Ryan reluctant to sign agreement with AirBnB
The county executive say she’ s un impressed with Air BnB’ s proposal to keep the county appraised of data concerningshort-termrentals.
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. >> Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan says he’s unimpressed with terms proposed by AirBnB to keep the county apprised of the number of available short-term rentals and when they generate occupancy tax revenue.
At a Town Board meeting last week, Ryan said software currently used to screen multiple services based on information already online is preferable to working directly with providers’ websites.
“Our initial analysis is that signing an agreement with AirBnB and other providers directly opens up more risks than it does benefits,” he said. “The approach that we have right now is generally working. We’ve got about ... 80 percent compliance with shortterm rental owners paying the occupancy tax.”
Councilman Richard Heppner had questioned AirBnB’s terms that apparently would prohibit county officials from sharing information about its clients.
“If the county were to sign with AirBnB, where they collect the 2 percent (tax), would that prohibit the county from giving out information on AirBnB customers?” he asked.
Ryan said AirBnB has not made it clear how much information would be considered available for use beyond the county’s own tax collections.
“We don’t have a clear picture from them how many units there even are, how often they’re rented, are they unoccupied or not,” Ryan said, “so the county a few years ago invested in software that does a pretty good job . ... They basically scrape these sites and give us a report monthly of what the status is.”
Ryan added that the information is used to “directly ask each short-term renter to pay the tax to us.”
Ryan said AirBnB has a track record of putting its own interests ahead of municipal governments seeking information.
“Looking at how AirBnB has operated in other places. Yhey have not been particularly transparent with municipalities, and I have serious concerns about (lack of) alignment ... between their profitability and our need to protect the public interest,” Ryan said. “My understanding is we had less visibility on data if we were to sign that agreement with AirBnB.”
Ryan said AirBnB would “basically say, ‘Hey, trust us, here’s the check,’ which doesn’t feel super warm and fuzzy to me.”
The town of Woodstock earlier this year set a limit of 340 short-term rental units that could be offered in Woodstock as part of regulations that require an annual permit. Officials said at the time that there were 150 existing units based on information provided by the county.