Original intent

Your District B Council candidates have no idea what the "original intent" of the short term rental liberalization the current council passed a year ago. 

Seth Bloom, former Orleans Parish School Board member, said short term rental policies should be uniform across the whole city but wasn’t sure if the 90-days policy was too strict or not strict enough. Short term rentals were originally meant for people with a guest house or an extra room, Bloom said, but it’s expansion to whole home rentals requires more regulation.

They weren't.

Catherine Love, a doctorate of veterinary medicine and environmental conservationist, said the short term rental ordinance just creates a new tax and leaves neighborhoods in disarray. She said current policies force the responsibility of affordable housing on residents, though it’s a governmental issue that should be handled by the government.

The original intent of short term rentals was to create a source of income for people to keep up their homes and prevent blighted property, Love said. But now, density restrictions and homestead requirements are needed to prevent any further disruption of communities.

It wasn't.

Short term rentals have been exploding in New Orleans and in many other "destination cities" around the world because real estate investors and landlords see higher profits renting to luxury travelers than to people who actually live there.  Under our current law, a single owner or company can buy of multiple properties and manage them all as hotels. That's where the money in this is and that's the "original intent" of the current regime. 

Other cities are recognizing the damage this has done to their neighborhoods and are starting to push back. New Orleans is, as always, behind the curve and will continue to be so as long as LaToya Cantrell and Seth Bloom are around to misrepresent the "original intent" of their friends who profit from displacement.  Or, in Bloom's case, they're here to tell us there's nothing we can do about it and that we should get over ourselves.

Though more regulation is needed – and possibly smarter policies – Bloom said short term rentals are here to stay.

“AirBnBs are here, they’re across the country, we’re not unique enough to ban them completely,” he said.