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To any New Orleans hosts lurking around this forum and don’t know about tomorrow’s city council meeting, here is the info. They tried to sneak this by us at the last minute! I’ll be there and I hope you can make it too!
Dear New Orleans short-term rental owners and managers:
The New Orleans City Council will vote on a motion this Thursday, May 24, 2018, to place an immediate moratorium on the issuance and renewal of Temporary and Commercial short-term rental (STR) licenses in the Historic Core, Historic Urban and Central Business District zoning districts.
This will be a public hearing and you are highly encouraged to attend to voice your support for short-term rentals in your community, and ask the city to postpone any votes to impose a moratorium. Here are the details on Thursday’s meeting:
10:00AM
Council Chamber - City Hall Room 1E07
1300 Perdido Street
New Orleans, LA 70112
Please sign up here if you are interested in attending and testifying at the Council meeting.
Also, please visit the Take Action Site to send your Councilmembers an email!
For now it’s a ban on whole home rentals, which are most rentals. This is the handy work of the hotel lobby. They fund community organizations and try to influence council members.
Interesting move on the part of the City and the big-time Hotel lobby. But it’s Not (yet) a ban on STRs or Airbnb. It does affect NEW listings and renewal of existing listings: a “moratorium on the issuance and renewal of Temporary and Commercial short-term rental (STR) licenses in the Historic Core, Historic Urban and Central Business District zoning districts”.
How often do you have to renew your STR license? How much of N.O. do those districts cover?
New Orleans is a 300 year old city so the historic core, historic urban and CBD cover most of the city and over 95% of Airbnbs. STR licenses are renewed once a year. New Orleans just made STRs legal last April so most licenses are up for renewal now. If this passes tomorrow all renewal applications will be halted. Our license doesn’t renew until January, but so many people are going to be forced to cancel all of their Bookings on short notice.
It sucks that the city made STRs legal just a year ago and are now trying to take everything away because some new council members got elected. I’m not hopeful that they are going to lift the ban if it passes.
We lost. The city basically told us that they needed to do a 4 month study on the impact of Short Term Rentals. While they’re doing the study, people who don’t have a commercial license or shared home license will be not be able to renew their license for a year. When it was mentioned that if the study hasn’t started yet, how do they have the data they need to shut us down there were no answers. The council was all ready to vote on the ban when one council member (Cindi Nguyen) pointed out that they added an amendment at the last minute that would save commercial licences. This means the large property management companies everyone kept bringing up as one of the reasons for the ban would not be affected. She asked if a concession could be made for local property owners who had a homestead exemption in the city of New Orleans (our situation). The other council members quickly got on the defensive and shot her down. She really stood her ground though!
I found out later from someone on the inside that the decision had already been made and they knew beforehand what Nguyen was going to propose. They just didn’t care. We all wasted our time being there. Our city government is known for it’s corruption and this is no exception.
There are about 4,350 licenses in the city that are now not going to be able to renewed. All the investments made into blighted housing and revitalization of some of New Orleans worst neighborhoods is all in jeopardy. The city has no transition plan. We’ll be fine, but my heart goes out the people with bookings on their calendar and licenses that expire in the next few months.
I’m really frustrated, but now that I understand how this game is being played I am going to be more vocal about it. There will be another public hearing in July and this time I’ll be ready. I’m also going to reach out to some of the homeowners who spoke today and see if we can’t get together and figure out how to fight this.
Hey Dana I’ve messaged you before, as a homeowner who does a private room, I can’t say I’m suprised or upset by the decision made today. People have gone hogwild with buying up property for just doing STR, most of it is out of state, such as Sonder. Some of it is local, I won’t name names but I live near a few of his properties and I just can’t say they aren’t more than flophouses. I’m sorry this negatively impacts you as you seem like a rarity in whole home.
I think that’s where the misconception is. Sonder’s New Orleans portfolio is mostly commercial. This ban doesn’t affect them. Nor does it affect Stay Alfred. The companies who own most of the licenses in this city get to keep all their commercial properties under this new ban.
If you want to get the out of town owners out, just require the owner be local and have a homestead exemption in the city. In addition, you can also limit the number of licenses local owners can get to further weed out “bad actors”. This solution was proposed in the meeting by councilwoman Nguyen.
Limiting the number of licenses to local owners, and also limiting the number of STR’s per building would be a good start.
