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Comment by uptown | Hacker News Reader

"There is no plausible 'consumer protection' story that would explain why building codes for permanent residence are not good enough for temporary residence as well. The law is there to protect hotel operators from vacation rental competition."

As an apartment owner in a multi-unit apartment building, I don't want the neighboring apartments being used as short-term rental properties - and the building regulations forbid it. It's absolutely a quality-of-living and consumer-protection issue protecting property owners from the risks associated with transients.

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Why do you need to government to require that? How about you only rent from land lords that disallow tenants from renting out their apartment. Maybe some people don't mind this and would like to have that as an option.

I don't rent - I own my apartment. I've invested in a property and a neighborhood zoned for a specific purpose. Cities are generally configured with zoning laws designed to preserve a certain standard of living for the larger community that extends beyond just a single apartment or building. It helps to preserve the intended use of those properties for people that choose to buy in those neighborhoods.

For instance it gives property owners in a residential neighborhood an assurance that a neighboring building can't decide to convert their rooftop to a nightclub potentially disturbing the neighboring buildings with noise, foot-traffic, car traffic, drunks, trash, fights, etc. If you gave individual landlords the right to make these decisions without wider oversight, you'd run into a lot more issues like these. Sure - today they can petition to override existing zoning regulations and that sometimes happens, but residential issues are larger than just an individual apartment or building.

I always wonder why people with this attitude live in cities. If you want peace and quiet, shouldn't you go get a few acres in the country? Living in the city means you're living right next to a bunch of other people. Living in the city and having the expectation of peace and tranquility and total control over your home just seems like expectations out of whack.

Maybe it's just that I get peeved when people get all "landed gentry" and start thinking that somehow because they are privileged to have been able to buy a piece of property that they have a moral right to control the lives of their neighbors.

That said, I support regulations "within reason" and I suppose it all comes down to a quantitative difference in where we draw that line.

Because that's not always an available option in the housing market. There are some cities (for example, present day San Francisco) where city wide apartment vacancy is so low that tenants basically have to take what they can get. Tenants are at a serious disadvantage to the whim landlords in this kind of market. Thus laws exist that restrict what landlords are allowed to provide, which serves to protect the tenants.

You can make an argument about not restricting the free market, but shelter is such a basic human need that I think it merits a healthy amount of regulation.

And the inadequate amount of housing availability is because of government regulation as well. If they would allow more building this would be less of an issue.

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