Short-term rental as a battering ram for residency

Abstract

Every special urban planning function, such as the residential land use, which is the most massive one, summarizes a unity of permissible activities that compose its semantic independence and therefore its unchangeable core. The coexistence of other activities, such as freelancing, teleworking or the registered office of a digital nomad, does not affect the core function of residential land use.

The core function of residency consists of the four following parameters: a) the consistent ongoing function of a specific space as permanent domestic stay, b) the social environment of the domicile, c) the special and independent formation of the household and d) the voluntary–willful residency.

The current legislation, as interpreted by precedent, formulates the following three attributes of the online short-term rental: a) the limited duration of the stay, which is its main attribute, b) the existence of a permanently displayed distinctive element, resembling those of tourist accommodation facilities and c) the correlation or even the assimilation of short term rental rooms, appartements or buildings with furnished rooms – houses for rent, accordingly to the definitions of tourism legislation.

Short-term rental spaces that have appeared as a shared economy activity and modern furnished houses are viewed as similar activities by the applicable legislation as far as it concerns the morphology of the building as well as the services offered to their users.

Therefore, short–term rental activities themselves are permissible in areas where it is allowed, accordingly to the stipulations of 23.02.1987 and 59/2018 presidential decrees, provided that this activity is not the prominent at the buildings and apartments of general residence, in areas of urban center-central city functions-local neighborhood -district center land uses and touristic and recreational land uses.