City Council - Housing & Community Development Committee Hearing on Docket #1634

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Good afternoon everyone. My name, for the record, my name is Liz Breadon. I'm District 9 City Councillor and I am the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Housing and Community Development. Today is October 30th, 2025 and the exact time is 2.03 p.m. This hearing is being recorded. It has also been livestreamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.housing at boston.gov and will be made a part of the record and available to all councillors. Public testimony will be taken, actually we're going to take public testimony immediately after opening remarks. and individuals will be called in order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. and if you're looking to testify virtually please email our Central Staff Liaison Cora Montrond at cora.montrond.ca Montrond, M-O-N-T-R-O-N-D, at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 1634, order for a hearing regarding ongoing challenges with the City of Boston's oversight of short-term rentals. This matter was sponsored by Councilors Coletta, Gabriella Coletta Zapata, Sharon Durkan, and Ruthzee Louijeune, and was referred to the committee on September 10th, 2025. Today, I am joined by my colleagues in the order of arrival. Councillor Ed Flynn from District 2, Councillor Murphy City Councillor at Large, Councillor Gabriella Coletta Zapata, and Councillor John Fitzgerald District 3. We will open with some opening remarks from the leads, from everyone actually. We've got a small number we can manage. Opening remarks from councillors in attendance. So, councillor Coletta Zapata, you have two minutes.

Thank you so much, Chair, for convening us and thank you all for being here, both members of the administration, the public and my colleagues. The intent of Boston's short-term rental ordinance, first championed by then Councillor and now Mayor Michelle Wu, was to protect our city's housing stock, safeguard neighborhood stability, and ensure that our homes are not treated like hotels by absentee investors. I call today's oversight hearing because despite the best efforts and really hard work by ISD, so I commend all of you, despite that hard work, Boston short-term rental enforcement system is facing challenges. And the experience of our residents in East Boston and beyond make that painfully clear. What we're seeing on the ground tells a different story. In Eagle Hill in East Boston, two Newton-based property owners continue to operate, continued with a D, because I know that there's been some work on that. continue to operate a legal Airbnb despite multiple violations, mounting complaints, and clear evidence that they do not live in Boston. In the North End, there's a Duxbury owner who exploited the so-called hospital stay exemption, renting to tourists while claiming compliance for medical housing. And in the Heights in East Boston, ISD found no violation simply because the units are listed at 29 nights or more, even as neighbors reported constant guest turnover and disruptive activity at all hours. These cases are not isolated. They are symptoms of a larger systemic issue. Platforms, who I won't name, routinely ignore city orders to remove illegal listings. ISD fines are capped at $300 per incident, which is barely a slap on the wrist for absentee landlords treating housing like a commercial business. and loopholes like the extended stay and hospital stay provisions are being weaponized to evade the very spirit of this law. Residents across my district have done everything right. They've documented, reported, and pleaded for help. Yet their neighborhoods remain overrun by unlicensed and transient rentals. Today we are here to seek answers. and I really look forward to hearing from all of you from ISD, from BPD and policy experts just to see how we can finally close some of these enforcement gaps through reformed regs or any other solutions that are presented here. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Coletta Zapata. Councillor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is an important discussion I've worked on this issue for eight years with then City Councilor Wu and with City Councilor Lydia Edwards and myself. We were the three leaders on this issue working with Residents and community organizations. One of them is in this room now. Ford Cavalieri did a lot of work on quality of life issues and neighborhood concerns. But I also want to highlight the Chinese Progressive Association. did a lot of work on this issue as well. I've had many of these types of situations that Councilor Coletta Zapata also mentioned and they're frequently and still taking place in my neighborhood as well. Do want to acknowledge ISD and the Boston Police. I document everything and send everything by email I'm asking for support, but one of my main issues that I focus in is the quality of life of residents with these short-term rentals and illegally It has many public safety challenges as well and it's impacting residents whether it's through inadequate Pest Control Issues or the way they take out garbage or the late night parties that are excessive and the volume of noise. But it's a major problem. in the city. Enforcement is the key. There are laws on the books. They just have to be enforced. And that's what we need to do on the city council is to show up, advocate for our constituents, Work with ISD, the Boston Police, but make sure our residents are treated with respect. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. I'm happy we have ISD, the police, community members to talk about the challenges. Short-term rentals aren't bad per se and for many that's how people can afford to keep you know their homes but at the same time I know there's pockets around the city obviously East Boston near the airport, Savin Hill There was a time when you'd see so many people just wheeling up, you know, luggage to this train station realizing that the neighborhood has changed, that a lot of these opportunities for, you know, permanent Rentals and three families were turning into, you know, flipping over with These short term rentals. So just looking forward to hearing what rules are on the book. I know Council Flynn mentioned it. It's something I say almost always when we have a lot of these hearings like we don't need to reinvent the wheel or make new rules or file new ordinances if there are already rules on the book so how do we support you at ISD and the police and others who need to enforce and if we do need to strengthen or make new ones then let's talk it through so we're looking forward to hearing

Murphy, and we've been joined by Councilor Worrell. Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. This is certainly an issue if we don't keep the restraints around it. It can get out of control very quickly. And I know, as Councilor Murphy said, there are a lot of things on the books now. I look forward to understanding how we can work better with the platforms that provide these services and what better we can do to help communicate with them and identify problem properties or illegal properties and certainly Have a lot to learn on the issue myself, so I'm looking forward to the hearing. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Councillor Worrell, would you like to make some opening statements?

Yes, thank you to the chair and also thank you to the sponsor and sponsors of this hearing and thank you to the panel for being here. I'm here to listen and learn some of the same issues that my council colleagues have brought up. are some of the same issues that I'm facing. So just want to learn about what type of enforcement, the coordinated effort, and how we as counselors can better help your efforts. So thank you. Looking forward to the discussion. Thank you.

I'll just give myself a couple of minutes. Yes, I think we've corresponded with ASD. We've been working with you on this issue about Airbnb and short-term rentals in our neighbourhood for some time. I think it's very discouraging when we work through the process of reviewing and approving new development in the city, in our neighbourhood. And then we find that chunks of the new development are being rented out as short-term rentals at a time when we're desperately needing more accommodation for long-term rentals. and I also think it's because that generates a level of discursity in our long-term rental market that drives the prices up as well. So we have many concerns about what's happening in Alston Brighton. It seems to have a little hot spot around around the area in Brighton Centre near St. Gabriel's which is now the Overlook development and Avalon and 1515 We have a very discreet area of hotspot there, but I'm looking forward to the conversation. Throwing it all out, I think it's really useful to have a periodic review of how it's going with Airbnb. or short-term rentals to be more accurate because there's many platforms. But I also feel that are there ways that we need to tweak? Are there any remedies to the problems that we're seeing and any ways that we need to tweak the ordinance? That's all up for discussion this afternoon and thank you so much. I'm going to hand it over. Commissioner, would you like to make an opening statement before we get into the weeds and the conversation?

Thank you, Councilor Chair. I would, yes. And first, I just wanted to introduce my colleagues from inspection services who are the experts on the topic. On the ground and can get as much in the weeds as councillors are interested in bidding.

Just to be clear, I think we'll start with just a short statement. We'll do public testimony and then we'll come back for a longer Oh, perfect, yeah. Is that okay? That's great, yeah. Excellent. Go ahead. So you've got two minutes or so.

Okay, I'll be quick. So I'll introduce Director Regina Hansen, Assistant Commissioner Evangeline Maxwell-Deep, Davis, and Inspector Johnson. Super, I don't know if you'd like to introduce yourself.

Deputy Superintendent John Brown, I'm the Zone 1 commander. which encompasses A1, A7, D4, and D14. So kind of from East Boston through downtown all the way up to Breadon. All the way up to Breadon, very good, thank you.

I'll try to keep to my two minutes. As you know, the ordinance was established to balance The benefits of home sharing with the need to protect the housing stock and the neighborhood stability as has been talked about. It actually has been credited with Recently with reducing listings by up to 56%, but challenges, as you have mentioned, sure remain. And it is our goal to use the ordinance to support Both responsible hosts maintain compliance and preserve housing for residents through the housing crisis that we face. We do take at ISD this responsibility really seriously and are enforcing the ordinance to the full extent that it allows. through the dedicated work of the staff members that are here with me today. Our inspectors as well, analysts and administrative staff who are back at 1010 Mass Ave. They're investigating complaints. They're working directly with residents and the platforms to ensure compliance. They've built relationships across departments, including our colleagues at the Boston Police, but also the Mayor's Office of Housing. The law department and obviously the city's 3-1-1 team to accomplish this. We do think we have a well-established process for identifying unregistered listing following up on violations and ensuring that the legitimate host can continue operating responsibly. But we also do want to acknowledge the limitations that we do face with the current framework. The ordinance is giving us clear authority in cases where A property is listed as short-term rental in violation of the registration rules or of sanitary codes. But there are some areas where enforcement is more complex, for example, We do encounter listings associated with hospital stays or corporate housing where our enforcement capacity is more limited. And then operationally the steps to the enforcement process sometimes can follow a timeline that does not satisfy every resident. So we're really, Glad that there's an interest by the Council in this topic and look forward to the discussion.

Very good. Thank you so much. So now we're going to go on to public testimony. We will start with in-person testimony from Hania Bank. and then we have others lined up for testimony via Zoom. Martin Rotor and Catherine Bent, they will be testifying via Zoom. Let me just set the time, start. Repeat, start.