I am lucky that my new license was issued last week, so I’m good for another year however I’m having a problem with Airbnb about it.
This year’s license has a different number than last years. I cannot “update” the change of license numbers on Air’s site, I’ve called and gotten a “were working on it reply.” I’m just afraid that the city will flag my account for an expired license.
NEW ORLEANS ― Invariably, someone brings up the anatomically-shaped balloons.
About a year ago, a bachelorette party from Texas rented a house through Airbnb on Ursulines Avenue in Treme, a residential neighborhood close to the bars and restaurants of the French Quarter.
The women tied inflatables shaped like penises to the front of the house, perhaps not realizing that the neighbors ― families and other longtime residents ― might mind.
“My oldest son woke up and there was an inflatable dildo taped to the house next door and I was like, ‘We’re out of here,’” said Christian Rhodes, a 36-year-old lawyer whose clients include the Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association and Uber.
He sold his house last year. “I’m not explaining to a 6-year-old what an inflatable dildo is.”
I’m a host and investor so my title is factually correct. My reviews speak for themselves! So no, i’m Not changing it to investor. Locals who own property in this city are hosts. We are all investors since this is a business.
This is also incorrect. Let me explain things to you as a local who has lived here most of my life. What those articles don’t tell you is that the “residents” they write about are mostly made up of people who moved here after Katrina. Entire neighborhoods were displaced to New Orleans east to make way for development. THIS is what the locals are fighting about! Treme, Marigny and Bywater are starting to look like Seattle with pink haired hipsters riding around on bicycles. New artisanal restaurants are popping up that either don’t serve local cuisine or put a weird twist on it. This is not our culture. They don’t know anything about Super Sunday’s and they clear out of Tremé during the second lines. It’s ironic that these are the people complaining about Airbnb ruining “their” neighborhoods.
There’s so much affordable housing in New Orleans east, but these new people don’t want to live there. Local investment in short term rentals is a way for locals to invest in their own city and make money. We don’t ruin culture, because WE are the creators of this culture. I would love to see local housing investment in our neighborhoods so we can keep the control in our hands.
No transplant from out of state is going to ever convince me that i’m ruining a neighborhood that I grew up in. I met so many local investors just like me at the council meeting and we’re all in disbelief that the city would try to do this.
I have no issue with people who move to this city, because New Orleans is truly a great city. I do have an issue with all the new citizens at the council meeting yesterday who pretend like they’re trying to help out the locals.
I’m also tired of these articles cherry picking bad guests and making it seem like this is all Airbnb is. Most of these people are breaking the law by allowing more than 10 guests. This is NOT the majority of Airbnbs.
TOTALLY agree with this statement. We have an apartment under our home, plus a double in the neighborhood, which is Airbnb. Our neighbors at the double LOVE what we’ve done there. That house used to have gun fights, drug dealers, and a dozen illegals staying there - paying by the room - so “affordable housing” was ruining that block. You could say we “gentrified” it, but our neighborhood thanks us every day for the influx of weekend Tulane parents, people enjoying anniversaries and tours of the city - really enjoying a real NOLA neighborhood. We keep a tight ship and do not allow parties, noise, more than one car (we have a driveway). And it’s an asset. We are local, and we care about the impact we have on the city - and our neighbors.
Absolutely off target. I’m an agent/broker, and also own three STRs. Some say it’s the hotel lobby behind this… I have no idea. But anyone with half a brain in real estate knows that if STRs get banned, all these out-of-town investors are going to dump their properties here and get out. Our home values are going to plummet, and it will RUIN the real estate market for years to come. I doubt we’ll ever again have the influx of federal and out of state investment in NOLA that we had post Katrina. We will not recover from this mistake if they do this.
The city basically told us that they needed to do a 4 month study on the impact of Short Term Rentals. While they’re doing the study, people who don’t have a commercial license or shared home license will be not be able to renew their license for a year. When it was mentioned that if the study hasn’t started yet, how do they have the data they need to shut us down there were no answers. The council was all ready to vote on the ban when one council member (Cindi Nguyen) pointed out that they added an amendment at the last minute that would save commercial licences. This means the large property management companies everyone kept bringing up as one of the reasons for the ban would not be affected. She asked if a concession could be made for local property owners who had a homestead exemption in the city of New Orleans (our situation). The other council members quickly got on the defensive and shot her down. She really stood her ground though!