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A DUBLIN CITY Councillor has said the “unsightly” key lock boxes that are increasingly being seen in public spaces around Dublin is “assisting in the proliferation of Airbnb”.
“If you go to places like Pearse Street or Temple Bar you see them,” said Labour councillor Dermot Lacey of the key lock boxes, often used by people renting out short-term accommodation.
“I’ve been told that Essex Street is littered with them and I notice them particularly around the Gaiety School of Acting, a whole load of key lock boxes chained to poles, or bicycle stands, or traffic signs.
“It seems to be that the owners of the Airbnb are quite prepared to keep on buying new lock boxes, because they’re quite cheap, and they never remove them.”
Rather than having to meet the renter, or install some type of electronic lock or key box on the property, some Airbnb owners are storing keys in lock boxes that they then attach to public infrastructure.
The renters are given a code which allows them to open the lock box and retrieve the key for the accommodation.
At the beginning of this year, Paris followed several other French cities in seeking to ban the use of key lock boxes in public spaces.
Lacey raised the issue at a Dublin City Council meeting in May, and asked the Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare if he would “arrange for the unauthorised Airbnb key containers locked to various DCC structures to be removed across the City”.
The Chief Executive’s reply remarked that “landlords of holiday-lets are treated the same as landlords of standard-lets regarding their responsibilities under the Litter Bye-Laws”.
“More regulation by the government of the holiday-lets would undoubtedly reduce these incidences,” said the Chief Executive.
“On all of these public spaces, you have dozens of locks chained to them,” Lacey told The Journal.
“This is not a major crisis in the world and I’m not trying to claim it is, but they are unsightly, they gather dirt, they also assist in the proliferation of Airbnb.
“While I’ve no objection to a reasonable proportion of Airbnbs, it is a contributory factor to our housing problem.”
The Government is planning on cracking down on short-term lets, such as Airbnb, with its Short-Term Tourist Letting Bill.
Under the current draft of the bill, properties advertised for short-term letting via online platforms would be obliged to have a valid registration number with Fáilte Ireland.
Any host offering accommodation for periods of up to and including 21 nights will need to be registered.
Meanwhile, Lacey said the lock boxes in public spaces results in “the owner of the property never having to meet the renter, while the renter doesn’t know who the owner of the property is”.
“It’s a very impersonal way of letting out properties, and I don’t think that’s a particularly good thing.”
When asked if attaching lock boxes to such public infrastructure could also be a safety issue, Lacey said he didn’t want to “label places as being dangerous”.
However, he added: “Having lock boxes deep in the heart of the inner city on streets that aren’t used a lot, it could be dangerous.
“While there is too much fear-mongering at the moment – by and large Dublin is a safe city – I think people have to be careful and you don’t encourage people to go down dark lanes, or even bright lanes, that aren’t very well populated late at night.”
Lacey said it “all adds up to a questionable use of property in Dublin”.
“We need to use property better, we need to treat people safely,” said Lacey. “However, the issue that I am really highlighting is the unsightliness and the dirt of it.”
When asked about potential measures to tackle the “unsightliness” of the lock boxes, Lacey said he doesn’t think a new by-law would be needed.
“These are items chained to Dublin City Council property.
“I am making a presumption that Dublin City Council can remove items attached to their property that have no purpose,” said Lacey.
“We remove bicycle locks that are left on cycle stands for example, and I see no reason why we can’t remove these lock boxes as well.”
In response to The Journal, Airbnb noted that it is not the only short-term rental platform in Dublin and remarked that it is not clear that it is Airbnb hosts who are solely responsible for the key lock boxes in Dublin city.
Airbnb said it requires all hosts to exchange keys in a safe and secure manner and while this can include in-person exchanges, it can also include the use of lock boxes.
Received in applications…
But what was granted?
Not a great press release if you ask me.
Usually they whittle it down to 100 then to 10 and give out 8: thus by their reckoning they approve of 80% !!!!
€264 million?
That’s about 40 or 50 ”sneaky” mortgages for Bank Of Ireland’s family members and their crony chums to buy up prime repossessed properties in Dublin 4,
probably from Bank Of Ireland’s ”squeaky clean” receiver buddies.
Is this where all the bail out money (that you took from the taxpayer) is going?
Back to the good old days BOI?
Crony Banking.
Starve your existing mortgage customers and push them over the edge by increasing your interest rates?
While at the same time you are dishing out the loan offers on soft terms to your golfing buddies down at the 19th hole?
Maybe if they gave a figure of approvals rather than applications they might be able to claim “Support and commitment to the Irish market”. As it stands the statement holds absolutely no value. They may as well have said 1 trillion euro.
Yeah,how many mortgages will they actually pass?the banks brought us down yet we bail them out and they wont help us out..
And they have sanctioned just under zero of them…..
Paddy power should run a bet in how many new mortgages the banks have funded- I woul bet less than 100 standard mortgages. These guys are not in the mortgage business right now yet will push people through the hoops only to refuse thematic the last minute. In some way it would be immoral to lend money for a mortgage right now as the taxpayer is sponsoring the banks. Mind you the banks keep giving away money to sporting events for sponsorship -,this gives the guys at the top a nice corporate box to watch the games from while being served a nice wine and some finger food. God help them they need to relax some of the time with all the stress and strain on them at reduced salary to only 600k or 700k.
Should the government not be doing more to encourage people to rent rather than this obsession a lot of Irish people seem to have with owning their own home.
There is nothing wrong with retaining our home ownership culture. France has the highest rate of second home ownership in the world and it is not considered a problem. what is wrong with home ownership in principle? It leads to better maintained property in general, as owner occupiers are more likely to carry out repairs on their own houses than tenants.
There is also a shortage of rental properties on the market, especially anything a family can live in. Most are aimed at students or young couples. It would take a generation to change that rental stock.
What would be the point in encouraging people to rent something that does not even exist?
So the only irish bank lending money is the one NOT owned by the government….
Where did boi get the 1.5 billion euro fund from in the first place & did they just announce losses of 180 million or similar last week on Their track record how are they allowed a banking licence
Where is the choice for consumers I think most people would move their mortgages to a clean new bank that’s not connected to the government and not for profit .
A book loss isn’t necessarily a cash loss. The bank can lose 180 million from devaluing impaired assets while still having positive cash-flow.
It’s good news folks! They’re admitting at last they have (our) money to lend. Let’s all go ask for a loan and report back how many of us get it. The fraud and banking conspiracy continues.
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