I’m writing to highlight the high cost of getting an AirBnb license. It’s about $800. Full disclosure: I had a fire at my house and it took so long to get the repairs done I lost my permit. I live here but might want to AirBnB for the summer months. It’s clearly not worth $800 and the ridiculous hassle the city puts us through (the dumb good neighbor class that mostly scares you by reciting huge fines for operating without a license) to do that.
I’ve felt for some time that 29 Palms over-regulates AirBnbs because frankly they don’t have any ideas about actual economic development other than tourism. But what this does is create hotel-like AirBnBs rather than supporting folks who just want to keep their house payments up.
And the money goes to billboards in Silverlake? Fuck that. All this tourism stuff is just tacky, as far as I’m concerned, and apart from the book festival, I don’t think it does anything much for the quality of life here. How about a real community center like a YMCA? More affordable housing? Better schools!
In any case, I won’t be supporting the city’s heavy hand and, of course, the AirBnb co-founder is busily sucking up to Trump, so I suppose this is the last nail in the coffin of the old couch surfing vibe of AirBnb. So it goes. We come to the desert to get away from the worst of America and find ourselves staring it in the face. If I rent I’ll rent long-term, thank you very much.
No ill feeling toward the city staff who are very nice.
But hey: If you can’t allocate funds to improve the quality of life for residents, then -
I’m writing to highlight the high cost of getting an AirBnb license. It’s about $800. Full disclosure: I had a fire at my house and it took so long to get the repairs done I lost my permit. I live here but might want to AirBnB for the summer months. It’s clearly not worth $800 and the ridiculous hassle the city puts us through (the dumb good neighbor class that mostly scares you by reciting huge fines for operating without a license) to do that.
I’ve felt for some time that 29 Palms over-regulates AirBnbs because frankly they don’t have any ideas about actual economic development other than tourism. But what this does is create hotel-like AirBnBs rather than supporting folks who just want to keep their house payments up.
And the money goes to billboards in Silverlake? Fuck that. All this tourism stuff is just tacky, as far as I’m concerned, and apart from the book festival, I don’t think it does anything much for the quality of life here. How about a real community center like a YMCA? More affordable housing? Better schools!
In any case, I won’t be supporting the city’s heavy hand and, of course, the AirBnb co-founder is busily sucking up to Trump, so I suppose this is the last nail in the coffin of the old couch surfing vibe of AirBnb. So it goes. We come to the desert to get away from the worst of America and find ourselves staring it in the face. If I rent I’ll rent long-term, thank you very much.
No ill feeling toward the city staff who are very nice.
But hey: If you can’t allocate funds to improve the quality of life for residents, then -
Keep 29 skanky! Better than tacky, at any rate.