Okay, Hania. The floor is yours. Okay, thank you so much. Good afternoon, Coletta, Councillors, and members of the ISD team. My name is Hania Bang and I live on 108 110 Trenton Street in East Boston and I want to thank Councilor Coletta for her continued leadership and for standing up for residents of my neighborhood who have been directly impacted by illegal short-term rentals. For over a year, my partner and I have endured Thank you very much. Neither owner of Unit 1 or 2 lives on Trenton Street, but they continue to assert the right to rent their units short-term again in the future. Although the listings are currently paused, they have told us directly that they may resume short-term rentals. And just for In this context, one owner of one unit applied for a short-term rental back, I think, in 2024. It was rejected and she continued to rent her unit until just recently, which was August. The other owner obtained the short-term permit even though he doesn't live in the building. The impact of us has been serious. We have experienced noise disturbances, including a loud and really large Airbnb party that required police response last July. The constant turnover of strangers has created safety concerns and a complete loss of comfort and community. So for example, Airbnb guests continuously left our main doors to the street, both in the front of the building and the back of the building, open to a point that my partner and I, every night, Another example was improperly disposed trash. This was happening continuously because Airbnb guests are not instructed where to put trash correctly, so that also creates a rodent issue. We also face significant insurance liability as our building policy does not cover short-term rental activity, meaning that any damage or injury caused by a short-term rental guest could result in a denied claim leaving us financially exposed. Because of ISD's Lack of proper enforcement, we were forced to hire a legal counsel just to protect our rights and ensure compliance with city regulations and our master deed. While ISD issued $300 fines to both owners, these penalties were insufficient and failed to deter continued violations. When an illegal rental brings a $300 per night, the fine becomes meaningless. We've suffered hardship because of these ongoing violations and lack of consistent enforcement. We are simply asking for stronger oversight and the right to live peacefully in our own home. I respectfully urge ISD to take decisive action to ensure that only owners who meet The residency requirements are allowed to operate short-term rentals and that persistent violators are held accountable under the law.

Oh, and also we've been joined by City Council President, Rucy Louijeune. and Councillor Ben Webber. Oh, here we go. Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you, Martin. Thank you very much. You have the floor. You have got two minutes. Thank you. You have the floor. Do you hear us now?

Louism, East Rosen. Members of EDCO in the room.

Can you hear us, Martin?

You seem to be frozen.

We'll come back to you. We seem to be having some technical issues here. Is Catherine Bent ready to testify? Martin, we're going to come back to you momentarily. Is Catherine on board?

Hello, I'm here. Can you hear me?

Yes, Catherine. Hello. You have the floor. Go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I am a homeowner and Airbnb host in Jamaica Plain on the Roxbury line. I've been an Airbnb host since 2012 and I really just wanted to speak today to express my gratitude to the state and the city of Boston and ISD and the city councilors for the whole process of regulating Airbnb hosting and I want to say that it's a system that is really beneficial to Homeowners like myself, I'm an artist by profession, so having a home that I'm able to generate some income from in an honest and aboveboard way is really literally a lifesaver for me. It also benefits my community. I'm just here to say, That I support your efforts and this initiative to enforce the policy better, and I hope that all of the system will remain in place. I also appreciate that the platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo take out the hotel occupancy tax and take care of a lot of the bureaucracy side of things that would be difficult perhaps for hosts. So primarily I'm here to say thank you and to encourage you and support finding ways to enforce the system so that it functions as well as it does and that people like myself can continue to operate a small business such as this. Thank you.

Thank you Catherine. Martin, are you available now?

Thank you. Well, I'm delighted to hear about Katherine Bent's story because that's exactly the whole purpose and value of having Airbnb short-term rentals in the first place. So I live in the Back Bay. I think it was back in 2022 we had a situation, one of the loopholes, which a place that had a lodging house license and they wanted to convert it to an Airbnb. and it would have been taken over in fact by outside investors. It turns out that because of the efforts of abutters who became aware of what was going on, we were able to stop that. Nevertheless, there seem to be a significant number of loopholes in the ordinance. There's that the executive suites or corporate use hospital stays, which can be, I think, exploited inappropriately. that somehow we also need to close. Now, as you're aware, this is not a phenomenon by any means that's confined to Boston. In fact, it's all over the world. Interestingly, I recently discovered that last month in September, the city of Belfast, that's Belfast in Northern Ireland, not Belfast in Maine, had a hearing at city council about this exact subject. And they have very similar problems I hope it will prove possible and I approve and I really applaud the efforts of Zapata, and others to get this before the City Council. I applaud any effort to tighten the ordinance in such a way that people will not be able to circumvent its intent and, in fact, openly the door for outside investors to come in and take over significant numbers of residences within Boston when, as you pointed out, We desperately need more housing that is affordable and want to help people already living here be able to afford to stay in it. And in all of this, I can only say that certainly residents are a critical part, contributing factor in this fight, because they're the ones who know what's going on, follow what's going on, and in many cases are prepared to devote their time and effort to make sure that things in their neighborhood are improved and are not destroyed by outside investors who come in Taking advantage of all the efforts that we and the city have made to improve neighborhoods so there are lots of people from outside who want to come and stay here. and so thank you very much for your efforts and I hope you're successful and we would love to help.

Thank you very much, thank you. Councillor Coletta Zapata, you have some written testimony that you've received from constituents. Do you want to read that into the record? I'll just, you have multiple pieces, so I'll just let you take as long as it takes together.

Thank you. I'm only going to choose one. I'll just summarize. I have six letters from Margaret Street and the North End who have, I'm sure, reached out to all of you. Margaret Street, For 13 Margaret Street in particular. This is one of the instances where the owner is claiming hospital stay, but there's multiple people that are coming through and there's Clear documentation of suitcases every two to three days. So I'll just summarize here from Joseph and Angela Mantone. We are writing in regards to Airbnb located at 13 Margaret Street. We're both lifelong residents of the North End. People of all ages are frequently moving in and out of the building for short stays of about two to three days at a time. As soon as a group would leave with suitcases, a new group would shortly arrive. Several times they've been seen outside drinking alcohol or smoking. Another large issue as a result of the Airbnb is the trash situation. Guests have also left their bikes or scooters bolted to our property. The landlord of the building does not appear to reside next door and has never been seen. We were told the Airbnb is for medical reasons. Nowhere on Airbnb listing does it list that it's for medical reasons. Only. Any individual can book the stay. They attach photos. Very similar situation from the others, Berna D'Annunzio, Tia, and Ann Betalacqua. And then there's also testimony from East Boston as it relates to 1016 Bennington Street from Jane Biagiotti. who is also claiming that this is used for hospital stay but again just sees multiple individuals coming in and out of the property for two and three days at a time. So we'll leave it at that. I won't take up too much time. Thank you.

I also have correspondence from Britt McBride is the public, what is his full title? Britt McBride is the public policy manager at Airbnb New England. I'll just read a portion of this as well. Accommodations made available by hosts that list on Airbnb provide a necessary option for travelers to Boston for family vacations, medical stays, and business. In addition, the potential to diffuse tourism dollars is by providing stays outside the typical tourist areas means that economic benefits of Airbnb listings can benefit more neighborhoods, more small businesses, and more Boston residents directly. We are committed to working with the city and providing resources to make sure that the short-term rentals have a place in Boston. In 2021, Airbnb introduced the City Portal in the City of Boston. City Portal is a proprietary tool that provides a self-service interface between the city's short-term rental agency and Airbnb. in the 1,000 plus cities in which it operates. In hundreds of cities, including Boston, it is designed to provide the city's administrative agency with a resource on Airbnb listings as part of the decision-making process around enforcement actions. Information accessible to authorized users through the City of Boston city portal includes the listing ID, The license number, the status of the listing, and whether a listing has a city authorized exemption. The landing page provides high-level metrics regarding the economic impact of the short-term rental Rentals and Travel Insights. In addition, authorized users may access monthly reports for Boston, which provide deeper insights into local listings and travel trends beyond what is available in the city portal. These reports are intended to help the city to understand Airbnb's impact and activity across the Boston in more detail. I just enter this into the record and leave it at that. And now we will go, we've just been joined by Councillor Sharon Durkan, who's also one of the leads, and Councillor Louijeune. They were both lead sponsors. Do you have... Oh, and Weber, yes. Councilor Louijeune, do you have any comment? Would you like an opening statement or we'll just go straight to testimony? Okay. Conchie Durkan, would you like to say a few words to start? Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chair. I want to thank Councilor Coletta Zapata for sponsoring this hearing order. I'm proud to co-sponsor it. Boston's short-term rental ordinance was designed to balance the benefits of short-term rentals like Airbnb with our responsibility to protect housing, preserve neighborhood stability, We know enforcement has been a huge challenge. I filed a similar hearing order last year. The city oversees more than a thousand short-term rental properties, and too often, too many repeat offenders continue to rack up and many more. We also have code violations for nuisance behavior and improper trash disposal, especially in my district. Then slip through the cracks by failing to renew their license and get a new one. Outdated technology has left us the overburdened staff to deal with these complaints instead of being able to proactively enforce the rules. District 8 has one of the highest concentrations of short-term rentals in the city. I recently met with Airbnb and their heat map of the majority of Airbnb rentals looked like a District 8 heat map. So I hear regularly from constituents about problem properties on South Russell Street and Beacon Hill to Keswick Street and Audubon Circle and Beacon Street and the Fenway. I also filed a hearing order last year, and it's clear we need to revisit this issue. My personal goal is not to reopen the ordinance. It's to make Airbnb, hopefully. I'm sort of worried particularly about Opening up something that is working at least to the extent of We have not been challenged in court over the current ordinance, but I think we will be forced to open up the ordinance if Airbnb doesn't get in line. and so I've met with them frequently in my time in office. I do think they've done a good effort at meeting with my office when I've asked but We do have to review how enforcing this ordinance and addressing loopholes like the medical exemptions that have created issues. I've also spoken with them and they have expressed interest in improving compliance. But I don't want those promises to fall flat. So I'm excited to see the city panel here today. Just want to particularly thank Regina Hansen for all of your work. My office loves working with you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Durkan. Councillor Webber, you good? Okay. Right, we're going to thank you for bearing with us and hearing the public testimony about the We'll move to the administrative panel and then we'll follow up with questions.

