Jeff: Just saw this post on the thread. My involvement with East Bay in getting the township to modify their ordinance has not been successful. I had the support of the supervisor and the planner, but when we went to the board asking them to consider modifying the ordinance to acknowledge the different type of rentals, (ie Owner occupied, Host unoccupied, Investor type and etc) and also modify the frequency limitation in the ordinance (States only one rental in a 7 day period). We had other Airbnb hosts at the November meeting and made the presentation and you can see this on the video recording of the meeting. The outcome was that the board didn't want to revisit the ordinance, stated they spent two years on it and wanted to see how it would go before they go back and make any changes. That was really frustrating seeing how I went to supervisor and asked if the rest of the board was tired of this issue or if they would be open to listening and making more changes. So I did a ton of work to prove why modifying the frequency was needed and also why their needed to be designations to types of rentals as you can't have an ordinance fit all situations. I got no where. The frequency piece alone is almost impossible to manage on Airbnb. We are a host onsite rental. We have a guest suite in our home with private entrance. Our average stay is 2-3 nights. Folks don't likely spend a 7 day stay with us because we don't provide a full kitchen in their suite. They can use our kitchen, but the accomodation is not totally a furnished home (full kitchen). Only 4% of listings on Airbnb list as a 7 day rental. Most list in the 2-3 night range and that is an accurate representation of guests using the site. So I pleaded that if we could only host 1 time in 7 days that the minute someone would book a stay, we would have to go into the calendar and block out the rest of the days of the week so that we weren't hosting twice in 7 days. But in doing so, you make it that you can't host again until the first day is free again. So if a guest books Friday-Monday, then you cannot host again until the following Friday. So you block out Tue, Wed, Thurs. So you now have lost the possibility of hosting a Thursday/Sunday and you are now only able to host another Friday/Monday. It becomes too restrictive and your ability to get enough people to view your listing is difficult. And what if someone books and you don't get into Airbnb quick enough to block off the other dates and someone books in that time? Then you would be in violation of the ordiance. You would be fined or if you cancel the reservation, to avoid being in violation, you then lose your status as a SuperHost. We made a passionate case that those that are host occupied rentals are not the problem children that neighbors complain about. We are there to police our guests and we are onsite to address issues. If you have any other questions, I'm happy to help and can be found on the social site that starts with the letter F. Blessings, Marlene Baldwin
