Activists say short-term rentals may lead to more displacement

By Melissa Hellmann, Contributing Writer

When Noelle Million, 70, purchased her Belltown Court condo unit in 1997, she was hoping to cultivate a community with neighboring homeowners. Instead, she shares a floor with a constantly rotating crop of visitors. “You hear kids thumping around the halls all the time, because they don’t realize it’s a home,” Million says one morning in late October. She has short, blonde hair that she covers with a bright blue cap. Over nearly the past ten years, Million has battled with investors who own condos advertised through short-term vacation rental companies like Airbnb and VRBO.

“Short term,” Million says as she points to door after door during a quick jaunt around her fifth-floor hallway. Soon, she’s counted over half of the red doors on her floor as visitors, forming a mental map where her condo is an island surrounded by a sea of short-term renters.

According to Million, over 80 of the 249 units are short-term rentals, most of which are owned by real-estate investors who live off-site. Such commercial use of condos and apartments takes them off the long-term housing market, according to a Seattle City Council policy brief. As a result of the steady stream of visitors, Million and some of her neighbors complain that their water bill has drastically risen, housecleaning costs have increased and building security has been compromised in recent years.

And the problem spans beyond Belltown Court. Recent findings by nonprofit Puget Sound Sage revealed that short-term rental listings have grown by nearly 63% every year. If expansion continues at that rate, Puget Sound Sage projects that up to 1500 potential long-term units could be lost by 2019, according to a 2016 study.

Although Seattle has one of the higher number of listings per person in the nation, the study adds, there are no regulatory restrictions on the use of short-term rentals.

New regulations: Airbnb pleased; activists want changes

As a city councilmember, Mayor Tim Burgess proposed new regulations that would limit hosts to only rent out two dwelling units, impose a $10 per-night tax on hosts and require them to have a special short-term rental license. Yet, existing short-term rental operators with multiple units in Downtown, Uptown and Lake Union will be exempt from the limitations.

In a statement to KIRO-7, Airbnb lauded the new regulations. “We are supportive and pleased these proposals will allow responsible Airbnb hosts to continue sharing their homes to help make ends meet, while protecting Seattle’s long-term housing stock … We will continue working closely with the City of Seattle on common sense regulations for short-term rentals,” wrote Laura Spanjian, Airbnb Regional Public Policy Director in September.

But to Puget Sound Sage and some housing rights advocates, the proposed regulations don’t go far enough.

Howard Greenwich, Senior Policy Advisor at Puget Sound Sage, has been studying the effect of short-term rentals on displacement for 18 months, and found that investors from around the world sometimes swoop up inexpensive properties only to rent the rooms through companies like Airbnb for exorbitant prices.

“What we’re concerned with right now is an indirect displacement,” says Greenwich. “Either long-term units being taken off the market and having a ripple effect, or people who are buying up individual units … and turning it into Airbnb or short-term rentals,” he adds, as is the case at Belltown Courts.

The situation has become so unfavorable that Million wants to leave her condo, but she says that she can’t afford to buy any other properties in Seattle. She and some of her neighbors have written letters to city council, but they say that their concerns largely go ignored.

Million says that she started to notice her neighbors were unrecognizable in the mid-2000s when the building was undergoing repairs and some condo owners sold their units to real-estate investors. Now, tourists lugging around suitcases are so common that she says she takes the back stairs to avoid them on the elevator.

Her neighbor Kathy Cook, 48, moved into her condo in 2014 and says that soon thereafter she received an unexpected visitor who walked into her unit in search of a short-term rental. Cook loses sleep thinking about what would happen to the short-term renters who are unaware of the building’s escape plans during a fire, she says. “If there’s a catastrophe, lives will be lost for a buck,” Cook adds.

Puget Sound SAGE: Southeast Seattle faces risk of displacement

Aside from the compromised safety of current condo owners and apartment dwellers, Greenwich worries that people of color, immigrants and refugees will be disproportionately impacted by the influx of short-term rentals. Because housing is cheaper in areas such as Southeast Seattle, that is home to many people of color, Greenwich says he’s concerned that marginalized communities will be competing with real-estate investors seeking potential short-term units.

On Mon. Oct 31, Seattle City Councilmembers introduced competing amendments that set up a debate over how much further to regulate short-term rentals.

Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien (District 6, NW Seattle) introduced amendments designed to address concerns about possible displacement in Southeast Seattle and other similar neighborhoods. O’Brien’s amendments would raise taxes on short-term rentals and establish a fee for platform owners like Airbnb and VRBO. O’Brien proposed to spend the revenue on affordable housing, equitable development projects (centers for job training, entrepreneurship and cultural activities) and administration of the new regulations.

Seattle City Councilmember Rob Johnson (District 4, NE Seattle) wants to lower the taxes proposed in the original legislation.

Councilmembers Lisa Herbold (District 1, West Seattle) want to amend the proposed legislation to restrict further the number of short-term rentals that a person can operate.

Councilmember Johnson has proposed an amendment to loosen restrictions on short-term rentals that were in Burgess’ original proposal.

The full council will debate and vote on the proposed short-term rental regulations on Mon. Nov. 13, according to O’Brien’s aide Susie Levy.

Questions, comments, tips?

Email: melissaoutsidecityhall@gmail.com

Twitter: @m_hellmann

Melissa Hellmann is a freelance contributor to Outside City Hall. She is not a member of Seattle Displacement Coalition, nor does she speak for the organization. George Howland Jr, longtime independent Seattle journalist, is her editor at Outside City Hall. As a woman of color who has reported globally, Hellmann’s multicultural perspective grants her access to underrepresented communities everywhere she has lived. Over the past six years, she has written about domestic and international news for a range of publications including YES! Magazine, The Associated Press, TIME, The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Time Out, SF Weekly, SF Business Times and many others.