Yes, we are happy to answer questions. I wonder though if we can touch on just a couple of the testimonies that we heard, being kind of pretty familiar with those cases. So just on a couple, I'll be a little general about The challenges, but I'll definitely turn to Regina for the specific actions we've taken on these. I want to share that specifically for the Trenton Street case, the definition of primary residence in the ordinance is something that We've struggled with just to kind of refresh everyone's memories. You can prove per the ordinance your residence by providing a utility bill, a voter registration, RMV documentation, either your driver's license or your car registration. Deidre Lees or any other state issued ID. The owners that retain their registration have provided that so that's issue one that you people can and do Change their address on that documentation pretty freely and they are providing us the proper documentation. Once they do that, we are issuing the license. and also the ordinance does provide for when residents reside or intend to reside at that at that place for the following 12 months so we Do our best with that language, but if people are fulfilling their requirements, we are providing that license and investigating every complaint. So we wanted to highlight that challenge. The other challenge we wanted to highlight from what was mentioned was that some of the things that are provided to our office in terms of complaints such as the presence of suitcases, behavior of either the guests or of the homeowners as far as when they come and go, They aren't necessarily sufficient evidence for us to say this is or is not Let's say a hospital or a corporate stay. These owners are providing to us documentation in the form of a contract between themselves and a hospital or a nonprofit that is providing those services. as proof that they are running a hospital stay. And so that's been challenging. Again, we do, via Inspector Johnson, respond to those to those complaints, but when we have the documentation, we can't take some of these just behaviors as evidence because they're not completely proof. I don't know if you want to add anything to what I shared as far as enforcement actions that we have taken on the properties mentioned. Regina?

If you want me to get into the specific Properties that were mentioned in the hearing. I can run through a brief summary. I think that would give us a flavor of what we're dealing with, and then we can follow up with questions. Thank you. It will bring up a lot of different Problems that enforcement has caused, well, obstacles to enforcement. So for 108 to 110 Trenton Street, Units 1 and 2, Currently there are no active licenses and there are no online listings from hosting platforms. When the applications were put forward, in particular for 108, unit number one, Trenton Street, There were five applications that were put in. All five were denied. The listing where the department has not had a hearing officer for over four years, my first Response when it comes to a listing that should not be up on a hosting platform, in particular Airbnb, is I will request to have the listing blocked. Once I put in a request to have the listing blocked, Airbnb gives the host 23 days to make corrections to that listing to bring it into compliance with the city's ordinance. So there's that time gap there. So that was my first initial to try to curb the unlicensed listing from being up there. Eventually, in particular, to run away Trenton Street, on May 22nd, I issued a ticket I used the address that was written on the application for the operator. That address was a bad address, so I had to wait for the certified mail to come back to reissue it and using the Newton Mass Address. It was served on the 5th of June and the The owner of the property came in on July 3rd to pay that ticket. Subsequent to that, I was still receiving complaints, but the scrubbing software that the city uses Only updates, from what I can see, updates its documented stays once a month. So I had to continually wait for the scrubbing software to come back with another documented stay. And... and for that I issued another ticket on the 1st of August and it was served to the Newton Address. I went straight to the Newton Address. It was served on the 11th of August and to date that still is not paid. There were subsequent complaints about a listing. No, that's for another one. For 110 Trenton Street, unit number two, They applied for a license in October of 2024. It was denied. In May of 2025, they submitted an application which had a letter of intent to occupy the premises 9 of the following 12 months. One of the properties held by a trust and one of the trustees was a resident at the unit. I was given a car registration, a city in Parking Permit and Utility Bill. They presented the documentation that's required under the ordinance. They were requesting a limited share license. And so, I had to give them the limited share. Limited share is that the extra bedroom in your unit can be let out to a short-term renter. I It was back and forth with complaints. I talked to the property owner several times. saying you can't do this, you can't do that. Finally, and I even sent an email to our legal division about seeking an injunction against the property owner. On the 24th of July, I contacted VRBO because there was a complaint that the The owner of unit number two was advertising for a whole unit rental as opposed to the extra bedroom. I was told by VRBO they would not take the listing down. They would only take a listing down if it did not have a license. And then on the 17th of August, the property owner through several telephone conversations, the property owner did remove his listing on VRBO. So this unit was also ticketed with a $300 ticket. It has not been paid. The property at 11 Thurston Street, Currently, there is no active license. They have never applied for a license, and there is no online listing for short-term rental. We received a complaint back in May of 2025 At the time, and it was through the East Boston liaison forwarding a complaint from a constituent, I could not find a listing, so I asked if the constituent could provide a link to the listing I did not receive a response. In April 17th, email correspondence with representative from your office, Councilor Coletta Zapata forwarded me an email from a constituent and in the email it states that the occupants will come and stay for four to six weeks and four to six weeks is not considered a short-term rental. So, and eventually the online listing that did come up was specified as a 29-night minimum. This is another tool, I will say, Airbnb uses. If I go to block a link, a listing, instead of removing it from their platform, they'll move the short-term rental to a 29-night minimum. and that way they get around the short-term rental of 28 days and a lot of times I will receive complaints that hey I see this listing but people don't check the availability and it will come up when you go to book it that it's a 29-night minimum. So by continuously monitoring for 11 Thurston Street, eventually I did find them putting up I had a documented stay and they were issued a ticket in July 3rd of 2024. That ticket has been paid. For 13 Margaret Street, there were two units that are listed for hospital stays. They were issued in December of 2023 and February of 2025. I've had a long email exchange with representatives from Coletta Zapata's office. I've even emailed our legal division back in November of 2024 about the issues where the online listing does not specify And it's a medical stay. And the response back from our legal division was that the ordinance does not have specific requirements on what has to be on the online listing.

OK. That gives us a flavor of what's going on. And I have to also thank you Regina, you know, the few times our officers contacted you about Airbnb questions, you've been very helpful. So thank you for that. Okay. Should we go on with questions? Do you want to start?

Thank you so much. Thank you for the presentation. I appreciate it. Thank you. Regina, you have been very accessible and responsive to our office. I think it speaks to the broader systemic issues that we're seeing where there are the 20 night stay and many more. And I think that this entire listing is skirting around the rules just that one day. And our constituents are asking for some sort Any change to the law so that they don't have to go through that. Just one quick clarifying question. For 11 Thurston Street, so there was no license or online listing for the license, and then You ended up finding that at some point, like it was actually listed, and then that happened in July, there was a ticket that was given?

So in July, so with 11 Thurston Street, with the scrubbing software that we have, putting in the address did not come up with because sometimes with the online listings they don't necessarily have a either the scrubbing software hasn't caught up with the assessors and they can't verify the address. So what I'll do is I'll use, there's a map that's provided if something is being We've looked at, but they haven't zoned in on what the address is through the assessing maps. So I can scroll through the map and it's like a yellow square saying we haven't done that. Once I found that and then I had a documented stay, then I was able to issue a ticket.

Yeah, and I think this is demonstrative of the interim time where we get a complaint in our office. And then we get a response back from you. It's like, we don't have them listed, or there's no listing, or there's no license. And then we get back to the constituent and they're like, what do you mean there's no license? I clearly see people coming in and out. And so I did have questions about the scrubbing system.

I'll do what I can I'm not you know that Well-versed in the background of the technology, but I can answer as much as I can.

OK. I'm just trying to figure out what information you do get on, say, a weekly basis, because I do know that Airbnb has and their own bespoke tool that the city The city, my understanding, is able to go into that platform and find out in real time if there is a license or what the listing is. But we're waiting. So one of the answers that we had received was, unfortunately, we haven't gotten the data back, I think, for 110. We haven't gotten the data back from July from the scrubbing software. So we can't tell if there's a listing there or not. And so that kind of prolonged inaction where we could go into the Airbnb bespoke platform and see it in real time.

no that maybe there's a miscommunication there but I would say from the comment you just made that has to do with the documented stays that come through the hosting platform I cannot from the Compliance Portal through Airbnb. It does not give me how many stays have been happening at a particular listing.

And what platforms does this system, the scrubbing system, does it have all of them? Is it an umbrella?

No. I would say that the scrubbing software focuses on the three major Hosting platforms, Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com. Sometimes we'll get things from HomeAway, which is VRBO, FlipKey, or Mr. B&B, which are much smaller platforms, but it basically is the top three.

Okay. And I think I'm just still confused as to How and the way in which we can get to this is just operationalizing this for me a little bit, which is a complaint comes to our office and it goes to you. So then what happens next in the case of 110? Do you immediately go to the host compliance platform, or do you have to wait for a month for the scrubbing system to come back with listings?

Once I receive a complaint, first I check to see whether or not they have a license. It's easier for me to track on Airbnb. In fact, the only way I can track on Airbnb's compliance portal is to have their short term rental license number. If I do not have that, I will go to the scrubbing software, which is host compliance, and I will put in the address. Sometimes you have to work a little bit with the address if it's a range address or how they would put in like North Margin, St. Petolf, you know, So there's something you have to kind of finesse. If they have a listing online, a recent listing, they'll give you the host platform, Listing ID number and the address, maybe the apartment number, then they can click into their listing to see what's there. And at that point, host compliance will give me the documented stays. Also, if the listing is currently active or if it's been taken down. Because the property operator for the listing can take their listing on and off. And when it's been scrolled, how long it's been active on the hosting platforms. Once I have a documented stay, then I can use that as evidence if they are operating without a license or operating with They have a limited share license, yet they're offering a whole unit.

Actually, I'll save that question because I'm looking at my time here. In the instance where We always assume good intentions with folks that are operating, and there are incredible operators of Airbnb. We heard from one. In the instance where there may be nefarious practices happening, where an individual doesn't actually live in a condo unit or home and has provided documentation to you that looks good, a utility bill, all of that, but it's not actually true. When you receive a complaint like that where it's more of a reactive verification, what goes into that verification process for you to ultimately make a determination either way?

So by receiving a complaint, then I will send my inspector out to go to the property, knock on the doors, try to get the attention of a neighbor to talk to them about what's been going on, where does the property owner live. I will use resources available to me for the assessing database. Do they have a residential exemption? and to the best of my abilities, look at what documentation is there, talking to property owners if I have a telephone number and That's pretty much the limitations on it.

Thank you. And my last question, because I want to be respectful of my colleagues. There you go.

