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As Los Angeles prepares to welcome tens of thousands of tourists for the 2028 Summer Olympics, city officials say property owners are illegally listing their homes as vacation rentals, undermining the city’s already strained housing supply. We are working to stop the act of eating away at people.
The City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee will add inspectors, impose tougher penalties and impose fast-track approval measures already in place in New York City for websites like Airbnb and Booking.com. It is considering requiring the use of an electronic system that automatically rejects reservations for accommodations that are not available. -Regular rental.
A July investigation by Capital & Main and ProPublica found that 60 rent-controlled buildings had units advertised on booking sites despite Los Angeles’ home-sharing ordinance banning stays in rent-controlled apartments. It turns out that there is more. In some cases, entire apartments were listed as boutique hotels on reservation sites.
Rent-controlled properties make up nearly 75% of the city’s rental market. The designation limits annual rent increases to about 4% and is intended to keep housing affordable for city residents.
The number of buildings with illegal listings is likely much higher than reported by news outlets, as most booking platforms hide property addresses. The Los Angeles Housing Authority currently estimates that 7,500 properties, or about 60% of the city’s multifamily short-term rentals, are illegal, according to a memo sent to the City Council by Tricia Keene, the agency’s interim general manager. There is.
“I think the big missing piece is having the ability to do stronger enforcement,” said City Council member Nitya Raman, who chairs the Housing and Homelessness Committee. He said very few violators were issued citations or fines because “the process is so broken.”
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At a commission hearing in early December, the proposal faced opposition from several property owners, who asked the commission not to impose stricter rules. “I became completely dependent on Airbnb to make ends meet,” said Joni Day, a freelance television producer.
Representatives for Airbnb and Booking.com did not respond to emails seeking comment on the city’s enforcement proposal. Airbnb previously told news outlets it was working closely with city officials “to address hosts who attempt to circumvent the rules.”
The Housing and Homeless Commission has been studying the growth of home sharing in Los Angeles for more than a year. The city convened representatives from key city departments and the City Attorney’s Office to examine enforcement of the 2019 Home Sharing Act on unapproved properties and what can be done to improve it.
Raman said the dysfunction in the city’s home-sharing implementation system was a matter of “priorities and staffing.” Additionally, “communication between departments has really broken down,” she said.
In addition to spotlighting the abuses of rent-controlled apartments, Capital & Main and ProPublica also reported that computer systems alert the Department of Planning, which alerts to potential home-sharing violations, and the Department of Housing, which is tasked with doing so. documented how these breakdowns hindered enforcement when cases were handed over. Cite the actual violator.
Raman asked city officials to draft a plan to establish a single home-sharing task force to streamline the process.
Housing Authority Law Enforcement Director Robert Guaraldi said investigating what he claims is a “basement” of illegal vacation rentals, even if organized, simply requires “being on the ground.” He said that. Vacation rentals are often disguised as legitimate monthly rentals by some hosts to avoid enforcement.
A Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation found that relatively few property owners have been named under the ordinance, and that some of those named have been arrested after paying a minimum fine or as their case awaits an appellate court. The company was found to have continued to provide short-term rentals during the period.
In one case, residents and neighbors of 1940 Carmen Avenue, a 21-unit apartment building in Hollywood, had repeatedly complained to the city about illegal vacation rentals. However, the owners were never fined for home sharing. However, after an investigation, the owner was fined and is no longer accepting reservations on the booking site.
Building owner Alexander Stein did not return calls seeking comment.
Currently, the city imposes fines of $587 for first-time violators, but the department has fined fines ranging from $1,000 for the first violation on the smallest property to $60,000 for the third violation on the largest property. It is proposing higher fines, up to $4,000.
Another proposal by City Councilman Bob Blumenfield would give LA residents the right to sue property owners who offer illegal short-term rentals and receive a portion of their damages if they win.
Home-sharing activists praised the city’s efforts to strengthen home-sharing ordinances. “The problem is that the city still has to develop the will to actually enforce this law,” said Noah Suarez Sykes, an organizer with Better Neighbors LA.
The process is likely to last until 2025 as the Housing and Homelessness Commission finalizes its recommendations, asking city departments to report on how the city could implement their recommendations.
How LA’s illegal short-term rentals are staying invisible on booking sites
The commission also directed the Housing Authority to protect some of the city’s lowest-cost housing: some of L.A.’s residential hotels, which generally offer studio homes with shared bathrooms. Ordered to submit annual report on implementation of separate laws.
The Housing Authority was given five new positions this year to enforce the Residential Hotels Ordinance, which prohibits the conversion of residential hotels into tourist accommodations.
The budget allocation comes in response to a 2023 study by Capital & Maine and ProPublica, which found that lax law enforcement resulted in nearly 800 units being used as tourist accommodations. It turned out that they had allowed housing units to be lost.
