As director of government relations for HomeAway, one of the largest listers of vacation homes in the world, Matt Curtis' job is to help get short-term rentals legalized in cities where they operate largely on the black market.
He could be forgiven, then, if he thought he would be preaching to the choir Wednesday night (Nov. 5) when he was the guest speaker at a meeting held by the Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity, a membership organization for property owners who want to be able to legally run short-term rentals.
But this is New Orleans, a city well acquainted with black markets and home to some who are quite content to operate in them.
After Curtis finished speaking, a man shot his hand in the air.
Whereas others wanted to know about cities that had successfully integrated private-home rentals into the larger touring economy, this man wanted to know if anybody has successfully shut them down.
Curtis' answer: No. Even in New York, which can fine illegal operations up to $25,000, black-market rentals have continued to proliferate.
Exactly, the man responded. "It's very hard for me to see the city of New Orleans actually doing anything to stop it," he said.
The implications of the man's comment became clear in a follow-up interview: Why should property owners consent to regulation and taxation if the city can't do anything to stop it anyway?
He has a point. The city's record on enforcement is thin.
For years, the city has done little more than send vaguely threatening letters to the operators of illegal short-term rentals, despite loud complaints from some neighborhood groups who recount horror stories of Tuesday night bachelor parties and bungalows crammed with a dozen beds. Short-term rentals are prohibited by both civil and criminal ordinances but authorities have never cracked down because the rules were not enforceable, according to the city.
A tweak to the civil prohibition this summer was supposed to give the rules some teeth, but members of the Alliance for Neighborhood Prosperity said they haven't heard about any increased enforcement.
The man who seemed comfortable operating on the margins of the law sat at a table of four non-alliance members at the meeting. All owners of several short-term rental properties, they came to see which way the wind is blowing on future regulation of their businesses. The man and most of the others did not give their names, and they seemed skeptical of the alliance and Curtis in particular.
HomeAway, which owns the subsidiary brand VRBO, is a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of $3.15 billion. It is expected to clear $440 million in revenue this year.
Why, the group of upstart operators asked a reporter, should they be asked to dig into their pockets to pay the city when the websites they use like VRBO and Airbnb, which make millions off of cities like New Orleans, pay nothing back into the local economy?
That drew criticism from Sabin Bokus, a leader in the alliance who listened in on a reporter's conversation with one of the skeptical property owners.
Part of the Alliance for Neighborhood prosperity's mission is to weed out bad actors, he said. "The reason this group exists is for people like me who care about their properties, and their city ... and the people who come to it," said Bokus, a Mobile, Ala., native who rents out his second home in the Garden District when he's not in town.
The alliance has put together a list of best practices for operators as well as a model ordinance that it has distributed to City Council members.
Polly Hardie, president of the alliance, declined to provide a copy of it, but she described it as a "wish list" that's open to negotiation. "There is room for winnowing," she said.
Curtis told the audience at the meeting that few big cities in the country have fully implemented a regulatory framework. Austin, Texas, where he worked for years as an aide in the mayor's office, is on the cutting edge in many ways.
Vacation rentals not occupied by their owners are required to be registered with the city, and, in neighborhoods zoned for single-family dwellings, no more than 3 percent of houses can be in operation at any given time. Those who rent space in their own homes -- "home sharing" operators, as Curtis called them -- can only host guests 90 days per year.
Hardie said that she hopes to begin serious discussions with the City Council in December and begin the legislative process sometime early next year.
Hardie stressed that the group of upstarts content to stay illegal does not represent the alliance or its views. Such "bad actors" would not be tolerated among the membership ranks, she said.
As the alliance undertakes its effort to bring short-term rentals out from the shadows, it may find itself fighting those who would rather remain there. "This is New Orleans, man" one of the property owners told a reporter. "People hustle."
