Chicago aldermen on Wednesday recommended tweaking rules to limit access to lists of people renting homes through Airbnb and similar online platforms, a move to bring the city in line with U.S. Supreme Court precedent as it battles two lawsuits challenging its home rental regulations.
Under Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed changes, people who rent out their homes would no longer have to make customer lists available to city inspectors upon request. Instead, obtaining the lists would require a search warrant or subpoena.
There would be exceptions. People renting out homes could consent to releasing the lists, or the lists could be demanded when an "exception to a warrant applies," such as when police are hot on the trail of a crime and have legal authority to skip the warrant process under legal precedent.
The proposed list release change would be in keeping with a recent Supreme Court decision on a lawsuit challenging home rental regulations in San Francisco, said Vicki Kraft, an attorney at the city Law Department.
Shorge Sato, an attorney representing people renting out rooms who are challenging the ordinance in court, told aldermen the change was "a good first step." But he called on the city to drop a provision that allows city inspectors to conduct "on-demand inspections" of homes that are rented out.
The lawsuits, filed last year after the City Council voted to approve the regulations, labeled both the initial list access rules and the on-demand inspection requirement as unconstitutional invasions of privacy. As a result of the legal action, none of the new regulations is being enforced, but Kraft said the city is "vigorously" contesting the suits.
Mayor Emanuel wants changes to home-sharing rules John Byrne
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is seeking to ease one of the city rules imposed on Airbnb hosts, asking aldermen this week to consider removing the requirement that lists of guest names must be made available to officials on request.
Under the change, which the City Council license committee will consider Wednesday,…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is seeking to ease one of the city rules imposed on Airbnb hosts, asking aldermen this week to consider removing the requirement that lists of guest names must be made available to officials on request.
Under the change, which the City Council license committee will consider Wednesday,…
(John Byrne)
Other changes to the regulations aldermen recommended Wednesday would make it "unlawful" to provide incomplete or false information when applying for a vacation rental license. And instead of requiring applicants to state that they read the regulations and understand them, they would only have to attest to reading a summary.
The changes were advanced by the License Committee, with three aldermen, including one original regulation proponent — 43rd Ward Ald. Michele Smith of Lincoln Park — voting against them. Smith said she wanted "to continue to send a strong message that short-term rentals are a disruption to residential communities and deserve the strictest regulation."
The regulations represent Emanuel’s attempt to walk a fine line in regulating the burgeoning home-rental industry.
As Emanuel has defended Airbnb, in which his brother, Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel, is an investor, lakefront aldermen have complained about their neighborhoods getting overrun by weekend revelers. And hotel owners have lobbied to make Airbnb and other similar internet outfits subject to the same regulations as hotels.
Airbnb offers free housing to refugees, others in limbo after Trump’s executive order Amy B. Wang
Airbnb, the home-sharing site, has said it will give free housing to refugees and any others not allowed into the United States, presumably as a result of President Donald Trump’s executive order to temporarily ban refugees from the country.
Brian Chesky, the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, tweeted…
Airbnb, the home-sharing site, has said it will give free housing to refugees and any others not allowed into the United States, presumably as a result of President Donald Trump’s executive order to temporarily ban refugees from the country.
Brian Chesky, the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, tweeted…
(Amy B. Wang)
Emanuel’s rules require Airbnb and the other companies to pay a 4 percent surcharge on each rental, with the $2 million the city expects that to generate set aside for homeless services.
The full council will consider the changes next week.
hdardick@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ReporterHal
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