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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSTR Affirmative Obligations Memo 01.03.20231 Memorandum REPORT TO: Jeff Mihelich, City Manager FROM: Nakeisha Lyon, Planner II Renata Munfrada, Community Housing Program Coordinator SUBJECT: Affirmative Obligations for Short Term Rental Booking Platforms DATE: January 3, 2023 Background The evolution of the short-term rental landscape is persistent and city planners need to prepare a strategy that allows communities to safely accommodate visitors and reap the rewards of this growth. Because short-term rentals help meet a need for diverse income streams both now and in the future, communities have a tremendous amount of tax, permit, and license revenue at stake through proper compliance programs. To implement any type of effective short-term rental regulation, local governments must expect to invest some level of staff time and resources in compliance monitoring and enforcement. Local governments may also adopt fine structures that adequately incentivize short-term hosts and booking platforms to comply with the adopted regulations. Ideally, the fines should be proportionate to the economic gains that potential violators can realize from breaking the rules, and fines should be increased for repeat violators. Booking Platforms Booking platforms are businesses that provide online accommodation booking services for short-term rental accommodations. Companies like Airbnb operate like an online marketplace to list, explore, and book both short-term and long-term housing accommodations. Its platform connects hosts and guests, facilitates communication with one another to reserve and book short or long-term rental accommodations, and provides payment processing services at the time of booking. A booking agency participates in the short-term rental business by providing, and collecting a fee for booking services through which an owner may offer a dwelling unit for rent. Hosting platforms provide booking services through an online platform that allows an owner to advertise the dwelling unit through a website. Airbnb charges no fees when a host lists a property on the platform, nor does it own or operate any of the properties. Rather, it makes money by collecting a services fee from both the guest and the host, determined as a percentage of the accommodation fee set solely by the host, which compensates Airbnb for its publishing, listing, and booking services. The fee is collected instantaneously at the time of booking. 2 Platform Compliance Communities typically enforce their short-term rental obligations in accordance with a generally applicable enforcement provision contained in the code of ordinances or zoning ordinance, or through a specific enforcement provision incorporated into the short-term rental regulations. Violation of the short- term rental ordinance is subject to the same penalties and procedures as a violation of any other provision in the zoning code, which can include fines or a stop order. One unique policy option that has seen success in other communities is to improve compliance with existing regulations by placing more of the burden for compliance on the short-term rental booking platforms. Municipalities could require booking platforms like Airbnb, HomeAway, and Vrbo to verify that any home offered for short-term rental is lawfully registered with the City before the platform may provide, or collect a booking fee for booking service of the unit. In this way, the City will be better able to monitor the compliance of active short-term rentals and ensure the regulatory requirements are being met. The platform may also be required to submit a monthly report, or affidavit of compliance, to the City affirming that they have exercised reasonable care to verify that hosts utilizing the service are lawfully registered. Establishing platform liability gives local governments the ability to enforce and enact rules and ordinances that penalize platforms that do not comply with regulations. Placing affirmative obligations on booking platforms strengthens enforcement mechanisms and helps ensure that short-term rental operators are in compliance with local regulations. Affirmative Obligations An affirmative duty is a legal obligation that requires some effort, or reasonable care, to satisfy. According to the American Law Register, “to constitute actionable negligence there must concur three essential elements – a duty of care, a breach of that duty by negligent act or omission, and injury naturally resulting therefrom.” Failure to exercise reasonable care results in negligence. This is the original conception of a duty to take precaution to insure inevitable legal incidents are avoided. A duty to prevent illegal activity arises when nonfeasance can be avoided by taking affirmative precautions. These onerous positive duties usually deal with the obligations of the owners, possessors, and users of real and personal property, and those carrying on business. In the context of short-term rental booking activity, the booking agency is not a stranger to the transaction – collecting a booking fee for booking service – and is rather a participant. Therefore, the agency may reasonably be required to bear the burden along with the benefit. In line with the concepts