As it tries to figure out exactly how to handle the question of how many vacation rentals it should allow and how best to space them, the city of Durango should consider a more fundamental issue: It does not matter what limits the city comes up with if it cannot or will not enforce them.
That is going to require some sort of community involvement. Because unless neighbors are encouraged to assist in enforcing the rules, the city may not be able to do so. Just look at San Francisco or New York.
Vacation rentals will be the subject of a community meeting the city will hold at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Carnegie Building – the old library – at 1188 E. Second Ave. It should be worthwhile.
The vacation-rental phenomenon is a product of the cyber marketplace, in particular what is called the “sharing economy,” a gray area between private and traditional commercial behavior. It includes operations such as Lyft and Uber that connect people who need a ride with private car owners willing to use the family Camry as a taxi. And it includes others such as Airbnb and VRBO – for vacation rentals by owner – that act as agents for people willing to rent out living space by the night.
Those ventures blur long-standing lines. Giving a friend a ride or offering a place to sleep are private matters and largely unregulated. Driving a cab or running a hotel come with different rules. Airbnb and VRBO not only ignore but defy such distinctions.
VRBO seems to have a larger presence here with more than 400 listings under the “Durango” category, although only 28 of those are shown as “downtown.” Still, that is already more vacation rentals than the city has so far permitted. And if other cities’ experience is any guide, that is just the beginning.
New York and San Francisco are of course vastly larger than Durango. But in both cases, their size and presumptive power have not enabled them to control vacation rentals. Both are in legal battles with Airbnb over the way its business makes a mockery of municipal zoning and regulations.
Airbnb has more than 19,000 listing in New York City, but only 12 percent of the “hosts” have almost a third of those listings. The state’s attorney general says those people are illegally running hotels. One such “host” was found listing 80 separate units.
In almost a parody of cyber jargon, Airbnb says it is “the easiest way for people to monetize their extra space.” It is also an easy way to ignore zoning, evade lodging taxes and dodge regulations governing everything from business licenses to building codes. Moreover, as San Francisco is complaining, vacation rentals can reduce the stock of housing available to locals.
Airbnb has its headquarters in San Francisco, but with – it says – 600,000 listings in 34,000 cities worldwide and a completely digital business model, for purposes of local government, it may as well be on Mars. Trying to regulate it is probably futile.
Land-use regulation, however, is fundamentally local. And that is where the effort needs to focus. If someone is operating a vacation rental, the neighbors will be the first to know.
What the city can do is to make it known to nearby residents when and if a vacation rental has been approved, perhaps through public notices or maybe by way of a placard or sign. Absent that, the neighbors will know to say something.
It will then be up to the city to enforce its own rules. Whether it will is the question.
