Westwood councils will ask city officials to increase regulations for Airbnb and other short-term rentals in an effort to stabilize rental costs and availability of off-campus housing.
The Westwood Neighborhood Council and Westwood Community Council recommend the city council issue an ordinance that limits the number of apartments landlords can rent for short-term use. The Westwood Community Council also recommends a cap on the number of nights per year they can lease rooms.
Steve Sann, chair of the Westwood Community Council, said he thinks short-term rentals in the North Village and south of Wilshire Boulevard deplete the availability of partial units – like private rooms or guesthouses – students can rent, because renters can profit more from renting those spaces through Airbnb.
“I’m renting a bedroom to students for $800 a month, but all of a sudden I can rent that for $100 a night,” he said. “(Airbnb) creates a financial incentive to do that.”
The Westwood Community Council voted Tuesday to introduce a 30-night upper limit per year for short-term rentals and require owners to obtain a permit and permanent registration numbers from the city. This would allow the city to enforce rules that limit the amount of units hosts can rent.
The Westwood Neighborhood Council decided last Wednesday owners should only be able to lease rooms in their own homes for short periods of time, with no cap on number of nights per year. Landlords would not be able to rent vacant units in the building.
Eugene Tseng, member of the Westwood Neighborhood Council, said he and other council members plan to amend their suggestions in December, by suggesting city officials cap the number of nights hosts can rent per year. He added he wants to ensure hosts can only rent rooms from the units they live in.
Sandy Brown, president of the Holmby Westwood Property Owners Association, said she would support regulation limiting short-term renters to half the year, or about 180 days annually.
Edward Walker, a UCLA sociology professor who studies how companies influence public policy, said he thinks Airbnb markets itself as a way for hosts to rent their own residences, but professional property managers use Airbnb to rent vacant commercial units.
Sann said he thinks renting other units raises safety and noise concerns for neighboring apartments and houses. He added he thinks students in the North Village do not expect short-term guests moving in and out of the village.
“There are safety issues (when you don’t know) who your neighbor is,” Sann said.
Parvin Reza, a Westwood resident for four years, has rented out a room in her apartment through Airbnb for almost two years and typically hosts guests for two days to three weeks. Reza said she turned to Airbnb after losing her job.
“There’s no way to hold onto my apartment without it,” she said.
She added that the majority of her guests are students, visiting scholars or parents affiliated with UCLA, and hosts present in the apartment can address their guests’ noise issues themselves.
Reza, who meets regularly with several other Westwood Airbnb hosts, said she has not received complaints from neighbors or her landlord. She added she and other Airbnb hosts oppose an annual cap on the number of nights, but support restricting short-term rentals to hosts living in the units they rent.
Venice homeowners successfully petitioned the city in September to order a man to stop using his house as a hotel, citing noise complaints. Venice residents said they are concerned new laws regulating short-term rentals would be difficult to enforce if companies do not release information about their hosts.
Paavo Monkkonen, assistant professor of urban planning, said he thinks housing prices would rise if units were devoted to short-term rentals, but a limited housing supply is the most significant reason for Los Angeles’ rising rents.
“If we were able to build more housing, (Airbnb) wouldn’t be a big deal,” he said. The reason we’re in a crisis of housing affordability is … we haven’t built enough housing over the last 50 years.”
Airbnb released a study in September that concluded the company has had little impact on L.A. housing availability. About 80 percent of its listings for entire units were rented out for fewer than 90 nights annually, showing most units are still on the market for long-term tenants.
An August study from the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a labor advocacy group, said short-term rentals remove 11 units per day from the Los Angeles housing market. It also concluded leasing companies generated 35 percent of the city’s Airbnb revenue, showing a significant amount of money from short-term rentals goes to companies, not individual hosts.
Brown said 13 councils on the Westside are working on regulations to submit to Westside Regional Alliance of Councils, which will make recommendations to city officials. Brown added she thinks compiling input from communities and drafting an ordinance could take up to a year.