Chicago is facing another delay in rolling out some of the more controversial aspects of its new regulations on Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms.
Aldermen approved a change to the rules Wednesday that altered the trajectory of two lawsuits challenging the home-sharing ordinance. Under the change, city inspectors would need a search warrant or subpoena to access the lists of guest information that hosts must keep.
After the City Council’s tweaks, a judge in one of the suits extended a delay on implementing parts of the ordinance from Tuesday to Friday.
The extension gives Keep Chicago Livable, the lead plaintiff in the case in which the judge ruled Thursday, time to file an amended complaint, said Shorge Sato, an attorney for the nonprofit. The judge could extend the delay further if the city needs time to respond.
"The changes that (the city) made were an attempt to address some of the, I think, more flagrantly unconstitutional parts of the law, but they left a lot still out there," Sato said.
The judge’s decision allots time to file a new motion seeking to temporarily block the ordinance, Sato said. If granted, that could postpone implementation until the court battle ends.
Mayor Emanuel wants changes to home-sharing rules John Byrne
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is seeking to ease one of the city rules imposed on Airbnb hosts, asking aldermen this week to consider removing the requirement that lists of guest names must be made available to officials on request.
Under the change, which the City Council license committee will consider Wednesday,…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is seeking to ease one of the city rules imposed on Airbnb hosts, asking aldermen this week to consider removing the requirement that lists of guest names must be made available to officials on request.
Under the change, which the City Council license committee will consider Wednesday,…
(John Byrne)
"The city objected to the extension in court," said Bill McCaffrey, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department. "However, we will abide by the court’s decision to extend it a few days."
The ordinance, approved last summer, also calls for an extra tax on home-sharing hosts and a limit on the number of units in a building that can be rented out on home-sharing sites, among other regulations.
Keep Chicago Livable filed suit Nov. 4 in U.S. District Court, alleging that parts of Chicago’s new law are unconstitutional.
The city agreed in December to hold off on implementing some of the rules, including the one pertaining to guest records. That regulation as originally proposed would have required hosts to keep registration records, including names, addresses and signatures of all guests, on file for three years and make them available for inspection upon request from the city.
The ordinance was set to go fully into effect in mid-December, but the order the city agreed to pushed that date back to Feb. 28. The city’s proposal to change parts of the ordinance first emerged the day after that agreement was made.
Aldermen also agreed Wednesday to remove a requirement that a host sign an attestation that he or she understands the ordinance. Instead, they must review a summary of the ordinance and acknowledge that shared-housing units are subject to those requirements, McCaffrey said.
City agrees to hold off on implementing new Airbnb rules Ally Marotti
Some of the more controversial provisions in a new set of regulations Chicago is imposing on Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms are being Piabet tweaked as a lawsuit challenging the rules makes its way through the courts.
Keep Chicago Livable, a nonprofit made up of homeowners who oppose Chicago’s…
Some of the more controversial provisions in a new set of regulations Chicago is imposing on Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms are being tweaked as a lawsuit challenging the rules makes its way through the courts.
Keep Chicago Livable, a nonprofit made up of homeowners who oppose Chicago’s…
(Ally Marotti)
Changing bits and pieces of the ordinance as the lawsuit moves through court "is not appropriate," said Benjamin Thomas Wolf, president of Keep Chicago Livable and a plaintiff in the case.
"It’s not the way the legal process is supposed to occur," he said.
The group’s objective remains the same: to have the law removed, let the "sharing economy" govern itself and "let the people of Chicago use their homes as they see fit," Wolf said.
There are about 6,500 Airbnb hosts in Chicago, according to the San Francisco-based company. Airbnb is not involved in either suit. Spokesman Ben Breit said in an emailed statement that the company remains "as committed as ever to serving as a good partner to the city of Chicago, and we will be ready to move forward with our obligations under the ordinance once it goes fully into effect."
Keep Chicago Livable has until Monday to file an amended complaint. The next hearing is scheduled for Thursday, according to court documents.
Another group of homeowners that sued the city in November in hopes of blocking the regulations also asked for a temporary reprieve.
Chicago’s Airbnb home-sharing rules are ‘draconian,’ lawsuit says Ally Marotti
A group of homeowners is suing the city of Chicago, alleging the city’s new “draconian and unintelligible restrictions” on Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms are unconstitutional and punish responsible homeowners.
This is the second lawsuit filed this month that takes aim at the city’s new…
A group of homeowners is suing the city of Chicago, alleging the city’s new “draconian and unintelligible restrictions” on Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms are unconstitutional and punish responsible homeowners.
This is the second lawsuit filed this month that takes aim at the city’s new…
(Ally Marotti)
That request, however, was directed at the provision requiring hosts to turn over guest records without a warrant and a provision that would allow the city to conduct inspections of hosts’ homes.
The Council’s tweak to the guest records rule, plus a promise from the city not to conduct inspections until it establishes guidelines, means that request is no longer necessary, said Jacob Huebert, senior attorney at Liberty Justice Center, the Chicago-based nonprofit litigation center representing the plaintiffs in this second case.
"With this change, we don’t need a preliminary injunction anymore because the city fixed it," he said.
The city made its promise in a letter to the Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based think tank that teamed up with Liberty Justice Center on the suit, stating that it would not conduct inspections until guidelines are in place.
But those changes are not enough for the plaintiffs, Huebert said. The next court hearing in that suit is scheduled for Monday.
"That’s only one small part of our lawsuit," he said. "There’s still a lot wrong with this ordinance that we’re still challenging, and all of that is going forward."
amarotti@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @AllyMarotti
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