of duty of care and negligence, local policy makers have begun placing affirmative duties – or requirements to confirm the legality of the rental listing – on booking platforms directly. Models for Implementing Affirmative Obligations In order to strengthen enforcement of short-term rental regulations, many major cities like Santa Monica, San Francisco, Boston, Denver, and Honolulu have implemented affirmative obligations on booking agencies like Airbnb. These cities have started citing booking platforms as accomplices to unlawful renting activity – agencies that allow hosts to book unregistered short-term rental units are participants in each 3 illegal transaction. Imposing onerous affirmative duties on these agencies effectively prevents illegal transactions and boosts compliance. Santa Monica, California After maintaining a multi-decade prohibition against short-term rentals in residential districts, in 2015, the City eased this prohibition by authorizing a form of short-term rentals known as home-sharing, which permits City residents who obtain a City license to host visitors for compensation for a period of less than 31 days, as long as the resident and visitor are both present in the home. Un-hosted short-term rentals of residential housing, known as vacation rentals, remain unlawful in Santa Monica. This legislation struck an important balance by enabling current and prospective residents to supplement income through home-sharing, while ensuring that Santa Monica’s housing units would not be surreptitiously or openly converted into de facto hotels. One of the chief issues facing local governments as they contend with regulation of short-term rental marketplaces is the trouble of enforcing whatever framework they develop. In 2015 the Santa Monica City Council adopted the Home-Sharing Ordinance thereby amending and revising Chapter 6.20 of the Santa Monica Municipal Code to strengthen regulation of home-sharing and vacation rentals. In 2019 amendments to the ordinance containing listing and advertising requirements were adopted. The ordinance imposes four obligations on short-term rental booking platforms: 1) collecting and remitting applicable taxes; 2) regularly disclosing listings and booking information to the City; 3) refraining from booking properties that are not licensed and listed on the City’s registry; and 4) refraining from collecting a fee for ancillary services. The administrative fine amounts for advertising, facilitating or operating a vacation rental start at $1000 per day, per violation, and increases if the violations continue. There may be other associated penalties and costs in addition to administrative fines, including the cost of investigation. Failure to comply with administrative citations may lead to referral to the City Attorney’s Office for prosecution or other legal options. HomeAway & Airbnb v. Santa Monica The ordinance effectively prevents and penalizes online booking platforms for unlawfully booking short- term vacation rentals of unlicensed properties. Airbnb and HomeAway argued that the City’s ordinance ran afoul of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and the First Amendment because it required the platforms to monitor the content of third-party listings on their sites and remove listings for unlicensed properties. In 2019 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Montana is in the Ninth Circuit) reaffirmed its rejection of Airbnb and HomeAway’s challenge to the City of Santa Monica’s Home-Sharing Ordinance. The court found that the ordinance only prohibits processing transactions for unregistered properties and does not proscribe, mandate, or even discuss the content of the listings that the platforms display on their websites. The regulation only requires that the booking transactions include licensed properties. The City’s Home-Sharing Ordinance thus stands absent a petition by the platforms to the United States Supreme Court. City of San Francisco, California From 1986 to 2014, San Francisco banned short-term rentals, concerned that they would significantly reduce the city’s affordable housing stock. In 2015, the city repealed this ban and imposed certain 4 conditions on short-term rentals by permanent residents. In 2016, the city passed the Residential Unit Conversion Ordinance, amending Chapter 41A of the Administrative Code to require hosting platforms to verify a residential unit is on the City registry prior to accepting a fee for booking service. The ordinance effectively makes it a misdemeanor to collect a fee for providing booking services for the rental of a unit not registered with the city. The misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $1000 per day, per listing and potentially carries criminal penalties. San Francisco was the first city to introduce rules that prohibited Airbnb from booking illegal listings. The ordinance was adopted to help enforce compliance with the registration requirement by ensuring that hosting platforms do business with law-abiding hosts. Because the ordinance was not motivated by a desire to suppress speech, the conduct at issue is not expression, and the ordinance does not have the effect of targeting expressive activity. The ordinance regulates hosting platforms that provide booking services for short-term rentals; including a framework