In a note on the changes proposed by the Lisbon City Council (CML) for AL in the city, which were up for public consultation until Tuesday, Airbnb asks that the city hall stop using local accommodation “as a scapegoat for the lack of housing and excess tourism”.

Defending the creation of balanced rules between local accommodation and hotels, which will curb “uncontrolled real estate speculation” in hotels, the AL platform considers that the new rules that the CML wants for the city will “unfairly harm” families “who want to rent part or all of their home to balance the family budget” in 20 of the 24 Lisbon parishes, while the local authority facilitates “the third largest hotel expansion in a European capital”.

According to the tourist accommodation company, while controlling the AL, the municipality allows “more than 54 new hotel projects in the city”, which will add more than 7,000 tourist rooms, “which could have been used for affordable housing”.

“It is not effective to limit the AL to combat over tourism while new hotel licenses continue to be approved,” emphasising that 30 of the new hotel projects are located in parishes with high tourist pressure.”

Airbnb also argues that the CML should implement “a moratorium on the approval and construction of new hotels at the parish level, and encourage programs that convert obsolete hotels into affordable housing.”

Disproportionate

The Chamber's proposal, "in practice, prohibits all new AL licenses, including for the 'rooms' modality", being "disproportionate", because it "does not differentiate real estate investment" dedicated to tourist rentals from the activity of families who occasionally share their homes, "without any relevant impact on the housing market", considers Airbnb.

On the other hand, the municipality disregards “the specificities of the parishes that could benefit from the decentralization of tourism”, in addition to promising, “in a contradictory way”, to alleviate tourist pressure, “while facilitating the expansion of hotels”.

“It is not effective to limit the AL to combat over tourism while new hotel licenses continue to be approved: of the 54 new hotel projects, 30 are located in parishes with high tourist pressure”, adding that the proposed rules will also “reinforce a discriminatory tourism model, which excludes travellers with smaller budgets”.

Airbnb is available to collaborate with the CML in creating proportionate and non-discriminatory rules, including data sharing to avoid the “counterproductive effects of transversal and disproportionate regulations”.

Furthermore, it argues that the reality of each parish should be assessed with “the use of fair indexes at parish level to define rental zones”, and that the rules distinguish “clearly” between the different types of AL.

“The majority of hosts on Airbnb in Lisbon are families who share a room or their own home. Airbnb wants to protect the right of these Lisbon families to rent out their main or holiday home occasionally, helping them earn extra income in a context of rising living costs”.

According to the platform, the proposed regulation will not solve the city's housing problems, which has more than 47,740 vacant homes, which corresponds to almost 15% of the city's total housing stock.

Regulation

The draft amendment to the Municipal Regulation for Local Accommodation (RMAL), proposed by Lisbon City Council, was under public consultation until Tuesday, with proposals from PSD/CDS-PP, PS, BE, Livre and PCP.

The document advocates measures to “ensure in all parishes the desirable balance between tourism and housing” and proposes a reduction to a 5% ratio between AL establishments and classic family accommodation.

The proposal also limits the transferability of AL titles, and imposes that only in areas of relative containment can AL units be registered in the form of a room and only in housing of a type equal to or greater than T2.