Tighten the screw on Airbnb | The Press

The rules imposed on Airbnb have been stricter in Quebec for three years, but obviously this is not enough. For the past few days, a map of the island of Montreal covered in red dots from the Inside Airbnb site has been circulating on social networks. Each dot is said to represent a short-term rental apartment. Quebec Solidarity MNA Ruba Ghazal posted this map on Twitter to challenge the Minister responsible for Housing, Andrée Laforest.

Impossible to check every point on the map, but a brief visit to Airbnb is enough to see that there are a very large number of short-term rentals available in Montreal. And in the midst of a housing crisis, this is causing outrage. Especially since Montreal expects an increase of 10 to 25% in the number of families who will find themselves homeless from 1^er July.

Every major city in the world is struggling with this problem. It’s gotten so bad that cities like Barcelona and New York now ban short-term rentals of less than 30 days.

Since 2019, Revenu Québec has had more powers to pinch landlords who use Airbnb for commercial purposes without a permit. Indeed, each lessor must register and display his license number in his rental offer. Violators face fines ranging from $2,500 to $25,000. For the year 2021-2022, Revenu Québec carried out 3335 inspections, served 1759 statements of offense which resulted in 919 convictions.

The City of Montreal has also adopted more restrictive measures. Depending on the boroughs, short-term rentals are limited to certain streets. Inspectors can file cases and the borough will file a complaint, but according to the vice-president of the city’s executive committee, Benoit Dorais, also mayor of the Sud-Ouest, the process is long and tedious.

In truth, governments are no match for this sprawling enterprise. And this is not specific to the metropolis. The same issues are observed in Québec, Trois-Rivières, Gatineau and in several vacation regions. Airbnb disturbs ecosystems and always poses challenges to elected officials.

One of the problems is that the regulations are not respected. All it takes is a visit to the Airbnb site to see it: few landlords post their permit numbers, and there are short-term rentals everywhere, even on streets where it is prohibited. As for the prices, they make you dizzy: 200, 300, 400 $ per night. And they fluctuate, like Uber prices do on a New Year’s Eve. A condo that rents for $233 a day on Richmond Street near Des Bassins Street in Griffintown will cost $2,553 a night over the weekend. end of the Formula 1 Grand Prix. We are far, very far from the initial intentions of this participatory platform which allowed individuals to make ends meet by renting their apartment when they went on vacation. We are faced with companies that use the platform too often sheltered from tax.

The harmful effects of Airbnb in communities have been documented for several years: nuisance for the neighborhood, deterioration of neighborhood life, impact on local businesses… The Press had published a very complete file on the question in 2018, file which remains relevant even if certain rules have changed.

Airbnb is far from being solely responsible for the housing crisis plaguing our cities, but it is certainly contributing to it by reducing the number of homes available on the market and driving up the cost of rent. There are not 36,000 solutions to combat this scourge. We need more inspectors on the ground to catch landlords in the act. And it takes even heftier fines to discourage owners who use it for commercial purposes by evading the rules.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if residents said loud and clear that they no longer want this type of rental in their neighborhood as the people of Barcelona did, for example.

The quality of life and the diversity of our cities depend on it.