for Airbnb and HomeAway to take reasonable care to verify listings are lawfully registered before offering booking services. The ordinance stipulates that a hosting platform may provide, and collect a fee for, booking services in connection with short-term rentals only when those residential units are lawfully registered on the City’s registry at the time the unit is rented. Airbnb lost about 4,000 listings after the regulation took effect. The platform compliance provision of the ordinance requires the hosting platform to submit a monthly affidavit to the Office of Short Term Rentals (OSTR) affirming that they have exercised reasonable care to verify that hosts utilizing their service are lawfully registered. The ordinance defines a booking service as any reservation or payment service provided by an entity that facilitates a short-term rental transaction and collects a fee in connection with the reservation. Another provision pertaining to monitoring hosting platforms gives the OSTR the power to issue and serve administrative subpoenas as necessary to determine whether owners, business entities, and hosting platforms have complied with the administrative code. Airbnb v. San Francisco Airbnb filed for a preliminary injunction against the ordinance, arguing that it would essentially require the company to monitor and verify information provided by third-party hosts. The court once again held that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was not applicable because the ordinance did not obligate Airbnb to perform the typical duties of a “publisher” such as monitoring, editing, withdrawing, or blocking content submitted by third-party hosts. Hosting platforms often perform two distinct functions. They post listings for rental units, and they provide booking services in connection with the rental of those units. The ordinance does not impose liability for housing platforms’ decisions about what to post or for the substance of listings contained on their websites. Compliance with the law would not require them to review or vet or remove any user content. To the contrary, a hosting platform can publish whatever listings it wants without violating the ordinance, and faces potential liability only if and when it steps outside its role as a publisher by providing specified booking services to an unregistered host in return for a fee. Providing payment and reservation services is not a publication function. 5 In sum, none of the arguments raised or cases cited by Airbnb and HomeAway enable them to avoid the binding Ninth Circuit precedent establishing that, because the ordinance does not seek to treat hosting platforms as publishers of third-party content, the CDA and the First Amendment simply do not apply here. This decision could make Airbnb susceptible to regulatory violations in pending litigation in other jurisdictions where Airbnb has made similar arguments to those that failed in this case. Another outcome of this decision is that Airbnb agreed to help San Francisco develop measures to verify the registration status of short-term rentals. Settlement Agreement In 2017, the City and County of San Francisco including the OSTR and Airbnb entered into a Settlement Agreement. While Airbnb continued to object to the ordinance, the company entered into the agreement because it provides a safe harbor for compliance under the ordinance and permits the creation of a Pass- Through Registration (PTR) system developed in cooperation with the City that facilitates the online registration of hosts from the Airbnb website. Airbnb also recognized the importance of being a constructive partner with the City and continuing to work with it on various policy issues relating to short-term rentals, including preventing short-term rentals from impacting the availability and cost of permanent housing for City residents. The PTR system sends host registration application information directly to the OSTR. Airbnb also processes renewals of OSTR registrations for hosts with existing registrations through its PTR system. Airbnb pre- populates a field on the host’s Airbnb listing with their registration number and expiration date. In addition, Airbnb reimbursed the City $40,000 in immediately available funds for the costs to build a system that facilitates pass-through registration from Airbnb. Airbnb also pays the City $5,000 annually to reimburse the City of its costs for maintaining and operating the system. City of Boston, Massachusetts In 2018, Boston enacted Docket #0764, an ordinance allowing short-term residential rentals in the City of Boston, amending Chapter 9-14 of the Boston Municipal Code. The ordinance includes required registration for those looking to rent out their property through platforms like Airbnb. In addition to punishing individual homeowners who disregard these rules, the ordinance fines intermediaries like Airbnb $300 per day for each ineligible rental booked on the site. According to the enforcement provision in the ordinance, the Commissioner shall enter into agreements with booking agents for assistance in enforcing the provisions of the law, including an agreement whereby the booking agent agrees to remove a listing from its platform that is deemed ineligible for use as a short- term rental, and must prohibit a host from listing any unit without