Back in January, Mayor Marty Walsh proposed an ordinance to track and regulate the rentals of bedrooms, apartments or entire houses for days or weeks.
Walsh has proposed a fee for three different categories of rentals. Rooms for rent while the owner is still around, would pay $25 a year; whole apartments, condos or homes that are rented out by their owners who live their the majority of the time would pay $100 a year; and units bought by investors, would pay $500 a year per unit.
After public vetting, it seems Walsh may be pulling back a bit on his initial proposal. The Walsh administration would like to delay the vote until they have the technology to enforce the new rules. According to the Boston Globe, head of the City of Boston Inspectional Services – William Christopher believes the city needs the technology first to track in real time the thousands of apartments and homes being rented nightly before rules and regulations are implemented.
On Monday, there was a three hour hearing at City Hall to discuss proposed regulations. City Council members have until Wednesday to either vote on the bill, or withdraw it to work on it more. So we shall see.
Glad we all got together, argued, just to figure out that the city doesn’t have the resources to even regulate it.
Great use of your time guys!!!!!!
Also….even if they did implement those fee’s…those are literal pennies to those landlords. How in any way is that “regulating”. The “investor” class they mention, can make tens of thousands on one unit annually, obviously they’ll pay $500. What can the abutter do about it? Nothing, the LL has paid his $500 fee……what a joke.
Well, unless AirBnB is going to turn over their data this was moot before it got started. And by the time the city somehow does figure it out, along will come blockchaining and then game over,man.