It’s that time of year where parades, festivals, and second lines are in full swing. We love to see our neighbors in the streets and enjoying themselves. But we must ask: Shouldn’t we also get to be the ones enjoying the material and financial fruits of this high season? This month, we’re diving into recent updates on how short-term rentals are draining our neighborhoods, and we’re providing info on our new drop-in hours, where you can ask your housing questions every week.
Short-Term Rental-Palooza: Spring 2025
As of February 17, the City’s own registry of Short-Term Rental (STR) permits and applications indicates there are 2,475 permits that have been issued to Commercial (CSTR) and Residential (NSTR) STRs, combined.
Notably, NSTRs are currently—and recently—limited to one per square block in residential areas (assigned via lottery among applicants). As of September 2024, rules that allowed up to two additional NSTRs per square block as “exceptions” (which were assigned via special petitions that were ultimately voted on by City Council) were changed, removing the exception opportunity moving forward. Meanwhile, new CSTR permit applications have not been allowed since June 2023, though renewals of expired licenses have been allowed.
Additionally, City Council passed an additional measure this past fall requiring that platforms themselves verify the legality of the listings on their sites—meaning Airbnb should itself confirm that listings on its site comply with the City’s rules, and similarly so for VRBO and other STR platforms. However, that “platform accountability” rule was not planned to go into effect until the City could establish an electronic verification system for the STR platforms to use. That platform was originally supposed to be established by this month (March), and then pushed back to June.
Then, on Valentine’s Day, Airbnb and a group of homeowners filed another suit challenging the new platform accountability law, stating it infringes on their rights and unfairly places the responsibility of enforcing laws onto Airbnb.
So it would seem that New Orleanians are again left waiting for meaningful tools or teeth to be put into enforcing STR rules in our city. However, a tool remains available to the City Council that was named and threatened during a new wave of court orders to halt enforcement of Airbnbs in September 2023: The City could ban STRs entirely in residential areas. Legislation has already been introduced in order for this to happen, and it has sat idle on City Council meeting agendas for if and when such a challenge to STR rules might return. That day has come—will our City Council act to help save our neighborhoods as it has said it will?
As of February 17, Airbnb itself indicates 654 properties in the city are still available for a single person looking for a place to stay March 1 through 4 for Mardi Gras weekend, which would indicate that, if only legal listings existed on the site, as many as 1,821 STRs had been booked already for the weekend, which would make sense for one of the busiest tourist weekends of the year.
However, data from Airbnb watchdog site Inside Airbnb indicates that as many as 7,394 listings have availability in the city. If we eliminate from consideration the 2,303 listings that the site says have been booked 0 nights in the past 365 days, 5,091 listings remain—this would mean as many as 2,616 unlicensed STRs are in active operation currently—141 more than there are valid STR licenses in the city. Applying this to Mardi Gras weekend, we can calculate that if only 654 properties remain listed on Airbnb, as many as 4,437 properties have already been booked for Mardi Gras weekend. That means on Mardi Gras weekend, 179% of the amount of properties with legal STR licenses in the city may have already been booked on sites like Airbnb. Previous research we’ve done on Airbnb indicates the platform is most often used to rent entire homes in New Orleans, not to rent a single room to supplement someone’s mortgage, meaning all these illegal bookings from New Orleans’ high season aren’t bringing money into the pockets of New Orleanians who most need housing help to hold onto their primary residences. It is instead lining the pockets of those who are taking entire housing units off the local market to rent to tourists.
City Council itself acknowledged that significant abuse of the current holes in STR enforcement would likely occur in the time between their drafting of the new platform accountability rules in the fall and the time when those rules’ enforcement was planned to begin this month (or in the pushed-back date of June, established prior to the new Valentine’s Day suit). However, we should not forget that this City Council, previous City Councils, our Mayor, and City enforcement officials have had almost a decade to act on limiting STRs. For the past near-decade, fair housing advocates have spoken out against STRs being allowed to swallow up our neighborhoods. We no longer have the time to “wait and see” what will happen to our neighbors. The damage is done and continues daily—the Valentine’s Day lawsuit should serve as the final sign that the time to ban residential short-term rentals has come in New Orleans.
Introducing Renters’ Rights Open Walk-In Hours
This month, we’re announcing our Renters’ Rights Open Walk-In Hours. Except for the first week of March due to Mardi Gras, you can now find us Tuesdays and Wednesdays to chat about your housing issues.
See below for dates and address information and know that we’re here. We can help you file a Healthy Homes complaint if your home is plagued by neglected repairs, help you understand your lease, confirm the date of your eviction hearing, or help you request your security deposit back. For all dates, no ID or other documentation is required, but if you have documents related to your housing issue (e.g., your lease), bring those. On Wednesdays (*) , bilingual English/Spanish staff are available.
March 11 & 12*: 3-7 p.m.
March 18 & 19*: 3-7 p.m.
March 25 & 26*: 3-7 p.m.
All walk-in hours are held at the Jane Place offices at Parish Hall: 2533 Columbus Street, New Orleans, LA 70119. We hope to see you there!
And last but not least, Happy Mardi Gras! You deserve a safe and healthy home this Carnival.
This space is provided to Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative as a community service and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or editorial policies of ANTIGRAVITY.
