Responding to housing shortages, city officials say sites like Airbnb are making rental market unfair to permanent residents.
BY JACOB PALMER | DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
Responding to housing shortages, city officials in Hood River say sites like Airbnb are making the rental market unfair to permanent residents.
The city government is mulling regulations on short-term rentals as a result.
Ryan Hartman – president at unmanned aircraft manufacturer Insitu, the Gorge’slargest employer – said one of the biggest challenges facing his company, across the Hood River Bridge in Bingen, Washington, is finding affordable housing for his employees.
“Finding a way to create entry-level housing in the Gorge has been a real challenge over the last 10 years. … It’s gotten worse,” Hartman said. “As the population has grown, as the rise of short-term rentals and vacation rentals has steadily increased, certainly what we have seen is it becomes more and more challenging.”
(SOURCE: OregonLive.com)
Governments are slowly reacting to the new sharing economy, and how they react will determine the long-term vitality of their local markets.
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