Airbnb hopes to have say in city’s regulation plans
Canadian public policy director discusses issues she sees arising
While Vancouver inches forward with a proposal to regulate shortterm rentals, industry giant Airbnb is hoping there’s still time to make a few tweaks to the plan.
The city is in the consultation stage of a scheme that would let homeowners and tenants apply for licences to open their doors to visitors. But renting out secondary suites or second homes for less than 30 days would still be prohibited, something Airbnb’s Canadian public policy director, Alex Dagg, takes issue with.
Dagg is in town this week for meetings with the city, and she sat down for an interview, which has been edited and condensed:
Q What do you think of Vancouver’s proposal for dealing with short-term rentals?
A Vancouver is the first major Canadian city to move on regulations and we think largely they’ve taken a very thoughtful approach. But we’d like to see some changes and we’ll be talking with them because we want to partner with the city to find the best solution.
Q What are some problems?
A We’ve been talking to them about adding some more flexibility. One example is the idea of homeowners being able to home-share in secondary suites or accessory dwelling units. A lot of those units are being used by the homeowners for family from time-to-time and they’re never going to be long-term rental units. Vancouver is such an expensive city to live in that we don’t want to harm families who are trying to figure out how to make ends meet.
Q How much responsibility is Airbnb willing to take to ensure hosts are following the rules?
A We believe that we should be good community partners. We’re the biggest player in this market and we understand that, so we think we should be leading in best-policy practices. However ... short-term rental regulations need to apply to all of the platforms. We can be a really good partner, but if our competitors are not, commercial operators will come off our platform and onto our competitor’s platform.
Q Some cities fine platforms that allow listings from unlicensed hosts.
A We’re opposed to platform liability and we don’t think that’s appropriate. Take, for example, Ford. They’re a car manufacturer, but they’re not expected to enforce the speed limit. We think it’s government’s responsibility to enforce laws.
Q How much data about your hosts are you willing to share?
A We care about the privacy of our hosts and we’ve got a commitment to honour their privacy. We’ve done anonymous data-sharing and we’ll continue to do that.
Q Does that mean you won’t provide the city with addresses or names of unregistered hosts?
A It’s a little too early to tell how this is going to work. We have a neighbour tool, which means a city government person or a neighbour can submit complaints. If the city raises a problematic host with us, we’ll look into it. ... We’ve removed more than 130 listings here in Vancouver already, and we did that because it was the right thing to do.
Q Who is your typical host?
A The typical host tends to be someone who’s in their 40s who is sharing their home about four to five nights a month and earning supplemental income. The other interesting thing is that our fasting-growing group is women over 60. It’s empty nesters, potentially fixed income — it’s a really nice way to supplement their income.