a valid registration number from the City. Furthermore, any booking agent that fails to enter into such agreements to actively prevent, remove or de-list any ineligible listings shall be prohibited from conducting business in the City. In addition, the booking agent must provide to the City, on a monthly basis, an electronic report of the listings advertised by the booking agent within the City. 6 Airbnb v. Boston In 2018, Airbnb sued the City of Boston. Airbnb claimed that three sections of the ordinance – the Enforcement Provision, the Data Sharing Provision, and the Penalties Provision – are preempted by or violate the CDA, the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The First Circuit Court of Appeals denied Airbnb’s motion for a preliminary injunction pertaining to the provision requiring monthly reporting of publicly available information, and the penalties provision. However, the court approved the injunction for the enforcement provision of the ordinance. The court maintained that because the penalties provision is aimed at regulating Airbnb’s own conduct, and not at punishing it for content by a third party, the CDA does not preempt it. The record established that Airbnb plays multiple related but distinct roles in the online platform it has established. Airbnb acts as both a publisher of third-party rental listings, and as an agent that books rental agreements between users and hosts and collects and distributes payments when such a deal is made. The penalties provision threatens a fine only if Airbnb accepts a fee for booking an ineligible units. The court also maintained that Airbnb did not establish that it is likely to succeed in showing that a relatively modest fine – imposed not for something one of Airbnb’s hosts or users published online, but because of Airbnb’s independent act of collecting a fee after facilitating an illegal rental transaction – meaningfully implicates, let alone obstructs, Congress’s desire to allow website operators to engage in blocking and screening of third-party content, free from liability for such good faith efforts. To the extent that data reporting provision compels Airbnb to provide monthly lists limited to information appearing in its public listings for Boston rental properties, the Court found that Airbnb did not establish a likelihood that it will succeed with this challenge. Neither Airbnb nor its users can reasonably claim an expectation of privacy in information included in public listings. According to the 2020 report Airbnb provided to the City of Boston, implementation of the ordinance had a dramatic impact on short-term rental listings on the platform. Listing dropped from 3,775 in November 2018 to 2,593 in November 2019. With full implementation on December 1, 2019, the listings fell to 1,122 on December 4, 2019 – a 70% decline in listings from the year prior. City and County of Denver, Colorado The City and County of Denver initially passed legislation regarding short term rentals in 2016 and required a license in 2017. The jurisdiction from the beginning included a requirement of the short-term rental to be a primary residence of the hosts. A study in 2019 revealed that this has prevented several negative impacts of short-term rentals within the community. The ordinance has been revised throughout the years, most recently on November 23, 2020 in which the Denver City Council adopted Council Bill CB20-1229, which prohibits booking service providers from processing transactions for accommodations at properties not properly licensed as short-term rentals and imposing fines for infractions. Effective on February 1, 2021, this ordinance made it unlawful for a booking agency to receive payment from an unlicensed short-term rental located in the City and County of Denver with penalties starting at $1000 per violation per day. The assessment of affirmative obligation came from the Short Term Advisor Committee that sought out further compliance of short-term rentals within the City and County of Denver. The committee includes representatives for Airbnb. During the introduction and discussion of the ordinance, Airbnb pushed back 7 due to fears of profit loss. Airbnb attempted to reach an agreement or memorandum of understanding with Denver which would denote that the company would attempt to do their best to verify compliance with the municipality. However, Denver refused to enter in to such an agreement and included affirmative obligations in the ordinance to ensure a mandatory requirement was in place for the hosting platforms and others to conform to this standard. As of February 2022, the jurisdiction has yet to cite Airbnb or any other booking platform. The City and County of Denver reserves the right to enforce and believes that from a policy perspective, the expectation for compliance is clear. The jurisdiction has an 80% short-term rental compliance rate. City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii Per Ordinance 22-7, it is unlawful for a hosting platform to receive a fee for a transient vacation unit that is not permitted or licensed. The revised ordinance places the burden on the hosting platform which must exercise reasonable care to confirm if a transient vacation unit is permitted or licensed. Each booking on the hosting platform must include an identifying tax map