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Airbnb: Who Writes the Rules?

jm3 on Flickr, Creative Commons

A deadly shooting last month at an Airbnb rental in Virginia Beach is casting a tragic shadow over this week’s meeting of a Virginia Housing Commission work group. The commission panel is set to take up a contentious issue that was unresolved from the General Assembly session: How should the state regulate Airbnb?

Advocates call it the new disruptive economy, the same kind of technology that allows drivers to do the work taxicabs used to dominate. That was the argument behind Senator Jill Vogel’s bill, which she introduced earlier this year. During a February debate on the Senate floor, Vogel said it would allow property owners to rent out their homes for less than thirty days.  

“If you have ordinances that say you can’t park a car infant of your house, you can’t run a brothel. You can’t paint your house blue. All of those other ordinances sill exist."

The hotel industry lobbied strongly against the bill. 

“I have family that’s in the hotel business, and I know that the hospitality industry is critical to the commonwealth of Virginia."

Although he bill sailed through the House side, it hit a dead end in the Senate. 

"The real subtlety was that Airbnb is not required to register with the Department of Taxation."

That’s Senate Republican Leader Tommy Norment.

“You had to read the bill like a lawyer to find that it said they may do it. They may do it. They’re not required to do it."

This week members of a work group are set to take up some of the thorniest issues: Who gets to write the rules? And who gets to pick up the revenues for the taxes?