San Francisco committee advances competing short-term rental bills after days-long debate

San Francisco supervisors on the Land Use & Transportation Committee on May 21 advanced competing proposals to limit short-term rentals, sending two revised ordinances to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration on June 9 after a day of presentations and more than three hours of public comment.

Supervisor David Campos, the author of one bill, urged colleagues to adopt an enforced 60-night cap on short-term rentals and to empower enforcement by requiring hosting platforms to list only registered units and to provide booking data to the city. Campos said a recent Budget and Legislative Analyst report shows "Airbnb is having a significant impact on the housing market, taking up as, somewhere between 1,302,000 entire units off the housing market in the city and county of San Francisco," and argued the city needed stronger penalties and a private right of action to hold bad actors accountable.

Supporters of a different package led by Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Mark Farrell proposed a 120-night hard cap, elimination of the distinction between hosted and unhosted rentals, and creation of an Office of Short-Term Rental Administration to streamline registration and enforcement. Farrell said the office would…