Can I add to that? And I just wanted to stress too that we have to go by the definition of primary residence as per the ordinance, which says you either have lived there nine out of 12 months or intend to live there in the next 12 months. and as per the documentation. So we cannot prove by just comings and goings, whether the person meets this definition or not because they may very well be in the three months that are not staying there or maybe they just started their next 12 months. Do you see what I mean with the difficulty of that definition? We go by the definition, and if they're providing those documents, I mean, unless the documents are fake, which we don't go as far as changing that, we are assuming the documents are are real and will respond to complaints but they are meeting the definition of the ordinance is the challenge.

And the challenge there I feel like is the The challenge there is the intent to live there. How do you verify that, I guess? But the question I really want you to answer, Regina, is it seems like you are the one doing this. Yes. How many cases do you have all at once at any given time?

It varies. We ran a quick query this morning and there's been 903 applications already this year. And I'm the primary reviewer of applications that come in. And so it can vary. I can have 40 sitting in the queue. Or as it stands today, I think there's 14 in the queue.

Plus the enforcement. like the reactive part of it too is something that you are also investigating.

I do the review of the applications. I do the review of their listings on Airbnb before they go to the platform. I do I take all the complaints. I deal with constituents who are having problems on the website filing their application or get a renewal. I respond to emails for people, hey, you know, What's this ordinance? What do I have to do? And at that, that's only about maybe 50, maybe 60% of the time that I'm in the office because the other time I have other programs within the housing division that I'm responsible for as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Wanted to refer the councilors to the yearly report that we do provide to the council every summer. that has those figures by type and by neighborhood that breakdown. We currently, as of last year, we totaled 989 registrations. And again, if you see that yearly report we provide, it has the neighborhood and by type breakdown.

Thank you. The next lead sponsor, Councillor... Okay, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Flynn, you were here very early before I got here, so Councillor Flynn, you've got six minutes.

Thank you. I do want to highlight for the record, I mentioned at the beginning that I worked on this issue for eight years with Councilor Wu and Councilor Edwards. and Mayor Walsh as well. I want to acknowledge Mayor Walsh. And working with the Chinese Progressive Association, one of their major concerns was taking the housing stock Out of the neighborhood and the impact it has on working class families. The other issue the Chinese Progressive Association specifically mentioned to me, and I've really focused on this for eight years, The impact it has on hotels in our city, and most of them are in my neighborhood, and there's probably no one that fought more for the hotel workers than myself in this city. So I wanted to put that on the record because those workers are critical to Boston's economy. But my question here is, How are we able to regulate this industry considering that almost 40% of Airbnb listings are illegal? It's very difficult to track them and almost impossible to enforce them. How are we able to regulate it?

Thank you. It's as we said, it is a challenge. The current mechanism we have for enforcement is the ordinance, and that's what we're operationally doing. But it is true that there is a challenge with identifying unregistered We normally pick those up via complaints and that's the beginning of our process to get them registered. It is a challenge.

So let me just follow up on that. And I was listening closely Can you explain the department didn't have a hearing officer in four years? I don't know if I heard that correctly, or can you explain that a little bit better for me?

The short-term rental ordinance, it's a green ticket under 40U. Yep. Just like with parking tickets, you have the opportunity to request a hearing, and it has to be unbiased, third party, et cetera, et cetera. So in the housing division, the short-term rental and also the rental registration violations are issued under 40U, and they have the opportunity to put in for a hearing. but if you don't have a hearing officer.

So where does this hearing officer sit? Who oversees this hearing officer?

I can take a, yeah, some of that.

Yeah, who oversees that, Commissioner?

Yeah, right now we're actually in the process of rehiring those folks that weren't there for a few years. They are picked up by, I believe, the Boston Transportation Department as far as hiring process.

So they have the responsibility of inspectional services.

Is that accurate? Yes and no. We are going to oversee their acting as hearing officers. They are in another department's budget.

What department is that?

Transportation.

Okay.

We have an offer out right now for our first one and interviews ongoing for our second one.

So we haven't had a hearing officer in four years?

Yes, I don't know what the challenges were operationally before for getting that done.

What period of time is this for four years that we didn't have a hearing officer?

from now until four years ago, I'm guessing. I believe that they fell off during COVID.

Maybe you have more information on that. I think we had, Two hearing officers. Can you hear me? Yeah.

Yeah, we can.

We had two hearing officers, I would say, around just before COVID, maybe. Just before COVID and they were law students. Our law department kind of supervised them, but once they graduated or moved on, they quit. and then that fell off from there.

Did not having a hearing officer impact the enforcement in addressing quality of life issues? Did that have an impact on quality of life issues throughout the neighborhoods?

In regards to issuing tickets, yes.

Was the city council notified that there weren't any hearing officers?

We don't normally notify the council of our hiring process.

No, no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying was the city council notified that a major challenge in this system is that there is not a hearing officer and that would have an impact on especially district councillors that District Councils would want to know that information, I think, as a District Council.

Yeah, my understanding is that the larger trend of staffing challenges, especially during the pandemic, was well known by the Council. That being said, we did still conduct enforcement as far as taking down listings. That indeed was a challenge with the ticket issuing system, but we were still conducting enforcement.

You were conducting enforcement?

Correct.

Okay. How many... Airbnbs were placed on problem lists or taken off of the city registry because they were bad actors.

Are you referring to the Problem Property Task Force?

Yeah, I mean, I'm familiar with the property task force, but have there been Airbnbs that have been taken out of circulation because they've not been a good neighbor to the residents?

Yes.

How many?

I could not give you a number on that.

I could maybe run a query and get that to you tomorrow. Courtesy of allowing you to go out of line with the lead sponsors.

No, I wasn't. I was the first one here, Madam Chair.

I know. Custom and practice lead sponsors usually go first.

No, that's not accurate.

Okay.

It's not accurate.

Fitzgerald. And we'll set it for six minutes and we'll try and stick to the time.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the moment I'll just follow up. I'll just take Ed's question as my first one because I only have one other. So what would you like me to ask?

Just the regulation aspect.

I think you know where Councilor Flynn was going with the pre, but the regulation aspect of his previous question, I'll use some of my time to answer his question. Thank you.

Can you restate because I kind of, yes.

I'll be brief. I had six minutes. And I don't want to go over the time out of respect for my colleagues. So I'll just try to summarize it in 20 seconds if I can. But I'm concerned that the quality of life Four residents were impacted because we weren't enforcing the laws in the books. And because of that, there were significant quality of life issues and it was also impacting our hotel industry. that play a critical role in our city and that's important to me because I know those workers probably better than anyone in the city and I represent them probably better than anyone in the city and they're located in my district So I want to make sure that they're treated with respect also.

Thank you, Councilor. Yes, we're in agreement. My family members in the hotel industry, we're definitely in agreement. And yeah, it's the same answer. The enforcement did not stop. It took the form in that period of the listings being taken down and Regina running through the process that she described earlier. and specifically ticket issuance was what did suffered without the hearing officers which we are again happy to share that they're onboarding as we speak.

Thank you. I'd just like to build off that for a second as well. The enforcement has always continued with short-term rentals, either through removing, requesting a block on Airbnb, not issuing a license, denying an application that comes in, and at the time One of the biggest things during the pandemic, a lot of people would come in to an apartment building, they would do corporate leases, so they would go and rent 10 units and the property owners were glad because they had units that were being rented out during a very difficult time. So they were operating short-term rentals out of that. So what I was issuing tickets on, and there was still a significant number of tickets that were issued in those four years, was for larger properties that had multiple listings. So it was going after the very large operators. Okay, so there was enforcement that was continuing.

Thank you. The platform that at least I know with Airbnb and I know there are other... The companies that do this. But Airbnb gave us a platform to work with, or technology, I think, right? To sort of... When that... From my understanding, if you were to put something on the problem and they take it off the list, it is no longer on the website. to be there. But from what I heard from you guys, it goes to the 29 day long term stay. So that is not that's something I have to that was not The way it was described to me, should I say.

And that's unfortunate because- 29 days and longer isn't covered by the ordinance at all.

Gotcha, so that's how they get around that. So is it our ask that we should have it, I mean, if we have a problem property, and we talked to Airbnb and through the platform they provided to ISD that when we flagged that it should it should be immediately taken off their website and

That does cause some problems down the line. There was a time where there was a significant number of listings that were removed because they were using an expired license number. Once I request a block, it's a 23-day waiting period. And if after the 23 days, the property owner has not pulled it back into compliance, they didn't see the emails, whatever. You cannot put that listing back up. So they come in later, they get a new license, and they want to put that listing that they had before back up with a new license number. It will not work. And the host will complain to me that, They've lost all their reviews. They've lost their super host status. And they say, Airbnb says, it's a problem with the city. I can't see their listing, so I'm not going to approve it. So the host looks to me to be their advocate with Airbnb, and that is not my role. That's not my role.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an interesting catch-22 for all sides, really. In that then, how often do you use the technology that was given, that was sort of made for cities and that we've partnered with them on? I mean, is that like a... Do you use that to report all things that are sort of short-term rental related? Whether it's at Airbnb, I guess, specifically.

The compliance portal through Airbnb, I pretty much use every day that I'm doing short-term rentals.

Yeah. Okay and all that any all the data and anything that you have in there they should be able to see as well because right you are inputting the data into them and so it There should be no reason Airbnb says we didn't hear about that or we don't know about that one.

So the controls that I have with Airbnb is being able to look up a listing and requesting for if it's a new listing going up Whether or not the listing is approved or denied, and if it's an existing listing, being able to request a block.

Understood. Thank you so much. Thank you for answering questions, Chair. Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Councillor Louis-Jean. You've got six minutes.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the lead sponsor, Councilor Coletta Zapata, for allowing me to be a co-sponsor on this docket with you. There's a number of issues, and I want to thank the administration for being here. Thank you to the residents who testified. This is an issue that, like many of my colleagues, we hear a lot about from residents. We hear about it particularly, and this is the top, I have a number of questions, but What I wanted to focus on a bit is about how we are verifying the hospital stays and business institutional stay exemptions. How do we determine legitimacy behind those?

