Skip to main contentOver the last year, city officials and dedicated citizens spent thousands of hours crafting a short-term rental ordinance that would allow Airbnb rentals in single-family homes and duplexes to be become legal ["Safety Last," WW, Nov. 5, 2014]. At public hearings in April and July, Portland Airbnb hosts begged for and ultimately received such a policy.
Now they are ignoring it.
So the question is: How do you get Airbnb hosts to register? Here are three ideas:
(1) Part of the ordinance requires that the host's license number appear in all print and online advertising, including Airbnb. To its credit, Airbnb has added a field to enter this number in the property description. So, it is easy to tell if a listing is licensed or not. Now Airbnb and the city of Portland need to work together as "shared city" partners and state that any listing in Portland without a license number will be removed by April 1, 2015. This will give all Airbnb hosts a reasonable amount of time and a real incentive to register.
(2) If Airbnb is unwilling to remove listings without license numbers, then the city needs to sue Airbnb to get details on all listings that do not display a license number.
(3) In San Francisco's new ordinance, failure to comply with notices of violations can subject a host to civil and/or criminal penalties, including fines of $1,000 per day and county jail time. Portland needs to update its ordinance with similar explicit penalties.
Will the real Airbnb please stand up? The company portrays itself as a humble "home-sharing" service that wants to work with cities. But its refusal to take any meaningful action to support compliance with regulations designed to support its business is the other half of Airbnb.
—"Steven Unger"
Airbnb has zero interest in actually being a good partner. Their strategy is to simply operate illegally in every market, ignoring warnings and cease-and-desist orders until they begrudgingly reach some accommodation with the city…which they then don't honor.
—"Snats"
I recently signed up to be an Airbnb host. I don't have a permit yet, but it's not because I haven't tried.
Searching for "Airbnb permit Portland" just brings up articles about how no one is applying for a permit, and the city of Portland permit site doesn't have it clearly listed either.
Guess I'll be calling the number at the bottom. Looking forward to waiting on hold!
—"Amy Harris"
CORRECTION
Last week's 40th-anniversary item "Fred Meets Carrie…" (page 32) incorrectly reported the first air date of Portlandia. The TV show premiered Jan. 21, 2011. WW regrets the error.
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