, Proposition F, was defeated 55 percent to 45 percent.
The controversial proposal pitted one side 鈥� which argued services such as Airbnb limit the supply of affordable housing in the city 鈥� against those who say such services allow middle class people to make extra income by renting out extra rooms in their houses.
The defeat for Proposition F came after lobbying efforts on both sides, including an $8 million effort by Airbnb to defeat the measure and a rally by housing activists opposed to the measure at the company鈥檚 headquarters, which included a brass band.
鈥淰oters stood up for working families鈥� right to share their homes and opposed an extreme, hotel-industry-backed measure,鈥� Airbnb global policy chief Chris Lehane said in a statement. 鈥淪an Francisco has experienced affordability issues for decades and our community wants to be part of the solution."
The measure would have capped home-shares at 75 nights per year and required Airbnb and other hosting services such as Craigslist, Flipkey, and HomeAway/VRBO to remove listings that exceeded the limit. It also included additional regulations aimed at cracking down on short-term rentals, which supporters of the measure argued are poorly regulated.
鈥淟osing is always a disappointment,鈥� Dale Carlson, who led the campaign to limit short-term rentals, told the San Francisco Chronicle. 聽But, noting the millions that Airbnb had spent to defeat the proposal, the margin was 鈥渟till pretty remarkable,鈥� he said.
The measure was backed by a mixture of housing activists, hotel workers鈥� unions, landlords, and neighborhood groups, the Chronicle reported. They raised about $482,000 to block the measure, mostly from the hotel workers鈥� union Unite Here.
But the stakes were high for Airbnb 鈥� which was founded five years ago in San Francisco.
The company mounted a large-scale campaign, contacting 138,000 city residents who had hosted people or stayed in short-term rentals in the city during the past year to encourage them to vote against the measure. Proposition F was also opposed by San Francisco mayor Ed Lee, who is seen as a friend to the tech industry.
鈥淪trategically, it鈥檚 a victory,鈥� Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University鈥檚 business school who studies the sharing economy, told the Seattle Times. 鈥淗ere鈥檚 a piece of regulation that wasn鈥檛 in Airbnb鈥檚 best interest and people have voted against it.鈥