Great…face palm… backwards…
To be fair… (I have not made my opinion yet) but how would you feel about houses on either side of you being rented non stop all the time with people partying for weekend trips to Raleigh downtown? I can see the hesitation. I just rented 4 AirBnBs in Ireland over 15 days and 2 of them were obviously mass rentals done by a small company versus an individual or family making money on a side gig. Not sure if it matters but they are trying to find loop holes in existing tax structure versus legitimate BnBs or Hotels.
I’m apparently the (barely) millennial in the minority, but I don’t care for Airbnb. I don’t want to stay in some stranger’s room or apartment when I could stay at a nice hotel. I don’t ever want some strangers staying in my house when I’m not there. I don’t want my neighbors having strangers who want to party staying in their house every night.
As someone who lived directly across from a Raleigh Airbnb I can tell everyone it sucks. There were different people there every weekend. One guy even had a bachelor party and there were about 30 cars parked on the street one Saturday night. I ended up calling the cops at midnight. I am not a nimby and I am in my early 30s so I’m not an old man either. But I can tell you as someone whose neighbor ran an Airbnb 50 feet from my bedroom and having different people in and out every weekend that it is not fun for the neighbors
If I had a problem with it, I might complain. Not even an average of one complaint per month for all of Raleigh rentals over the sample period is abysmal if you were using that as an exclusive data point to argue AirBnb is bad. I don’t understand the argument why this is bad for Raleigh. Is it tax contribution?
Why what is bad for Raleigh? Blocking AirBnBs or allowing them?
maybe it’s the libertarian in me, but it’s their property. Can we not just once let the free market decide what people can do on their own land as long as it’s not a safety issue to themselves or others? If I don’t like what others do with their homes, maybe I should move rather than lobby for more laws.
I can appreciate the displeasure with the whole house rentals / wild party atmosphere - but what about the two room / two person limit with the owner on premises?
Some people travel as couples.
I’m a socialist with libertarian tendencies because I’m complicated or something. I do tend to agree with you, but with the trend for closer and closer properties, especially downtown, it becomes an issue. I get annoyed when people complain about a race closing streets or an event being loud when they live downtown, but this is basically an everyday thing. I can see both sides. Fortunately for me, no sane tourist would want to rent in my neighborhood, and the HOA doesn’t allow it anyways
Bit of a knee jerk reaction on my part to a knee jerk reaction on City council’s part.
If your neighbor is a partier that disrupts the neighborhood, what do you do? Knock on the door, work it out as co-citizens, and call the cops if that doesn’t work.
I just don’t think the city as a whole needs to adhere to rules resulting from the few situations that didn’t work out. I have an Airbnb across the street, which was utilized heavily during Dreameville, but otherwise is totally chill and no worse from other rentals in my neighborhood that go to college students.
It’s just another outward facing pock-mark on our not-so-longer-southern-genteel-haven from the outside and sadly another instance where we seem to not want tourist traffic. Now - why should they come here is the topline question but as a resident, the next question is why shouldn’t they and then what is the best option if you are coming? I do see all sides of this and with our not so amazing hotel situation this just feels small and, dare I say, NIMBY. At some point, we need to make a list of things to help us grow up and prioritize and we have a majority of keep-it-like-it-was children on the council. Damn shame.
If things went sideways, there is always a way to crack down on your neighbor who rents if talking with them doesn’t work. Covering all the bases from NO at the get-go seems - well, it makes me struggle for the right adjective…
If the City/County can’t control the revenue from the tourists, how else are we going to build the MLS stadium, MLB stadium, or the downtown PNC arena? 
Airbnb can destroy neighborhoods. I don’t see it being much of an issue in Raleigh but in places like New Orleans, there needs to some oversight.
evan,
Do you know the actual count of the ‘few situations’? Find it difficult to believe it would have made it to the City Council for a ‘few situations’.
It’s definitely important to recognize the affects it has in places like New Orleans. As someone who was actually just there this past weekend (not staying in an Airbnb BTW) it’s also important to recognize that Raleigh is not that kind of place.
We actually have a great opportunity to allow short-term rentals now, learn from it, tweak the policy for Raleigh so that locals benefit from being hosts and continue to minimize the bad, like @Scooter mentioned.
To ban everything because something bad might happen is the very contrast of what living in a city means at its core. Try it, learn, improve it. You now have a more diverse economy, more resilient city government, and we just might be more interesting too.
Sometimes it’s more fun for a group to stay together than get a block of rooms. Sometimes there are no hotels near where you want to stay. There’s also AirBnBs that are nicer than any hotel you could stay in.
No one said you had to let strangers stay in your house.
A house can put rules in place on partying which would damage the renter’s score on renting future houses, so there’s already a good system in place for this.
I think this is a really good issue to discuss because there really is a deeper conversation about what we want our city to become that is happening along with it.
I don’t like to label myself politically, but most people probably would label me as liberal on most issues. That said, I think just because our city-council doesn’t adopt every new technology or let these tech ‘disruption’ companies run free that we should be at their throats.
One of Raleigh’s strengths and differentiators is how family friendly it is as a city. One reason its so family friendly and has a small-town vibe for a big city is because its a city surrounded by single family housing. People can raise their families within walking distance of the downtown.
I’m not some NIMBY old-money curmudgeon who hates change, but I am a home owner inside the beltline. I took a risk, emptied my account and bought a run down house in a nice neighborhood for 200k and fixed it up myself. Now I’m married and have a family and we hope to stay downtown in this house forever. More and more young families are moving in and there is a community building with us parents and our kids that years ago you could only get in the suburbs. We have friends across town who are in the same stage of life and seeing their neighborhoods going through the same transformation Its happening in our downtown core and that is pretty unique (IMO).
I don’t think this happens if Airbnb has free reign. I think rich developers buy houses that young families may otherwise buy, and use them as full-time rentals. Sure, thats the free market, but at what cost? You start losing your families to the burbs and you become just like every other city in America where the downtown core is only young professionals, rich empty nesters and renters.
To each his own, but to me, Raleigh is special because you can enjoy the city through every stage of life. I enjoyed drinking and partying downtown during my college years, rented, worked and played downtown as a young professional, and now own a home and am raising a family. At each stage I got to see the city in a new way and loved it every step of the way.
There is something there you don’t want to lose. Not saying Airbnb’s free reign alone would take that away, but you corporations being able to dictate policy and change culture is (IMO) always a slippery slope for the community…even if that corporation is a flashy new tech company.
Could there be middle ground of an AirBnB free-for all, where investors come in a and buy a bunch of homes and convert them to AirBnB’s? Perhaps allow short term rentals but make rules that any one entity cannot have more then X BnBs?