The City Council voted Monday to legalize the operations of Airbnb and other short-term rental services in the city.

The ordinance allows homeowners to rent out space in their units for less than 30 days at a time. However, the owner of the unit being rented must either live in that unit or must live in the same building; . If they are renting a unit they don't live in, they must own the entire building, meaning people who own condominium units in larger buildings cannot rent their units with Airbnb or similar services.

The rental units must also be registered with the city�s Inspectional Services Department, and their owners must maintain at least $1 million in liability insurance. Tenants are not allowed to rent out their apartments without the express written consent of the landlord.

Debate on where owners can live

While the council voted to pass the proposal, there was debate about whether landlords should be allowed to rent out units where the owner lives in the building, but does not live in the unit.

Councilor Dennis Carlone expressed concern that allowing owner-adjacent units to be included as short-term rentals would have a negative impact on the amount of affordable housing available in the city.

�We have said here many times that affordable housing is our No. 1 issue,� Carlone said. �And that we can just do 20 percent of new construction, we can�t just finally add money into the budget � we have to do everything.

�This is everything,� Carlone said.

Vice Mayor Marc McGovern said he also thought that short-term rental of units whose owners did not live in them could impact the amount of affordable housing in the city.

�If every unit counts, and if I believe that we have a supply-and-demand issue and that we need every possible unit, then I have to be true to that,� McGovern said.

The council voted down Carlone�s amendment to eliminate owner-adjacent units from the proposal.

Addressing 'de facto motels'

While Councilor David Maher noted that it was unclear how short-term rentals would affect the economy in the long term, he said the proposal �reasonably addresses the situation as we know it today.�

While Councilor Leland Cheung said it was �not an ideal ordinance� in terms of what he would have liked to have seen, he agreed the issue of short-term rentals �is something that we need a regulatory framework in place for."

�It does meet the test in terms of moving this issue forward and addressing, I think, an issue that we have seen in Cambridge,� Cheung said. �Especially with large property owners renting out big chunks of Airbnb and creating de facto motels."

Cheung said the council can revisit the issue �a few years down the line."

�I think this is a good first step,� Cheung said.

While Councilor Nadeem Mazen supported the proposal, he said he would have liked to have allowed tenants to be able to rent out their units to supplement their income, without having to get permission from their landlord.

Mazen suggested tenants be allowed to rent out their units if they weren�t prohibited from doing so in their lease.

�If it hasn�t been mentioned in the lease, then the landlord doesn�t really care,� Mazen said. �A lot of people are going to ask for that permission, even though it�s not in the lease, and not get that permission.�

Even though the council voted to require tenants to get permission from their landlord, Mazen still felt the proposal was an example of �incredible consensus building.