Edinburgh Planning Permission

[Dawn36]

As an Airbnb host in Edinburgh, I was quite dismayed to read a twitter thread yesterday which highlighted the council’s refusal of an appeal by owners to keep their keysafes on the entrance of a listed building. Whilst this particular building is somewhat overloaded with keysafes, the overall sense of impatience with Airbnb hosts from both locals and the council is evidently growing. 

The thread went on with contributions from angry locals claiming that planning permission is required to run a short term let in the city and to do otherwise is breaking the law.  I’m becoming more and more frustrated on the uncertainties surrounding hosting in Edinburgh and whilst I will seek clarification from the council, I wondered if any other local hosts could shed some light on this.

[Kate1559]

There is a local Edinburgh group called PlaceEdinburgh who tell residents how to get the council start enforcement action. Follow @placeedinburgh. They basically tell residents step by step how to gather (make up) evidence. Once they have alerted the council, they will pursue and are successfully closing down entire flats. 
never mind the 90 day rule, they use ‘change of use’ reason at the moment as enforcement. 
regardless of whether your Airbnb causes offence, Edinburgh residents hate Airbnb and there will be many more once it becomes common knowledge of the process. 
Flats in communal stairs seem to be easy fodder as the council say that the Airbnb encourages more comings and going’s and is compromising security of residents. 
Ridiculous. 

[Susan17]

@Kate1559 

It's not just residents in Edinburgh that hate Airbnb - it's residents in every city on earth that Airbnb has grossly over-saturated with illegal listings from unscrupulous operators - many of them listing hundreds of properties each, that have been plundered from long-term rental stock. 

And it's not just Airbnb they despise, but Airbnb hosts too, because we're the face of Airbnb, and thanks to Airbnb's abject refusal to separate small, local independent hosts from shady "professional" and commercial outfits, we're all being tarred with the same brush. Complaints hotlines are ringing off the wall in every jurisdiction that have such a facility set up, and this will certainly increase as residents become aware of their existence. Posters decrying Airbnb activity are being plastered all over doors and windows of many Airbnbs and here in Dublin, exasperated locals have even taken to supergluing lockboxes of homes being used for short-term rentals. The war on Airbnb hosts is real, and is getting more brutal by the day. 

Make no mistake though - unfettered Airbnb activity from rogue operators in your city, and my city, and thousands of other towns and cities worldwide, is causing utter misery for local residents due to endless anti-social behaviour, neighbourhood disturbances, sky-rocketing rents, waste and traffic issues, drains on emergency services resources, and the displacement of families who have lived in the affected regions all their lives, but are now being forced out because there are either no homes left to rent at affordable rates, or vultures and speculators are buying up all the homes for sale, to punt out on Airbnb.

This is not a myth concocted by the media, nor a fairystory invented by the hotel lobbies. This is reality, and local residents - along with small, local independent hosts - are the ones who are suffering the very worst of the consequences of Airbnb's insatiable greed, and relentless quest for world domination. 

We can't blame people for doing whatever they need to do to reclaim their neighbourhoods and their homes for themselves and for their families, rather than sitting idly by and watching their towns and cities being pillaged and destroyed by a multi-billion dollar American global corporation and its cohorts. 

The Guardian. Revealed: The Areas In The UK With One Airbnb For Every Four Homes. 

"The highest incidence of Airbnbs was in Edinburgh Old Town, where there were 29 active listings for every 100 properties"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/20/revealed-the-areas-in-the-uk-with-one-airbnb-for-...

[Michelle53]

@Susan17  I think the ability to differentiate between "owner occupied" and "second home" or "investor owned" would be very useful data.   

If the percentage of "owner occupied" is high, it's telling that people are relying on the income from Airbnb in order to survive, or for supplemental income.   That says something about local economies in general. 

If the percentage of "second home" or "investor owned" is high, of course, that more directly relates to the issue of availability of rental housing stock. 

Also, it would be interesting to be able to parse out the percentage of rental-arbitrage units, if there was a way to segregate that data.