That's pretty much exactly what a lot of people don't want you to do - remove permanent housing and convert it to short term rentals for tourists. This is a big part of why NY and other municipalities are moving to regulate airbnb.
Its only allowed to be mutli-family because its grandfathered in. Believe me, the town and neighbors would rather it be single-family, because multi-family brings in a lower class of occupant.
And heres the other thing. It was originally a single family house that was converted to multi family. So things change, markets change, demand changes.
Codifying usage in zoning laws and making it immutable might be a luxury affordable for places like NYC, but its not affordable for places with tons of sellers and little buyers, places where foreclosure rates threaten the value of homes with current mortgages.
The occupants of my house go to restaurants, rent kayaks, go to the local attractions. This is a tourist town, and vacation rentals are expanding our reach.
People will stay at a vacation rental that wouldnt stay at a hotel. Because they get a kitchen and a room for the kids. They will stay for a week in the summer. Who wants to stay for a week in a hotel room with four kids?
Vacation rentals are keeping this town alive, and I don't think this is being represented in this debate.
There is near unlimited affordable housing available in this area.
This debate is about a law in NYC. Not your little vacation village where things may be completely different. The Outer Banks aren't going to outlaw short term rentals.
Seriously, if AirBNB were a free market (and it is), what these listings are doing is allowing more people to come into the city and spend their own money on services throughout the city. This is a boon for all businesses in the city. It increases the availability of units and lowers the cost of other hotels throughout the city.
What people are afraid of is that they see all these units available on AirBNB and assume they are empty? They are not, they are being rented out pretty regularly. Which means they are being used and filled, with real live human beings.
If people didn't like empty units in the city, they should be complaining about the high-end units like One57 and 436park that are removing available units for the city and creating high-rise ghost towns.
I don't believe for one second this increases the cost of rental and/or condo units in the city. Since what is really happening is that the units are still full. AirBNB allowed us to see that there was a very real apartment shortage in the city.
I lived in NYC, and even I had to move out because of high rents. But those high rents weren't because of AirBNB. It was due to a lack of smaller units being put on the market.
As the units consolidated from 1bd to 3 or 4bd apartments, the sizes of the apartments grew, and all new buildings were for multi-million dollar residences. The middle class got squeezed.
Now we are blaming AirBNB for the problems. And that is simply not the case.
thanks to airbnb i was able to visit nyc for ~10 where i spent a ton of money between restaurants, coffeeshops, random shopping and broadway shows.
the wife and i were thinking about returning next year but without airbnb (and all the freedom we have thanks to it, like cooking our own meals) i don't think we will. i'm sure i'm not the only one thinking like that.