So they would submit a document, a contract between the property owner and the charity

Or as in the ordinance of the charity or the health organization. But how do we verify? Is it just trust? And then if there's a complaint, then we sort of go poking?

If I have the... The property owner putting in for the license and the contract with the the charitable organization of which the majority are under one particular entity, like let's say Children's Hospital or something like that. I don't have any with the hospital. No, sorry. There's one that has a contract with the hospital, but the other ones are through a particular charity organization.

And so we're not seeing any instances of where there are potential issues where we believe that there's a violation because it's not really a hospital state. We're not seeing. Any abuse, because we have gotten some complaints about.

I'll just give you a quick statistic to kind of put it into perspective. Currently there are... 307 home share licenses in which my unit, I'm going away, I'm gonna have someone come in. And there are 338 hospital stays licenses out there. I have no reason to question it.

Okay. It sounds like there's a lot being left unsaid though.

They are meeting the requirements as per the ordinance of providing that contract. So we are issuing those licenses.

Okay. From your perspective, from what you've seen and from what you've heard from constituents, are there ways that we can improve that, what it looks like? You know, there may be situations where There isn't really a legitimate hospital stay or business institutional stay happening. Is there anything that we can do as a legislative body to increase the likelihood of the veracity of these documents that are coming to you for verification at which point you issue a license.

Yeah, it's what we mentioned before as far as guest behavior or homeowner or property owner behavior not being enough for us to disprove what the documentation says. So when they're providing to us a contract between that entity and themselves telling us it's a hospital stay, We do have the similar complaints where, let's say, our borders, our neighbors will say, well, it doesn't look like a hospital stay. We don't think that guest behaviors can disprove the documentation. So that's the challenge that we've been facing.

Yeah, I understand that. And then what is the role then of the third party? Well, they're actually the primary party platforms in this, either Airbnb or VRBO. Is there a role for them in either helping? Or I mean, they probably, they are... probably anti-regulation in this perspective, but do you see a role for them in helping us?

Correct me if I'm wrong, Regina, but their current role is to just verify that there is an SDR number. And I don't know if they are, I mean, They have their specific platforms, but they're also on the platforms that we just talked about. But as long as they have their number, again, they're meeting their requirements.

And then, I guess Regina, for you, the question is that you listed out as about 307 registered that are homes and 338 for hospitals. Of the complaints that you get, do more of them come from The home stays or the hospital stays or is it roughly distributed?

I don't have a specific on that.

OK. And then what portion of your complaints would you say of enforcement is proactive of us realizing issues or us or are they more so, is it all complaint driven?

I would say the vast majority is complaint driven. I do not have time unless I stumble over something when I'm searching another license or unlicensed property. It's very difficult to find time in the day to go and seek who's a bad actor.

And you're the only person in this role, and this role has existed since This ordinance has been on the books.

No, I've been in this role for about three years.

Three years.

And I'm the only person. I do have an inspector two days a week.

Okay.

And staff support, small staff support.

The role is not dedicated to just STR. You have other responsibilities. Right.

I have many other hats I wear. Many other hats, OK. Is that my time?

That's your time.

Okay. I have additional questions that I will reserve for my second round. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Councillor Webber, you're next. You've got six minutes.

Okay, thank you very much. I feel like my first term on the City Council, my office has seen a lot of issues. This is not something that's come up a lot, so my questions might be a little more I guess are there, is Airbnb allowed to Like, under our system, can Airbnb list or Vrbo or whatever, list a unit that is not registered?

Yes.

Okay, so they can.

Can they or do they? I'm sorry. Can they or do they?

Slightly different than the commissioner. She's shaking her head no.

They can list it, but it will be taken down because it must have a number.

Okay. and so and then how long would it take like let's just say I listed my hat you know I haven't gone through any process I decide to list you know my son went off to college and Melissa's Bedroom as an Airbnb, which we're not doing, but let's say I did that without registering, how quick would that, how would that work out?

What's the timeline? I would say All new listings should be going through the pending approval process on the Airbnb platform. So a listing would not go live to their platform until it's approved by the city of Boston. I look at those every week. But are there ones that get around?

Yes, I don't know how but there are ones that get around the pending approval list and then and and so that is Airbnb and verbal are they They're supposed to wait for that, you know, confirmation from the city?

I only have that with Airbnb.

Okay, so Airbnb is supposed to wait. But sometimes they put it, is that how that, I'm just saying if there's a mechanism where that's happening, how do we get across to Airbnb to not put those units up for listing? What's your recommendation?

My recommendation is that nothing goes forward without without the approval of the city but as I said I've seen ones that have gone forward or I can block it on Monday and then Tuesday The host puts it back up and it goes on and on from there. I block or I deny and then the listing comes back up.

and then we don't have so I guess I have to confess I don't really use these websites but so Vrbo like they could put something up there's no mechanism in place there

The only mechanism I have with VRBO is that I cultivated a contact to remove listings that are, and they will only do it if it is unlicensed. And the VRBO website, when you're looking through a listing, it's way down at the bottom in very fine print, their license number.

Okay, does that make it harder for you?

Yes.

Okay, so they could, I don't know, in terms of just make it larger?

A little more prominence would be, It'd be great. Some of the websites are very different. Booking.com, VRBO, and Airbnb, being able to search. I mostly will use the scrubbing software, but if the scrubbing software is falling flat, It's very difficult to ascertain what the address is and the unit number.

And then in terms of staffing, I guess for us going forward, I don't know, Commissioner, do you want to address this? I want to put you in the hot seat. What recommendations do you have for us for how to improve this?

Currently, we haven't focused necessarily on growing the staff instead of improving the operation and reaching more expansive agreements with the platforms that are newer, such as VRPO. It's always in the conversation as far as when a budget proposal comes forward. There are competing needs as far as permitting this. So that conversation is always fluid. But is there a need? Yeah, there's always the need.

And then, I mean, so is VRBO or whatever we're calling it, I mean, does that work differently there, B&B, in a way that we need to look at this again or do you think?

We just need to... No, I believe the ordinance does state that they all should be kind of subject to the same rules. It is operationally kind of the work that we're doing, making sure that they are in fact in practice going through the same rules. They do go through the same rules, but their operations and their website is different, so we have to adjust.

Okay. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Chair. I don't have any more questions.

Thank you. Okay, Councilor Durkan, you have, let me just reset the clock here.

You have six minutes. Thank you so much chair. Obviously this is an issue I care a lot about so grateful to the panel for being here and all the work that you do every day to ensure that our neighborhoods are overrun with certain quality of life issues that I think are sometimes caused by non-neighbors occupying them. and many more. We've had a lot of issues with short-term rentals, putting out their trash on the wrong day which often You know, then rats are getting in the bags, the trash is strewn everywhere, and it's definitely been a point of contention and something that I've chatted about with It seems like a small issue, but when you live on a street, you know all your neighbors, but then one of them decides to rent out their apartment and tells people to drop their trash on the street whenever they want. It makes a really big difference. So I just want to be very clear that I have talked to Airbnb and have not yet talked to any of the other operators. Talked to the Airbnb and sort of told them that that kind of Stuff is really unacceptable. I know we are dealing, we are heading into a year potentially where there will be an influx of Airbnbs with FIFA and with the 250th. I think that Airbnb's selling point is wouldn't it be great if You know, these Airbnbs were in every single neighborhood, not just the neighborhoods that they're currently in. But I think that can only really happen with the right safeguards in place and making sure. So I just want to thank you for your work first. Obviously, with all ordinances, there's a political, there's some politics that took place in how to get this specific ordinance passed. Part of that politics that took place was there are certain exemptions that were made. New York has a version of this ordinance that does not have these exemptions. Has the administration thought about not having these exemptions? and making these changes. Because it seems like, it just feels like we're having sort of the same, you know, and I know in one breath I'm saying don't open up the ordinance but I do wanna know, Sort of from the administration's perspective whether opening up the ordinance and removing the exemptions that weren't politically possible during that time is something that is a reasonable thing to do at this moment.

Sure, we've described the challenges that we do go through with, if you're referring to the hospital stay and corporate stay. As far as enforcement, we are responding to the complaints and often finding ourselves in a place of like, There's not much we can do. They are meeting their requirements. That being said, we would participate in any discussion that happened and think that that would have to just go through the legislative process. We'd be very interested in engaging and providing as much information as we can

Well, through the chair, I'd like to request that potentially maybe in the new year, if not this year, that the council come together and do a working session of a side-by-side between other ordinances that exist and the City of Boston's ordinance because I think Honestly, without leverage, I don't know if there's a way to fix these issues. Our systems are overburdened. The fact that we have one person working really, really hard on this issue, but that you also have other responsibilities and so on. This to me tells me that we are not spending enough resources but this is a problem caused by these companies not caused by the city of Boston. The implementation of everything is never with our city workers and never with you, Regina. You work really, really hard, so thank you. My few questions that I have are what is the process for getting a license suspended, which I think we've gone over. There's a portal you can request that a certain and we have actually helped work with you to get certain things blocked in our district. I'm curious and I think Flynn's question, how many licenses are suspended each year. So if that's something that's possible for us to look up, that would be great information for us to have. How can code enforcement share information to automatically trigger suspensions at three violations for improper trash? Like, is that possible? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Is there some coordination that we can do between systems where our tickets and This portal that they've created somehow interact with each other so that if certain addresses have ISD and code enforcement violations, that that's somehow interacting with our license.

Yeah, as far as what's currently in place, feel free to speak to it. I don't think that's currently in place.

Well, the one thing I did want to bring up in regards to a suspension of a license is once you bring that license into compliance The license opens back up. By blocking, as I stated earlier, by requesting a block on a license through the Airbnb portal, That happens within the 23 days. It's not that the operator brings the short term rental back into compliance. That's not a problem, but it's once it goes past that 23 days. that the listing comes down and cannot be re-established and there's issues with the host trying to get- Am I out of time? Yes, you are.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. I just care so much about this as you're going to talk about it for 12.

