The Real Sharing Economy

There are not many things that Willie Brown and I agree on, but he wrote about one of them in his column in the Sunday Comicle:

Toll talk: State Sen. Scott Wiener has introduced legislation that could help ease our ever-increasing traffic congestion problem by allowing San Francisco to charge for driving through downtown.

My recommendation for City Hall is to start charging ride-hailing companies now. They are a huge part of the problem.

Other studies have burst the idea that ride-sharing would take cars off the road.  The opposite appears to be the case with people more able to forego public transportation for more convenience at a reasonable price for door-to-door service.  That uplift is compounded by Lyft and Uber drivers circling continuously or worse yet sucking up parking spaces downtown.  Traffic flows are worsening as drivers who are not familiar with the area decide to just pull over and drop-off anywhere.

On the home-sharing front, if the City needs money for a new Rec Center--and it does, a LOT of money; as Lorne notes here--then why no movement on charging TOT for AirBnB, VRBO, etc?  Those are low-hanging dollars and our ever-important hotels would not mind one bit.  Also in the Sunday Chron, the taxman's reach was verified in court:

HomeAway must give San Francisco information about its local vacation rentals so the city can ensure that the company paid its hotel tax, an appellate court ruled Thursday.

“We find that the tax collector acted within its authority,” in seeking records for HomeAway bookings dating to Jan. 1, 2012, the First District Court of Appeal for San Francisco wrote in a 20-page decision.

We should start to see what kind of cash flow Measure I generates soon, but it won't be tens of millions of dollars so here are two ways to align taxes with local usage, improve some of the quality of life aspects of living in B'game and tap into the sharing economy.  Share and share alike.

Comments

[Becca]

Totally agree with you that Uber and Lyft drivers are clogging up the city. You did not get to the out town drivers (Sacramento & I heard as far away as San Diego) sleeping in their cars in between rides.

[hollyroller]

I have never taken an uber, or goober.
Any "Driver" sits and wonders, "what can be."
Riders wonder how many degrees of separation there are.
Playing a lottery.
On or off.
Eleven hours to go

[Joe]

There was a Prius actually DOUBLE PARKED on the Avenue tonight at 6:30. Blinkers on, no body in the car. Kind of amazing.

[Joe]

Well, well. San Mateo is showing us the way on TOT for short-term rentals!!!
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In an effort to enforce San Mateo’s short-term rental policy and collect data on how many home rentals are available on Airbnb and other platforms, city officials are working with a contractor to collect a 12 percent transient occupancy tax on all establishments offering short-term stays.

Though short-term rental owners are also required to collect a 12 percent TOT from their guests and remit payment to the city as well, officials have grappled with how to ensure properties that fall outside traditional hotels are identified and complying with the rules.

“That’s the biggest piece … the identification piece,” he said, in a subsequent conversation. “It’s very difficult to get a handle on getting that information.”

((I'm not so sure about that nor about using an outside contractor like HdL to do it either)))

Acknowledging Airbnb has collected the tax directly from those renting in other cities and remitted payment to the cities, Corbett said using a third-party provider to enforce the policy could allow the city to keep track of the volume of rentals in the city instead of receiving the total sum of the payment from the company, among other considerations.

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/san-mateo-set-to-chart-short-term-rental-numbers/article_a0c0dede-36ed-11e8-8a72-df3658c18278.html

[Bruce Dickinson]

Joe, call this another head-scratcher for Bruce Dickinson. Of all places where you would think a TOT should be considered, it would be Burlingame, and, surprise surprise, our city council is pretty much out to lunch on this one.

Air BnB and the likes are direct competition to our hotels, who provide a large tax revenue base for Burlingame via the TOT. Does this city not care about protecting one of its golden geese?

City council, Bruce Dickinson is calling you out on this one and I will not be mincing words: get with the program and get into the representation game! To even think that San Mateo is taking a lead on the TOT versus Burlingame makes it seem we are yet again, behind the 8-ball. Why does it feel like the only ones being represented are real estate developers building their defacing monstrosities that were it not for a few Planning commissioners and residents, we'd be 90% on the way to looking like Millbrae?

The hotels are a big constituency and what better way to raise revenue for the city (in lieu of adding gimmicky taxes on consumption and further sticking to the residents) than to make Air BnB customers pay for a fair share of their usage of our city and its resources (including water!)