Addressing concerns about short-term lets via websites

Proposed by Councillor Wolff, seconded by Councillor Brandt

Green member motion

Council is aware that through AirBnB, and similar websites, over three hundred properties in Oxford are available for short-term let over the internet in an unregulated, supposedly self-policing system.

Some of these lets are rooms within owner-occupied properties.  Others are otherwise unoccupied, unsupervised properties.

Whilst recognising that in the majority of cases there is mutual benefit for hosts and guests, and for the city as a whole:

a)     Council is aware of the potential abuse of this system by organised criminal elements running ‘pop-up brothels’, ‘pop-up drug shops’, human sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation.

b)     Council is also concerned about the as-yet unmeasured impact on housing supply for long-term Oxford residents, on registered guest houses and on the regulated hotel sector.

Other local authorities in the UK and elsewhere are currently exploring ways of better monitoring and regulating online short-term letting agencies

Council therefore:

1.    Asks its Hotel Watch partnership with the police and other agencies, through its representatives on that body:

a.    to monitor, record and collate concerns about these letting services picked up by police, ASBIT and HMO Licensing team

b.    to monitor issues arising in other cities around the world and the city authorities’ various regulatory responses to them (e.g. in Berlin, London, San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, Madrid, Reykjavik and Cambridge)

2.    Agrees to review the situation this autumn, after the summer season, to see whether – if any – further action is needed. 

This motion was not taken as the allowed time had elapsed.