We will come back.

Okay, I could talk about it for 12 minutes. Thank you so much, Chair.

Yeah, no doubt you'll get an opportunity. I will allow that. We'll get back to you. I'm going to do a quick, many of my questions have already been asked and answered. I think we mentioned on talking about if a home or a unit is in trust, This is a little side view. If a unit is in trust, does that allow the property owner to not live in the unit? That's sometimes... I know we've had this conversation about one in Brighton that the owner, the person was very disturbed that she wasn't getting her license, but she lived in Sudbury. And then she said, oh, it's in trust, and my son's going to live in the basement. And I'm going like, OK. This is sort of a bit of a tall story, but how does it work if a unit's in trust?

So if the unit is held by a trust, They have to provide the trust paperwork and the applicant has to be a trustee and also a resident. Also a resident.

That's the important piece. Yes. And then this is maybe something that's more of an assessing question. If it's in trust, and they can't claim a residential exemption obviously if it's in trust, if it's a trust. I'm not really... Assessing question. Assessing question. Sorry. We'll wind them in and ask some questions. And then in terms of the fines, you said $300 fine. I know we passed a home rule petition to increase fines. and for City of Boston Code violations. Would that increase fine apply to this scenario? I think that might be one for the Commissioner.

Yes, I was just looking to see if the fine was established in the ordinance itself or not, or where the three, it is right, so the ordinance would have to reflect that.

Okay, so we'd have to correct the ordinance, okay.

Yeah, the amounts are in the ordinance.

So, Councillor Durkan's already referenced this, but in New York City, there are no exemptions. Are we even considering just doing away with the exemptions? Would it make it easier to...

So again, we'd be very interested in participating in a discussion and have this go through its proper legislative process. Yeah.

Yeah, and you would foresee that that might streamline the process and make it a little easier?

We don't want to express a position on it because I just don't think that's our role, but we can certainly inform the discussion and Share with you how implementation's going, enforcement, and yeah, the challenges thereof.

And then, right, just how many exemptions do we have to this ordinance? How many exemptions exist, and what are they?

I can just share the types we have that are short-term rentals, the home share, the limited share, and the owner adjacent. then separately they need a number but they're not short-term rentals would be the hospital stays, the licensed lodging houses, and the business stays and existing bed and breakfasts. So those are the carve outs that the ordinance makes for Non-Short-Term Rental.

Okay, that sort of makes sense. And then corporate rentals, like I know we have the map of the heat spots in Alston Brighton, and the heat spots are large. New properties that were developed in the last 10 years like Overlook and Avalon Bay and Overwood by St. Gabriel's is 550 units of the Overlook and I don't know there's a lot of them there's a lot it's right there we know exactly what we're talking about is it seems like is that how do we how do we monitor that like it's you know we give We give or we allow developers to build housing supposedly for our long-term residents to stay and then they take out a big slew of them like 20-30 units and and rent them out in short-term rentals. That's not really helping to address our long-term housing crisis. And then there's another one over on Western Ave. There's the Continuum and there's Alston Labs. We spotted that one and alerted you to it. Also, the labs, there's a lab building, but there's IDP units that are all rented out, but the market rates units are We're being advertised as short-term rentals, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of the thing. So how do we really get to grips with that problem?

Yeah, that's a challenge. I would say it sounds like you're already in communication with our team about that so that we can follow up. So that's definitely our first recommended step is alert us just to make sure they're not going around any of the requirements. As I said before, sometimes they do meet the requirements of either a hospital stay or a corporate stay. I'm looking at the numbers and I see significantly more and so on.

I'm sure there are people, there are really legitimate non-profits that are providing support for patients and their families when they're coming from medical care in Boston, and there's a need for that, but what is the Have we any ability to establish the veracity that they are truly serving the targeted population of folks coming for a hospital stay rather than just using this loophole to get around More strict regulation.

Yeah, that is something at this point we're not equipped to do.

Do you think there's any thoughts about a solution? So I just want to say the majority of the hospital stays are with one particular company that is registered with the Secretary of State's office in Massachusetts, our charitable organization. Anytime I see a new charity that comes up. I do check it against the database for gold star guide stock. Yeah Yeah, so they I am I am checking to make sure that they are registered as charitable organization. Very good

And I would have to add just again the definitions in the ordinance for residential units contracted for hospital stays as well as residential units for furnished institutional or business stays. It does state pretty clearly what documentation we're supposed to collect to prove whether they meet or don't the definitions of those two sections of the ordinance. And again, it's just the contract that's that's required to meet that definition. So they are meeting it. Very good. Thank you.

Councillor Coletta Zapata?

You've got another six minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, my question was that. I mean, it's kind of, it's just frustrating to hear that all that they need is this contract, and then that's, we don't have any... We don't have any way of verifying the legitimacy of it and that's where there's a lot of the frustration that's being felt in the community where it's so clearly it's there. and in the light of day where it's clearly not a 29, 28 day stay for a hospital or whatever it is. And so I think that there's a couple of things. I know Councilor Durkan had talked about opening this up and reviewing it and lawsuits and all of that. But I'm hearing a bunch of different opportunities that we have to correct the ordinance, one of which being the fines. so that it matches up with what we had put forward and just giving you all more teeth and authority to review this or to enforce it rather. I think the Charitable Organization and the veracity of it was another question that I had that was asked. I just want to get back to the timeline of someone listing something and having and so forth. And then it was like a fake registration number and then it being listed, for example, in East Boston it was listed in September 2024 and somehow we just didn't catch it. They didn't have a There was intervention in May and it still took until July or August to fully pull it down. I'm still caught up on that and why it took that long. Can you answer that?

There's over 2,000 listings online for short-term rentals in Boston. And we do get a takedown list, a delist report. The first year I did it, I did 400 units in November, over 400 units in November. I spent the entire December and January redoing everybody's New applications, telephone calls, emails. I spent a good solid two months to bring those people who had fallen out of compliance to bring them back into compliance. So there is a lot of time involved when people just don't renew their license or it was a listing that did not have a license number. And so the legitimate applications, let's say, the people who are trying to do the right thing, it takes a lot of time. Coaching them through the application process or the renewal process. Doing the renewals themselves. Renewal can take anywhere from 20 minutes to

I'm sorry to interrupt you, and I do appreciate that, and I know that that's the majority of the folks. In this instance, this is somebody who is playing the system. They're playing the game. and they know they know exactly how to go through the approvals process and all of that and it's actually somebody who has presented documentation that isn't true, where they're not there, where they're not the occupant. And in that instance, why hasn't their license or permit number been provoked?

And in particular for the, I believe, I don't understand Address you're talking about, they were never given a license from the department. And as with anything else, due process of the law, we have to go through and we have to have the evidence to back up the ticket that's being issued.

They were given a limited share license.

Yes.

They fell under the could be a resident. But they had already shown that they were not good actors anyway. So I guess, like, why would we give them a permit?

It's 110.

110.

So in that application, the applicant did put forward a letter of intent that he tends to live there nine of the following 12 months. He was given a revocation letter in that. You have failed to occupy the premises and the nine months has lapsed, so his license was revoked. But he did, as I said, at the time that the application was made, He gave a car registration that had the registration garaging at the address. He gave the utility bill. He gave a copy of his East Boston parking permit and the trust paperwork.

There was also evidence that was given that he's a Newton resident, too. Was that taken into consideration at all?

Where was that provided in the application?

Via email. I mean, it was via email through our office.

But again, if he's providing the documentation that We have the documentation to prove that they are an East Boston resident.

Which we do have. Yeah, this is the challenge. Is it commonplace to tell the owner of the Airbnb where the complaint is coming from, too?

The operator asks, it's all public record, It's in my emails. It's in telephone logs, yes. If they ask for a particular who filed the complaint under open, I'm required to give it to them.

I have a bunch of other, how much more time do I have? 20 seconds? Okay, there's just so much here. The host compliance scrubbing system, I think I would love to dive into that. I know you're maybe not the right person for that, but getting it on a monthly basis might not make sense. We're receiving data. That's scrubbed every month for stays, documented stays is the term that you used. Who built that system? Who operates it? Who manages it? Host compliance? Yeah, the scrubbing system. Is that host compliance?

That's host compliance.

Who manages it? Who updates it?

Well, I'm pretty much the user. For that, I do have backup with our IT department if it becomes an issue. No, no, it's host compliance.

Yeah, so host compliance is, was it built by Do It at the time? No, this is an independent vendor. Okay, is there any way that we can get host compliance to update the system? Not just monthly, but weekly. What does that look like? Because I feel like there's some lapse in some of the enforcement because of that.

We certainly could. I can reach out to find out through the current Regional Manager, if that's something that is attainable.

OK, thank you. I think that would also help in some of the packages of reforms that we could potentially do in addition to the no exemption. I'm very familiar with the negotiations that happened, and it was very political. And while I understand the good intentions at the time of all parties involved, it just has manifested in a way that it is clearly being taken advantage of. and so I would love to review what is happening in New York City and take Councilor Durkan's recommendation very seriously and would love to do that in partnership with all of you. Thank you.

Councilor Louijeune. Thank you. You have six minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think some of my questions were asked. But is the current zoning definition of executives of suites still allowing STR-like use?

That's a great question. I'm not sure. I will say, though, that what we've been talking about is more the ordinance definition of institutional or business state. I think that would be equivalent.

Okay.

Okay. Hold on, I'm being correct. They are not equivalent.

They're not equivalent. An executive suite. is under the zoning report. And under the ordinance, executive suites are not considered short-term rentals. An institutional or business stay is a contract between the property owner and a corporate entity to house their visiting employees, new employees, however it may be. It's different than The Executive Suite. The Executive Suite, I believe, is more of a non-residential designation?

Yes. Is that allowing for another way to get around the ordinance? Yes. It is.

Okay.

