City Begins Cracking Down on Illegal AirBnbs

Photo by the AirBnb.

DC city regulators have taken the first step towards cracking down on illegal Airbnb listings. Will this impact the many listings in Georgetown? It’s unclear, but any increased regulatory attention is probably not good news for the property owners using the service.

As you probably know, Airbnb is a service that lets homeowners rent out a room, or the whole property, on a nightly basis. In Georgetown there are a bunch. In fact, many former long term rentals appear to have been converted to Airbnb use.

The thing is, though, that almost all the Airbnb listings in Georgetown are likely illegal. Using your property as a ersatz hotel is not permitted without a business license. And you can’t get the appropriate business license in most of Georgetown due to zoning restrictions.

It’s a situation that is readily apparent to anyone who looks through Airbnb’s listings. And it looks like the city’s regulators are one of those people. Two weeks ago, the city filed suit against Doug Jeffries, the founder of Results Gym, for operating his impressive house as a rental party venue (the home is located in an alleyway behind the Church of the Pilgrims on 22nd St. in Dupont).

Jeffries apparently routinely rented out the house to huge and loud parties. So it’s not terribly surprising that the city is going after him first. But it’s unclear if the city is going to take a wider dragnet to the situation. Frankly it would be easy to match up the listings in Airbnb to the property address, and then look up the licenses on file.

Should they do this, though? If no neighbors are complaining (particularly about loud parties) what’s the need? The city is losing out on hotel taxes, sure. Maybe the proper approach is to create a regulatory category for this type of use?