The point of VWBCI is to open local minds to outside practices, concepts, and ideas that might stand to improve our greater civic situation in a parallel universe where coolness was valued more than practicality and funds spent on public works of art were raised by way of a special NIMBY tax levied against serial complainers.

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If you live in Vancouver you are likely very aware that its rental housing situation is thoroughly fucked and that our civic, provincial, and federal governments don’t appear to give that many shits about it. A big part of the problem is Airbnb. The short-term rental company (and global phenomenon) has thousands of listings in Vancouver, with most of them being entire homes. When you consider that our rental stock is now famously below 1%, it seems a little bizarre that Airbnb is even allowed to operate in this town.

It’s not just Vancouver that’s finding itself frustrated with Airbnb. Paris is cracking down on the service and so is Berlin, where civic leaders have actually gotten off their asses and done something about it:

Over the past few years, more and more home owners have opted to rent their properties out to visitors rather than residents of Berlin – a much more profitable approach given ever-growing tourist rates. The result of this is that the number of houses available to buy in the city have gone down while rent prices have soared. As such, the authorities have decided to crack down.

Sometime before May 1, owners will no longer be allowed to offer up their home on the site, unless they actually live in the dwelling themselves.

For the rest – most notably those who own several houses – proprietors will have to apply for a special permission request from the town hall. According to German daily Der Taggespiegel, these requests are denied in around 95% of cases.

Those who do not apply for authorization to rent their property to tourists risk a €100,000 fine (around $112,000).

Putting it simply, the number of homes on Airbnb will be going down and, at the same time, there is a high chance that prices for temporarily renting the remaining properties will increase.

But Berlin is going to have to keep a close eye on things. To do so, in addition to 30 or so housing agents, the authorities have set up a space on their website where “fraudsters“ can be identified by name and address by their anonymous neighbors.

Meanwhile in beautiful Santa Monica, local nabobs “effectively wiped out 80% of its Airbnb listings by instituting the toughest regulations on short-term rentals in the U.S. The southern California city said it was spurred by overall increases in housing prices and a dwindling housing supply. The new regulations, which have been effective since June 15, 2015, require anyone putting a listing on Airbnb in Santa Monica to live on the property during the renter’s stay, register for a business license and collect a 14% occupancy tax from users that will be payable to the city.”

Why can’t we do something similar in Vancouver? Well, it’s important to note that we already have prohibitive bylaws on the books here. Zoning and Development By-law sections 10.20.5 and 10.21.6 state very clearly that homeowners can’t rent out dwellings for fewer than 30 consecutive days unless the property is licensed as a hotel or a bed & breakfast. There are existing tools and technologies to aid with enforcement, and other cities showing us how to do it right, reminding us of the whole point of housing in the first place. What’s missing, sadly, is the political will to act.

Two years ago, a local story on the rise of Airbnb quoted a city representative as saying that “City staff will continue to monitor to ensure that rental properties do not violate the bylaws on short term accommodations.”

How’s that been going?

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