So more loopholes. So I guess I think we've done a sobering, decent job of recognizing some of the holes here. Just what staffing level and budget do you think is needed to help us? I mean, I'm not sure if the fixes are staffing and budget or if the fix is more legislative or what you would recommend to sort of

We want to engage in that discussion. I don't think right now we want to make a recommendation as to what the legislative process should be. I will say We've outlined the challenges as far as the ordinance language and some operational as well.

Okay, I hear you. And then my brain is still trying to think about like, how do we make this better? Regina, I'm understanding that you are, this is not the only thing in your portfolio of things to do. I'm wondering if it makes sense if the problem is as bad as it looks like some of us are identifying to create a dedicated unit that's addressing these issues. Because on the one hand, we want to make sure that Like we don't just have an ordinance on the books for the purpose of busy work, right? We're not actually able to properly, right? I mean, I don't want that. I don't want it to just be busy work. I want it to be, we're actually enforcing something because there's value Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My colleagues about the best way here to be proactive in responding to some of these issues, especially as we look to next year where there are a lot of major events coming. There's going to be a lot of pressure on our Homes on our on all sorts of hospitality for hosting people so trying to make sure that we are able to do enforcement and regulation and also welcome people to our city so those are the things that I'm thinking about but have no clear sort of I do want to thank all of the constituents and Jesse in my office who for a very long time has been sounding the alarm on the Hospital stays issues. And I think that this hearing has made it evident why it is an issue. Thank you.

Okay. Councillor Durkan, you had follow-up questions. Would you like to just repeat and give you six minutes?

Thank you so much, Chair. So I'm just going to get right into it because I know I had too lengthy of a I know the city filed an RFP to get a CRM with automated reporting in 2018. Has there been sort of new technologies that have been procured And in addition to that question, would improved technology management systems help address oversight challenges and improve efficiency and quality of enforcement? My take, sort of my reason for asking this question is I really do think we need systems that communicate with each other within the city. I know we've won a few awards in terms of what we're doing technology-wise in the city so I do want to give my kudos to Santee Garces and In our technology department, but we have way more to do I think to just bring us up to and I want to make sure enforcement is top of mind when we think of implementing any new technologies.

Just a comment. I'm completely in agreement on that. We are at a certain place as far as systems talking to each other, by which I mean, for example, we all have visibility into those code enforcement tickets and tickets issued by other departments. I'm very excited to see what my colleague Santi is doing around permitting transformation and having all of those systems internal talk to each other. We at ISD have been making that point as far as enforcement be included in that too because we They come together. So we're in agreement. The challenge within all of that communicating with an outside platform such as host compliance or whatever other platform exists would be significant. I think that is the direction in which the city is going. It's going to make things much more efficient.

And I know it's not just Airbnb, but if Airbnb is an example, at face value, they're not a home's technology. They're not an apartment's technology. Hotel Technology. They're just technology. So I really believe if they're creating the problem, They should be part of fixing our problems and I feel like that was the charge that I gave them on the call I recently had with them is If people have issues using their platform and their site, particularly their portal that they've created for the city to interact with them, they need to walk every relevant city department and every relevant city worker Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That work and so if there does need to be coordination within their platform and the city of Boston I think they should be the ones paying for that. I mean I I feel like so many technology companies that we work with, we think of Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, basically causing the issue that we need to regulate so they need to take on and I don't again I'm not a technology like I didn't come from that world but I just the idea that like it's all on our shoulders Thank you so much for joining us. How can their system be updated and share information with assessing and the tax department? Like, is there a clear way to integrate these systems?

I don't believe that that communication is happening right now. Probably a technical problem that can be solved, sure.

Do applications ever get a license number without approval? Because I know we were talking about sort of the platform and how one of the issues that happened on the Airbnb platform was that people were using expired license numbers. So I'm just curious how that could happen.

Once their application is submitted to the city, they receive their short-term rental license number before anyone in the office has had the chance to look at the application.

So are there any cases where they might put that application number into the app and not be found out that they do not actually have, they haven't actually secured the license yet. Okay, that seems like a big issue. And it feels like Airbnb should be the one checking to see if their folks on their platform have a current license. And is there any solution for that particular issue?

From my perspective, they should not get a license number until a license is approved.

I feel like this is a congressional hearing. I was like, we have our answer. So no, thank you for that answer because that's what my office thinks and that's what we've been dealing with is We're seeing, I mean, we've gone through the platform with them, the fact that they have a license number and that then it creates A regulatory issue that you have to then check if that license number is approved after it's on their platform. So I think through the chair and through the lead sponsor, I hope that that's an issue that we're dealing with as well. So thank you all for your time. I really, really appreciate. And I really do appreciate that the police are here as well. We've had a number of Airbnb's cause police level issues in our district. So thank you for Everything that BPD does to make sure that when people are traveling here, they're safe and they're not partying. So thank you. Thank you.

I think we'll go back to this exemption business again. Let's see. The total short-term Airbnb total short-term Listings in Boston, there's a total of 2,000. These numbers might not correlate with yours, but 2,089 short-term listings on Airbnb, units that are available for less than 28 days. and of these short-term rental listings 341 listings or 16% were classified as exempt and if they're exempt do we have any If they're exempt, do you have any control over what happens? Does the exemption just give them free rein? Like, I know they're supposed to fit into this hospital stay sort of, and I'm maybe misrepresenting it because there's more I'm just wondering in terms of There's a huge cluster of Airbnbs, as I already mentioned, in Austin, Brighton, at the Overlook. And these are registered to a non-profit healthcare company. But when we go into the reviews of those units that have been rented out It's obvious that the reviews make it clear that it's not being used exclusively for predominantly medical stays. I had a lovely vacation in Boston. It's very clear that it's not a hospital stay. Is there anything we can do about that? And it does take up a huge... As I said, our heat map in Alston, Brighton, is a huge number of units in Alston, Brighton that are being used as hospital stays. It's a huge loophole that you could drive a truck through.

If they are registered with us as a hospital state, they have provided that contract between the entity and the owner of the property that the ordinance requires. If they're not, we'll conduct enforcement and take it down. It's that challenge of where they've met that documentation requirement.

But how do we prove that they're not complying?

We don't have any language to outline that. We're thinking of, I mean, when we get those complaints or when we know about it, Inspector Johnson will go out and have those conversations that Regina shared. And if we do find We haven't, but if we do find, let's say, false documentation or something like that, we can obviously take some steps. The larger challenge is when they do meet the requirement.

I think as we've already discussed this merits a much more deeper conversation and have a working session to follow up on this so we get into the details and see if there's ways that we can tighten things up a little. I see we've been rejoined by Councillor Flynn. Councillor Flynn, six minutes. Do you have further questions?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to respectfully ask What is the latest information you could provide on problem properties as it relates to Airbnb? Could you just fill me in on what the results have been so far? What are you hearing? and one of the major challenges as it relates to getting an Airbnb on a problem property or getting as much attention to An AirBnB that has ongoing quality of life issues. And or what is the community process, community engagement to work with your team at ISD?

Yeah, Councilor, to have a SDR license, the property is supposed to be in good standing with the city as far as they are not being on the problem property list. The problem property list, we don't manage. We can certainly refer any more questions about that to my colleagues. But they have a pretty clear definition. So if a property that has an SDR license is meeting those definitions, They would be listed in that problem properties task force list with all of that comes with it. I know that there are lower level police calls and other disturbances that happen. Where they're not meeting that threshold but there is a response I believe that's the reason the deputy was here to address like how you how you deal with those and how you respond if you wanted to add

So good afternoon everyone. I did come to speak just generally about responses to noise complaints. via 911. So when a noise complaint comes in about a property, it goes into the 911 call taker. Then the call is moved over to the dispatcher who deploys a unit or multiple units. Depending on the nature of the noise complaint, it may be as simple as a one-man service car or a two-man car unit that responds. Also, depending on the nature of the call, what's going on as the call is progressing while units are en route to these types of calls, the patrol supervisor sergeant may be monitoring and may ask additional units to respond or he may respond himself. Most dispositions to these types of noise complaints that happen at residence may end up in a missile call, something like a 14-poll police service is rendered. or an eight boy, which would mean music or people are gone. Those missiles are to keep track of Dispositions to Calls. If it's something a little more serious, there may be an incident report made by officers, at which point these incident reports will be reviewed by a community service officer sergeant or detectives and then the appropriate actions will go from there.

Thank you sir. Thank you to the Boston Police also for the work you do. I work closely with Boston Police on This issue and obviously other quality of life and public safety issues almost every day of the week. So I want to acknowledge the men and women of the police department for their important work and important role. Madam Chair, I did step out, so I don't want to ask any questions that I may have been asked, so I do apologize for stepping out for a little bit, but I do want to ask, Was there going to be any public testimony in the chamber from the public? I know one person did want to speak and he has some important issues and he's been involved in this issue. for a long period of time. Just wanted to see what your thoughts might be, Madam Chair.

And we're happy to take more public testimony. Are there anyone else signed up? Maybe if they will go back to you. Okay, we'll see. We're going to check who is here for public testimony and then the lead sponsor, Councillor Coletta, has two further questions. So she will ask those and then we'll check in on the public testimony again.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councilor Coletta Zapata, you have the floor.

Thank you. I just want to drill in a little bit more into the difference between the hospital stays and the business stays. If there is a different process of reviewing and verifying both I think I understand about the charitable organization and you checking that and the Secretary of State's website What is I don't think we got the number of how many are classified as like business? and if the process is different for verification.

Currently, for the institutional business days, there's 14 licenses.

Just 14?

14.

And then what's the share of the hospital? It's like 338? 338.

Okay.

And then anything else listed as part of these exemptions?

Lodging houses is 202 licenses. And for bed and breakfast, there are four. And I'd just like to say with the bed and breakfast, the houseboats out in the wharf, if they're Advertised as a short-term rental, we tuck them into the bed and breakfast category.

Okay.

Oh, fascinating.

All right. On a weekend on the harbor.

