Nobody could have predicted.. nobody can predict... nobody will have predicted

Can you believe it? The City Council's STR regulations aren't actually clamping down on STRs.

Councilman Joseph Giarrusso had questions of his own on short-term rentals. He asked Smith whether the city had seen the “radical increase” in commercial permits that some short-term rental critics had feared would occur this fall. He specifically asked about Mid-City.

The new rules passed in August include a 25 percent cap on the number of units within large commercial buildings that could be used as Airbnbs. However, that will not apply to permits that are approved before Dec. 1. Some short-term rental critics urged the council to put a moratorium on new commercial permits until Dec. 1 to prevent a rush of applications meant to lock in rentals above the 25 percent cap.

“I wouldn’t use the word radical, but there has been an increase, especially in some of the commercial units that just came online,” Smith said. “We don’t expect that trend to continue.”

Smith was referring to a new gated community in Mid-City called 37Hundred Bienville. According to city data, all 20 of the luxury condos have commercial short term rental permits, which allow the owner to rent out the unit 365 days a year.

The permit holder for all 20 units is Hosteeva LLC, an international rental platform based in Metairie. A unit in the new development is advertised on their site at $142 a night.

According to city data, the number of active commercial short-term rental permits has increased by 331 since the new rules were passed by the City Council in August, up to a total of 1,371.

"We don't expect that trend to continue." Does that mean after December 1?  Because, sure, I guess. But it should have stopped before it began in August. It isn't just a problem with this site either.  The Charity Hospital deal also has "grandfathered" STRs over the new limits baked into it. Everybody knew this would happen. Even idiots like me knew it would happen.  Councilmembers certainly knew it would happen.  On the day the regulations were passed, people in the council chambers literally were chanting "Freeze commercial permits!" It's why Giarrusso even asks the question here.

People are shocked and all but I have no idea why that would be.  Remember, Council only came back to pass these insufficient rules because they were embarrassed that people had noticed how insufficient the last set of rules passed under Mitch had been. The current council members aren't stupid. Most of them were elected during a year when voters were mad about STRs so they want to at least look like they tried to do something about it. On the other hand, these politicians don't actually care if you have an affordable place to live. Ultimately, they all work for the real estate vampires.  Which is why the new rules have gaping loopholes in the zoning language in addition to this deliberately planned three month "gold rush" on grandfathering.

What's remarkable, though, is despite having obviously sold housing stressed New Orleanians out more than once, this Council still gets to play Good Cop during the city budget hearings. But only because it turns out the mayor is a more ham-fisted bad actor than they are.

Palmer, along with Councilwoman Helena Moreno, also once again questioned whether the city was properly allocating millions of tax dollars that are specifically earmarked for short-term rental enforcement.

“I’m talking about making sure that the money that’s coming in for enforcement is actually being used on enforcement,” Moreno said.

Monday’s meeting was part of the council’s annual budget process, which includes hearings on the proposed 2020 budget on a department by department basis. The council has until Dec. 1 to tweak and approve the budget. The Department of Safety and Permits — which is responsible for much of the city’s short-term rental enforcement efforts — was one of the five departments or agencies to present their budgets to the council on Monday.

As The Lens recently reported, Cantrell administration officials have gradually walked back plans for beefing up enforcement over the course of 2019. In March, Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño sent a memo to the council explaining that “in order to ensure the city is adequately staffed to handle Short-Term Rental Enforcement,” 16 new employees would be needed.

But now, the Department of Safety and Permits only plans to hire a quarter of that. According to the presentation from Safety and Permits Director Zach Smith, the department is adding four new employees to enforce the new, stricter short-term rental rules that the City Council passed this summer — two attorneys and two code enforcement inspectors.

The trick here is the mayor doesn't really want to do anti STR enforcement. She wants them to proliferate. This week, in fact, the mayor and her PAC are campaigning hard in favor of a local tax on Short Term Rentals on the November 16 ballot.  Just how much revenue that tax will produce is still a matter of dispute. And we've written plenty about how this part of the "Fair Sham" is as inadequate fiscally as it is damaging to the affordable housing supply. Most crucially, as the DSA election guide points out, the new tax enters the city into a Faustian bargain with exploitation.

Turning to short term rentals for revenue only further lets the elite off the hook while actively worsening conditions for cost-burdened workers. This tax would create a perverse incentive for the city to encourage STR growth to gain more tax revenue. In fact we are already seeing the effects of that.

Knowing what we know now about the failures of even the latest set of STR regulations, it isn't hard to imagine a future moment when City Council has to revisit the issue yet again. If the STR tax passes and we end up having to argue against a vital revenue source just to prevent our homes from becoming full-time hotels, it's all going to be a lot harder.  Your mayor and council members understand this now.  But rest assured they will have not difficulty affecting surprise later.