Dozens of Airbnb hosts joined a city hall committee meeting Tuesday afternoon to voice their concerns over a potential bylaw that would introduce requirements, such as requiring Airbnb and similar rental services to be limited to a principal residence.
Many of the attending Airbnb hosts spoke with committee members, voicing their worries that increased regulation and licensing would disrupt their income. All hosts who spoke rent secondary rental locations, meaning they do not live in the properties they rent through Airbnb.
Those in the public participation period of the committee meeting spoke of similar concerns with the implementation of the bylaw.
“I have people who don’t want to live in a shared space with somebody, or people who are gone four to six months a year who want to rent out their place on Airbnb,” Airbnb host Tyson George said. “A lot of them don’t want to do that because then they have to store their personal belongings; lock everything up and it’s a huge process. So what a lot of them do is they’ll have a secondary unit or a secondary dwelling at their place that they’ll rent out and a lot of people don’t want to stay in those because they want their own private space.”
The concerns of privacy remained one of the top themes with many of the Londoners speaking.
City hall will be meeting on April 12, 2022 to discuss the next steps in the possible short-term-renting bylaw, with views expressed by London Airbnb hosts in mind.
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