I know. That actually sounds nice. Okay. I am just yeah everything that you know Councillor Durkan was saying about the um about getting a license number even before the application and list I think that's that's definitely something I want to dive into with potential reform and oh my last question had to do with I guess like rewarding good behavior and trying to provide a stick for those we already know that are bad actors so According to the website, you need to provide a business certificate from the city of Boston. And I look at this as another check or piece of leverage that we can use to ensure that people fall in line where there have been intentional bad behavior. And it's difficult for us to, I guess, to measure that legally because there are limitations in the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you very much.

in order to get that business certificate. So for the business license, they would get that after they have the short-term rental certificate issued. Okay, so it really goes- If I applied it and it's been approved and it's been paid for, then they would go to city clerk for the business license.

Okay, so it goes to you first and then to the city clerk in order to get that, okay. Do you review if anybody has gotten a license revoked before their business certificate is produced?

A license revocation is part of what I look at when it comes to reviewing a new application.

And there's nothing in the ordinance that says that we reserve the right not to provide a license or permit number based on past behavior.

I'd just like to say that the short-term rental I'm not an attorney so I'm not going to elaborate but

If they meet the requirements, we are then required to issue it.

Okay, but we don't have the authority to say, actually, no, you've done X, Y, and Z as an actor, and we can't do it to you.

Well, there are stipulations within the ordinance that if you have so many violations within a six-month time period, you can be denied a license. But once that six months is up, You could apply again. And as I said earlier, with a suspension, if a license is suspended, once you bring it back into compliance, then You could, your license can be reinstated.

Okay. I think this is another area in which I would like to dive in further. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Oh, and John, our superintendent, you've been here and to, um, I apologize, I don't have your name in front of me. Thank you for being here. I was going to try to just loop you into the conversation, John, but Councilor Flynn already did that. So just thank you for everything you do and gratitude. Thank you.

We have one, Ms. Ford, would you like to come down and make your testimony? Thank you for your... Patience. It's been a long conversation this afternoon. It's good though.

Thank you very much for letting me testify to the end. Originally I was just going to listen and not testify, but I did need to.

Could you introduce yourself? Oh, sure, sure.

My name is Ford Cavallari. I am the chair of the Alliance of Downtown Civic Organizations, which is an alliance of the 10 largest Neighborhood Associations Downtown. And one of the first areas our association Cut Its Teeth was on this ordinance. I remember many hours in Councilor Michelle Wu's office, along with Jamie McNeill, Local 26, who was just here, just trying to make sure that the ordinance was written And we were very happy that we got an ordinance. But I want to make sure that everyone understands the boundaries that we have on that ordinance. The first thing I want to start is to say I really want to commend ISD for doing a great job in essentially doing in an impossible situation, because you guys were dealt an impossible hand. because for those of you who may not have been here and may not know, Airbnb sued us in federal court under Section 230 Communications Decency Act, an internet law that allows folks like Uber and Airbnb and anyone who's in the internet space to essentially trump all Local Laws. So they can do what they want. That's one of the reasons why on the Airbnb platform half the names are fake and there's nothing we can do about it. The FTC would never allow that if it were a store and the store owner gave you a fake name, but it's okay on the internet. It's a law that needs to be changed, but that's a Washington thing. But they also, because they sued us, Adam Cederbaum, who is now a corporation counsel, actually won part but not all of the lawsuit. And by winning the part of it, he got the 27-day clock established. And the 27-day clock, if we say this listing is wrong, we go back to Airbnb, 27 days can expire. And they can say it's been fixed or it hasn't been fixed, but it's like a shot clock in basketball. It keeps going. You take a shot, you don't make it, but then you can do it again. and and one of the things that we were very dismayed about in ADCO is we used to track independently not through Host Compliance for two reasons. Host Compliance refuses to share their data with individuals. I tried many times, including I think a 17-whatever from a city councilor, to try to get Host Compliance data. They just won't do it. There's sort of a red flag there. But also, some of our investigation showed that host compliance has sort of a cozy relationship with Airbnb. So I question, The validity of some of the, I mean I'm not accusing them of like doing anything untoward, but I would suggest that maybe we want a second source of data. So we created our second source of data for several years. taking a look at what percentage of Airbnb listings were actually legally registered in 2019 when the ordinance was first passed and implemented and after the lawsuit was settled. It was 20%. The last time we did the check after we threw our hands up was in late 2023, and the percentage of legally registered units was still 20%. So we hadn't gone down the abyss, but the ordinance did nothing to improve the situation. As Ed said, there are 40%, as Councilor Flynn said, there are 40% of units that are just illegal. I mean, either they're fake registration numbers or reused registration numbers all over the place. Or they're one of these ridiculous self-exemptions. Oh, I'm a hospital stay. And here's a... A napkin with crayon written on it claiming that I'm a hospital stay. That's 40%, and that has remained constant. There's actually another 40% that we don't talk about, which is the folks that claim that they're long-term Rental stays. I'm not doing it for a night. I'm doing it for only a month long stay. But if you look at the reviews in Airbnb, and you see that you have like 30 reviews for something that's supposed to be a monthly stay over the past year, you can do the math and see that they are doing stays that are less than a month. That's also the place where all of the executive suite stuff is funneled in. Because unfortunately, if you get an executive suite exemption, which sadly, is sort of handed out like candy by the Zoning Board of Appeals. If you get the occupancy change to executive suite, You're exempt from all of this stuff. You don't even have to pay hotel taxes. I mean, it's a boon. It's a huge loophole. So there are loopholes all over the place that need to be closed. And that's one of the reasons that I want to really strongly say Concluding, this is a policy problem that we have with this ordinance. It's not an enforcement problem. Enforcement is like doing a great job to do what they can in a losing hands scenario. But there's no way they can do this because there's just no... There's no way to win. So what do we do? I mean, just some suggestions for you guys. I think there's a licensing component here, too. I mean, why is it that a hospital stay or an executive suite stay is not going through the licensing board like hotels are? Even dormitories go through the licensing board. They should go through the licensing board. We need a second level of regulation to keep all of the miscreants out. And there are a lot of miscreants here. I mean, there are these fake hotel companies I don't want to name names, but I think we all know who some of them are. And they go buy a building, get an executive suite change, and then they just make it into what we call a fake hotel. Now in the fake hotel, You don't have a trash contract because you depend on the city to do that. You don't have a security contract. You depend on the city to do that. So they're bleaching off of city and really importantly, security is a problem in these places and fire safety is a problem too. Safety inspection is residential for executive suites. In a town that had a major fire that created the fire safety laws for much of the nation, we should be very careful about allowing for buildings with people stuffed into them that don't have sufficient fire protections. So this is another policy problem that needs to be solved. There are a whole bunch of things that I think that I think can be done. And I would just want to say our alliance has a lot of knowledge here. We'd love to help. We do think you need the working session. And we think this thing needs to be opened up. Airbnb is immediately going to say this is null and void and they're going to stop providing any data to you guys because that's exactly what if you make any change to the ordinance, they have the right to withdraw from any interaction with us. But my last words will be the interaction that we have with them is so poor that it's worth You know, flipping them off and saying, you know, who cares? We're going to redo the ordinance. And I hope we have the courage to do that. And if we have any, any bit of us that thinks that Airbnb maybe can help Take a look at what they're doing right now in New York City. They are putting tons of advertising and tons of lobbying money into trying to overturn that ordinance in New York City. and they're gonna try to do that here too. They're not our friends, they're not our partners and we need to understand that. So with that, thank you very much. I hope I wasn't too long but I appreciate the extra time.

We appreciate your incredible knowledge of this. Thank you.

Happy to be a resource.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. I'm just going to ask any, you're the lead sponsor, have you any closing comments?

I'll keep it brief. Thank you again for being here and for your contributions. I think we've identified the scope of the issue now. It's just on all of us to act. This is a top priority of mine in the new year if I am so lucky and privileged to be back in this seat and I really look forward to developing some policy solutions with all of you just to better the lives of residents. Thank you.

Councillor Louijeune. Any closing statements?

I just want to thank my lead sponsor here, Councilor Coletta Zapata, for filing this. I want to thank you, Regina, obviously, and everyone for all of your work. Yeah, I think city government, I think I think that shows that a lot of what we're trying to do is hard, but I think worth it. And we have more to try to make sense of during work exceptions, but we'll hopefully hear from others who have really great ideas of how we can solve. Because I think, again, we've identified a lot of problems Finn. And thank you, Madam Chair.

Like Councilor Coletta Zapata mentioned, If I'm fortunate enough to get re-elected in a couple more days, I'm going to continue to be focused and advocate for new policy, but also strict enforcement on this critical issue impacting the entire city, including my district of South Boston, the south end, Chinatown, downtown Boston, parts of the Back Bay as well. My focus has always been or continues to be on the quality of life for residents in the impacted neighborhood and I get calls constantly about loud parties from Airbnb or Quality of life issues such as pest control or the proper way to take out garbage, composting, recycling, impacting residents. So those are the issues that I focus on. It's the neighborhood services nuts and bolts of city government. I'm going to continue to fight for my constituents and for city residents on this issue and also want to acknowledge the neighborhood associations, civic associations across the city and in my district especially that have provided critical leadership on this issue. It's an issue that I've focused on for eight years. and want to also acknowledge that this has an impact on our economy and our hotel and occupancy rate. And that's why I fight so hard for our hotel and restaurant workers. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Commissioner, do you have any closing remarks? I'd like to thank you all for being here this afternoon, all my colleagues who joined this very important conversation. and thank you for all your great work. This is a tough one. It's trying to manage all the different loopholes and then think about quality of life in our neighbourhoods. It's all so important. And we do look, I think we make a commitment to go further and have a further working session on this issue to see if we can Anything we can tweak or improve in regards to the implementation of this ordinance would be really useful, so I look forward to that in the new year. Commissioner, have you any closing remarks?

I just want to thank the Council for the great discussion, but especially want to thank my team, Regina, Evangeline, Inspector Johnson, and the Boston Police for their support every day working on this enforcement.

Thank you. This hearing on docket number 1634 is adjourned. Thank you all. Have a good evening.