ICYMI: Lawmakers, Unions and Advocates Across NYC Urge Council To Reject Airbnb-Backed Bills At Rushed Hearing

NEW YORK, NY (11/24/2025) (readMedia)-- On Thursday, hundreds of lawmakers, unions, advocates and everyday New Yorkers rallied ahead of the NYC Council's Housing Committee hearing to demand Council Members reject Intro 948 and Intro 1107 - two Airbnb-backed bills that would worsen our housing crisis and take thousands of homes from New Yorkers. Prior to the hearing, more than 600 New Yorkers gathered outside City Hall to urge Council Members to stand strong and reject Airbnb's eleventh hour attempt to roll back our housing laws for their profit. Watch a recording of the event here and view images from the event here.

At the hearing, New Yorkers overwhelmingly testified against Airbnb's dangerous bills, including Mayor Adams' administration, the Department of Buildings, Department of Housing Preservation & Development, the Fire Department of New York, labor unions, clergy members including Reverend Kirsten John Foy, state lawmakers, and dozens of the most reputable housing and tenants advocates throughout New York City. Attorney General Letitia James, NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander and Comptroller-elect Mark Levine also expressed opposition to Airbnb's measures.

Airbnb spent millions lying to New Yorkers so they can pass their dangerous legislation before a new Council and Mayor can stop them. Despite Airbnb using deceptive tactics to try and convince lawmakers that these bills will help small homeowners, a new report clearly demonstrates that these measures will raise rents and home prices while displacing the very working class families Airbnb claims to be protecting.

Opponents of Airbnb's proposed measures outnumbered supporters by a total count of 62-43. Speakers who testified both in-person and via written testimony against Airbnb's Intro 948 and Intro 1107 include:

• Unions: Central Labor Council, 32BJ SEIU, Hotel & Gaming Trades Council, International Union of Operating Engineers, Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
• Mayor Eric Adams' administration: The Department of Building and Fire Department of New York testifying that these bills create serious safety issues for both tenants and firefighters, and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Fire Department outlining the expansive homeowner protection programs they offer that–unlike short-term rental deregulation–would provide lasting relief for struggling New Yorkers.
• Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement: Tasked with overseeing the registration and enforcement of Local Law 18, Executive Director Christian Klossner asserted that these bills will "impact every unit of housing in the city and threaten to fundamentally alter New York City's housing market."
• Community Service Society, whose recent report demonstrated that Intros 948 and 1107 will drive up home prices and fuel speculation, while directly increasing rents and putting already vulnerable tenants in one- and two-unit buildings at risk of displacement.
• Representatives of the Insurance Information Institute, whose analysis shows that because many policies don't cover short-term rental operations, many homeowners will put themselves and their immediate neighbors at risk of liability and increased premiums without even realizing it.
• Housing, tenants rights, and racial justice organizations: Asian Americans for Equality, Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN), Arc of Justice, Chinese-American Planning Council, Churches United for Fair Housing, Coalition for Chinese American Families and Children, Coalition Against Illegal Hotels, Communities Resist, Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM), Housing Conservation Coordinators, Housing Justice for All, Make the Road New York, Met Council, Met Council on Housing, New York Communities for Change, Tenants PAC, Tenants and Neighbors, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), VOCAL-NY, Young Invincibles, and more.
• Community and neighborhood organizations: including Auburndale Civic Association, Broadway Community Association, Cambria Heights Civic Association, Carroll Gardens Association, Chinese-American Planning Council, Hollis Hills Civic Association, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association, South Ozone Park Civic Association, Prince George Tenants Union, Westmoreland Association, and the Westerleigh Improvement Society
• Policy and good government experts: Citizen Action, Community Service Society, Inside Airbnb, Legal Aid Society, and more.
• Clergy: Reverends Kirsten John Foy, Iris Bonifacio, Margo Fields, Craig Jones, Kevin McCall, Bishops Boyde Singletary and Willie Billips, and Apostle Delores Copeland.
• Queens Community Boards 11, 12 and 13

Airbnb knows these bills are toxic, which is why they are pretending they would help working families. But according to a new report from the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), by weakening short-term rental regulations and carving out exemptions for one- and two-unit buildings, Intros 948 and 1107 would significantly raise rents, increase speculation, drive up home prices, and displace Black and low-income tenants who disproportionately live in the one and two bedroom rentals that are the most vulnerable to short-term rental conversions. Read the full report here.

Since the implementation of Local Law 18, Airbnb has unsuccessfully spent millions to fund pro-Airbnb candidates and push legislation that would roll back regulations on short-term rentals and undermine tenant protections. After failing to pass Intro 1107, they are now pivoting to an even more extreme version of the anti-tenant, anti-housing bill the Council already rejected. Airbnb's new bill, Intro 948-A, includes everything in the old bill and goes even further by removing the host requirement for Airbnbs and changing the definition of a family under the city's housing code.

Quotes from lawmakers speaking out against Airbnb's proposed Intro 948 and 1107 are below:

"Hardworking New Yorkers should be able to afford our city - not be priced out of their homes and neighborhoods as the biggest corporations reap bigger and bigger profits," said New York Attorney General Letitia James. "Workers should not be facing skyrocketing costs and rents while their wages stay stagnant and companies continue to monetize their neighborhoods. I will always fight for them in New York City."

