Three panelists will discuss home sharing tomorrow at Baker Center.
Generation Opportunity is returning to Athens on Tuesday to host a panel on home sharing, and now the group will be on campus.
The national group that organized students and community members to speak at the Feb. 15 Athens City Council meeting will be hosting a "My House, My Rules" panel on home sharing tomorrow in Baker Center Room 120, The Maggie Davis Dining Room, at 5 p.m.
Home sharing is the concept used by Airbnb and other services in which home owners can rent out rooms or their entire homes for a period of time to transient guests.
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The panel comes after about 10 students joined organizers from Generation Opportunity at the February council meeting and after one resident was threatened with a $500-per-day fine if he continued to allow guests to rent out a room in his home.
Abe Alassaf, an Athens resident and regional field coordinator for the Leadership Institute, was sent a cease-and-desist letter by former Athens City Code Director John Paszke after speaking at a city council meeting last November against potential legislation.
"The new red tape that city government is proposing, or talking about enforcing, is just another example of city government over-zealously taxing and controlling everything within (its) reach," Alassaf said at the meeting.
Alassaf will be a panelist Tuesday at Generation Opportunity's event and will be joined by Richard Vedder, an Ohio University distinguished professor of economics emeritus, and Joe Savarise from the Ohio Hotel and Lodging Association.
Legislation about home sharing was proposed last fall by Councilwoman Chris Fahl, D-4th Ward, and supported by former Councilwoman Nancy Bain. It was since tabled at council's Feb. 1 meeting.
“We have to protect the people that come to town,” Bain said at council's Oct. 12 meeting.
Bain said despite local bed and breakfasts undergoing inspections from code enforcement, Airbnb and other home sharing options are not regulated and may leave visitors to the city unsafe.
Derek Dickson, however, said he trusts Airbnb. The fifth-year student studying biology said he used the service recently for a trip to New Orleans.
The site has some regulation, Dickson said, adding that he had a great time using the service and enjoyed being able to connect with the people in the city better while staying at someone's house as opposed to a hotel.
"I could see a problem with hotels seeing it as competition though," he said.
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