This article was prepared in partnership with Capital and mainwhich was a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network in 2022-23. Subscribe to Dispatches to receive such stories as soon as they are published.
As Los Angeles prepares to welcome tens of thousands of visitors to the 2028 Summer Olympics, city officials are scrambling to stop property owners from illegally listing their homes as vacation rentals and gobbling up the city’s already strained housing stock.
The City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee is considering adding inspectors, imposing tougher fines and requiring websites like Airbnb and Booking.com to use an electronic system already in place in New York that automatically rejects reservations facilities that are not approved for a short time. – short-term lease.
A July investigation by Capital & Main and ProPublica found more than 60 rent-controlled buildings advertised on booking sites despite L.A. Decree on joint use of housingwhich prohibits such occupancy in controlled apartments. In some cases, entire apartment buildings have been listed as boutique hotels on booking sites.
Rental premises make up almost 75% of the city’s rental market; the annual rent cap increases by approximately 4% and is intended to preserve affordable housing for city residents.
The number of buildings with illegal listings is likely much higher than reported by news organizations because most booking platforms mask property addresses. The Los Angeles Department of Housing is currently evaluating it 7,500, or about 60% of the city’s short-term apartment rentals, are illegalaccording to a memo sent to the city council by the agency’s interim CEO, Tricia Keane.
“I think there’s a big lack of opportunities for enforcement,” said Councilwoman Nitya Raman, who chairs the housing and homelessness committee. She said very few violators received tickets and fines “because of how broken the process is.”
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At a committee hearing in early December, the proposals faced opposition from several property owners who urged the committee not to impose tougher regulations. “I became completely dependent on Airbnb to make ends meet,” said Johnny Day, a freelance TV producer.
Representatives for Airbnb and Booking.com did not respond to emails seeking comment on the city’s enforcement proposals. Airbnb has previously told news organizations that it is working closely with city staff to “deal with hosts who try to violate the rules.”
For more than a year, the Committee on Housing and the Homeless has been watching the rise of home sharing in Los Angeles. It brought together representatives from key city departments and the city attorney’s office to learn about enforcement of the 2019 Housing Sharing Act on unapproved listings and what can be done to improve it.
Roman said the dysfunction of the city’s home enforcement system is “a matter of priorities and staffing.” In addition, she said, “There are real communication breakdowns between departments.”
In addition to covering the abuses of rent-controlled apartments, Capital & Main and ProPublica have documented how these breakdowns botched performance when cases were passed between the planning department, whose computer system flags potential home-sharing violations, and the housing department, which is tasked with actually citing violators.
Roman asked city officials to develop plans to create a single co-housing task force to streamline the process.
However it’s organized, Department of Housing Director Robert Galardi said he just needs “boots on the ground” to investigate what he believes is an “underground” illegal vacation rental that some landlords often masquerading as legitimate monthly rent to avoid enforcement.
An investigation by Capital & Main and ProPublica found that relatively few property owners were cited for the ordinance and that some of those who were cited continued to offer short-term rentals after paying minimal fines or while their cases were pending appeals.
In one case, residents and neighbors of 1940 Carmen Ave., a 21-unit apartment building in Hollywood, complained repeatedly to the city about illegal vacation rentals. But the owner was never fined for sharing the house. However, following an investigation, the owner was fined and it appears the building is no longer accepting bookings on booking sites.
The building’s owner, Alexander Shtein, did not return calls for comment.
The city currently imposes a $587 fine on first-time offenders, but the department is proposing higher fines that would increase from $1,000 for the first offense at the smallest properties to $64,000 for the third offense at the largest.
Another proposal by City Councilman Bob Blumenfield would give any Los Angeles resident the right to sue property owners who offer illegal short-term rentals and receive a share of the damages if they win.
Co-housing watchdogs have applauded the city’s efforts to strengthen the Co-Housing Ordinance. “The challenge right now is that the city still needs to develop the will to actually enforce this law,” said Noah Suarez-Sykes, an organizer with Better Neighbors LA.
As the Housing and Homelessness Committee compiles its proposals, a process that will likely continue into 2025, it has asked city departments to report on how the city can implement them.
The committee also ordered the Housing Department to provide annual reports on compliance with another law aimed at preserving some of the city’s most affordable housing — Los Angeles residential hotels, which typically provide one-bedroom units with shared bathrooms.
The Department of Housing has received five new positions this year to enforce the Residential Hotels Ordinance, which prohibits the conversion of residential hotels into tourist hotels.
Allocation of budget funds took place in response to a 2023 investigation by Capital & Main and ProPublicawhich found that lax enforcement of the law had resulted in the loss of nearly 800 tourist accommodation units.
