Airbnb is suing the City of Boston over its ban on short-term residential rentals. The new regulations are set to go into effect on Jan. 1. The city argues Airbnb’s business is a threat to affordability, because it motivates investors rather than homeowners to purchase housing to use as de facto hotels. Convinced home-sharing may be lawfully regulated, Airbnb claims “this is a case about a city trying to conscript home-sharing platforms into enforcing regulations on the city’s behalf in a manner that would thwart both federal and Massachusetts law.”
Airbnb spokeswoman Crystal Davis further argues that “the City of Boston has enacted an ordinance limiting short-term residential rentals by hosts. But it goes much further than that. The ordinance also enlists home-sharing platforms like Airbnb into enforcing those limits under threat of draconian penalties, including $300-per-violation-per-day fines and complete banishment from doing business in Boston.”