"I am proud to stand with union workers and tenants in the fight against Intro 948 & 1107, which will make our city less affordable and displace vulnerable communities. New York's housing laws are not for sale, no matter how much a wealthy corporation spends," NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani said in a post on X.

"New York City is already facing a massive housing affordability crisis, which research has shown is due in large part to a shortage of available rental units. We simply can't afford to take more housing units offline and convert them into short-term stays for tourists," said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. "I urge the City Council to reject AirBnB's end-of-term lobbying, and stay focused on growing the housing supply rather than shrinking it."

"With New York City facing the most severe housing shortage and affordability crisis in its history, city policies must be laser focused on expanding the supply of housing in every neighborhood," said Manhattan Borough President and NYC Comptroller-Elect Mark Levine. "Now is not the time to undermine our city's available housing supply."

"New York City is in the midst of an unprecedented affordable housing crisis that has left countless families dangling on the sharp edge of poverty and homelessness. We must meet this moment by making transformative investments in the growth of our housing stock, but these pieces of legislation endanger that growth and threaten to take thousands of rental homes off the market, all while worsening displacement amongst communities of color." said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. "I urge the City Council to reject Intros 948-A and 1107-A, and instead continue to work across the five boroughs to preserve housing and improve oversight of the short-term rental industry."

"It has taken nearly two decades to implement the right policies for New York City to beat back the scourge of illegal hotels that exacerbated the housing crisis, displaced residents, and endangered communities, but these bills threaten to undo that progress. At a time when affordability should be our watchword, these bills would take critical housing units away from everyday New Yorkers and serve them up on a silver platter to hedge fund speculators and the billionaires running Airbnb, raising rents and home prices for everyone else. I urge the Council in the strongest terms to reject these unaffordable bills," said Senator Liz Krueger.

"For years, I have championed and passed legislation to protect our shrinking affordable housing supply from the illegal proliferation of short-term rentals," said Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (D/WF-Manhattan), Chair of the New York State Assembly Committee on Housing. "Unfortunately, New York City Council Intros. 948-A and 1107-A undo much of that progress, leaving large swaths of our affordable housing stock vulnerable to speculators and deep-pocketed investors. In 2022, the New York City Council stood on the side of affordability by requiring that all home-sharing hosts be present when renting their units on a short-term basis. I urge the City Council to ensure that New Yorkers, not corporate interests, have the opportunity to lay down roots in our neighborhoods by upholding that common-sense law."

"The New York City Council must reject Airbnb's anti-tenant legislation. The company's proposed bills would drive up rent, allow the wealthy to buy up our apartments, and push everyday New Yorkers out of their communities," said State Senator Julia Salazar. "If successful, Airbnb would turn people's homes into short term hotels. Our homes are for New Yorkers to live in, not for corporations to pad their bottom lines."

"New York City is facing a historic housing crisis that we are only just starting to get under control. Airbnb's proposals would set us back, turning every neighborhood into a playground for rich tourists and private equity interests while the rest of us suffer the consequences. The Council should stand with residents and reject these dangerous bills," said Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest.

Assemblymember Gallagher said, "New York City's housing crisis poses an existential threat to our people and everything that makes this city great. It has only been exacerbated by Airbnb and its anti-tenant policies. These bills are no different. The City Council must reject them and stand strong in its solidarity with NYC's renter community."

"As a social justice activist who fought for homeowners rights and fought to make the city respect them, I am incensed at the reversal of values of Airbnb. Once a progressive tech giant who believed in supporting our immigrant communities and the democratization of hospitality is now a MAGA tech company pushing and financing the values of a tyrannical regime that wishes to destabilize communities of color and immigrant communities through nefarious and insidious family separation and deportations and now looks to infuse those fascist values into our housing laws further destabilizing our communities. This time by appropriating the pain of middle and working class homeowners and weaponizing it against renters and unionized labor. We cannot afford to allow a MAGA tech company to rewrite our housing laws to their narrow commercial benefit," said Reverend Kirsten John Foy.

Background

Airbnb's proposed bills – Intros 948 and 1107 – would effectively dismantle Local Law 18, which the New York City Council voted to adopt in 2021 to better regulate the short-term rental market and crack down on predatory short-term rental platforms. Local Law 18 specifically requires short-term rental hosts to register with the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement (OSE), and prohibits booking service platforms like Airbnb from processing transactions for unregistered short-term rentals.

Despite Airbnb's baseless claims, the law has been a success and empowered the City to enforce existing housing laws. Since it went into effect, Local Law 18 has led to a dramatic decrease in short-term rental listings - many of which have since been filled again by long-term tenants.

At the same time that Airbnb is exploiting the concerns of marginalized New Yorkers, Airbnb is cozying up with Trump and MAGA Republicans who are attacking the same communities they claim to support. The company donated over $3 million to Trump and MAGA Republicans, while their leadership has referred to immigrants as "criminals" and openly worked with the Trump administration.