Of hosts and parasites: What is right and wrong with the city’s proposed Airbnb registry

If we were in charge of writing New York’s laws, we’d let teachers who skip town for the summer and other sympathetic souls earn a little extra money by renting out their apartments short-term — while barring the most egregious types of illegal hotels, which destabilize buildings and take loads of housing off the market. One way to do that would be by capping the total number of days per year a leaseholder may hand over the keys for money.

But we’re not in charge; city and state lawmakers are. And in laws on the books, they’ve consistently reasserted that apartments can’t be rented for less than a month. (Renting individual rooms in an apartment while the leaseholder remains home is permitted.) Still, enforcement has been uneven; illegal short-term rentals remained rampant.

Under a law passed by the City Council and signed by the mayor last year, those who intend to legally rent short-term via Airbnb, VRBO and other services — which is to say, those who want to rent parts of their apartment — must register with the Office of Special Enforcement. The services can’t process transactions unless registration status is verified. And co-op and condo boards and landlords can sign up to be on a list of buildings where such rentals are strictly verboten.

We agree with Airbnb hosts’ complaints that the registry’s rules seem onerous and invasive. Is it really necessary for owners to provide the full names of everyone who lives in their buildings and a diagram of the property showing which rooms will be rented? For the addresses of apartments to be publicly disclosed? For the city to insist that there are no interior locks on doors?

More broadly, do we really want to prevent that teacher from defraying the stupendously high cost of living by renting out her apartment for a week?

Maybe not, but the law is the law. It applies whether you’re that teacher, or the less sympathetic boyfriend who’s just shacked up with the girlfriend but wants to rent out his once and maybe future “primary residence,” or the true for-profit illegal hotel. It would be absurd for a city registry to bless activity that statutes explicitly prohibit.