key number which is the tracking and identification mechanism utilized by Honolulu. Airbnb and other hosting platforms must remove listings or bookings in prohibited areas. The City and County of Honolulu worked with the various hosting platforms prior to the roll out of the new ordinance and received some push back in the beginning. However, hosting platforms have begun to cooperate. The ordinance which was introduced in April 2022, also reduced the permitted or conditional use of bed and breakfast homes from 13 zoning districts to three zoning districts, with transient vacation units remaining permitted or conditional within the existing three zoning districts, essentially permissible only in the resort district and two apartment districts on the island. Those units, now non-conforming, were granted an opportunity after the introduction of the revised ordinance to claim a grandfathered status, and now must keep up with renewal on an annual basis or lose their status. Prior to the ordinance change, approximately 10,000 short-term rentals were advertised with only 800 short-term rentals approved. Now, about 2,000 to 3,000 short-term rentals are eligible to be registered. Violations are not less than $1,000 and not more than $10,000 per violation per day which is assessed on the property owner. Honolulu included a 180 day introductory period which allowed staff to roll out the changes and included a cleanup ordinance for any issues that occurred. The City and County is seeking to establish a short term rental division under code enforcement with several inspectors and a manager to monitor the host compliance software, HAMARI. Currently, the jurisdiction has a hold on any short-term rentals between 30 to 89 days due to an injunction filed by Hawaii Legal STR Alliance. The revised ordinance allows for transient occupancy up to 90 days rather than up to 30 days. Hawaii Legal STR Alliance filed the lawsuit based on a takings claim for the removal of the permitted and conditional short-term rentals in non-resort and apartment zoning districts as well as claims that the ordinance conflicts with state law. Additionally, the lawsuit includes claims that the violations are excessive. City of Chicago, Illinois The City of Chicago enacted a Shared Housing Ordinance in June 2016 which regulates short-term residential rental activities. Prior to 2021, licensed rental intermediaries (hosting platforms) would register on the owner’s/tenant’s behalf and the City of Chicago would then determine their eligibility. As the City of Chicago developed an online home sharing registration portal, all registration processes are 8 now handled directly with the City of Chicago. As hosts must register their units, online hosting platforms, and Shared Housing Companies must also have license to operate and advertise listings in Chicago. There are two types of internet platforms: 1) Short Term Residential Rental Intermediary; and 2) Short Term Residential Rental Advertising Platforms. A Short Term Residential Rental Intermediary is a person or company, who for compensation or a fee, uses an internet platform to connect patrons to shared housing units, which are dwelling units with six or fewer sleeping rooms that are rented out for a period of 31 or fewer consecutive days. Rental intermediaries must remove unlicensed hosts, and must apply and collect hotel accommodation taxes on behalf of the City of Chicago. A Short Term Residential Rental Advertising Platform is a person or company, who for compensation or a fee, uses internet platforms to connect patrons to short-term rentals, vacation rentals, or hotels. These agencies are required to comply with local laws and regulations regarding the collection and payment of taxes, including but not limited to the Chicago Hotel Accommodation Tax Ordinance. Regardless of the hosting type, each must ensure that the license number for the short-term rental is included in their advertisements. If not, it “creates a rebuttable presumption that the business is operating without a license” and is subject to penalties. These include a rental of ineligible units by licensee or licensee’s family members which may be fined between $500 to $1,000 within 14 days of notice and $1,500 to $3,000 on or after the 15th day and before the 28th day of notice, and $5,000 after the 28th day of notice with separate offenses and violations thereafter. Other Hosting Platform Responsibilities Minneapolis, Minnesota The City of Minneapolis, Minnesota requires a license to act as a hosting platform. According to the city’s Short-Term Rental Hosting Platform ordinance, entities are prohibited from engaging in the activity of a short-term rental hosting platform in the city without a license issued pursuant to the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances. The license application requires specific information about the applicant and the applicant must meet certain qualifications, including being in compliance with city ordinances. In cases where rental fees for lodging are collected by the hosting platform, the applicant must comply with all requirements of the State of Minnesota Department of Revenue to accurately collect and remit applicable taxes attributable to short-term rental transactions. Each licensee is required to provide data pertaining to its operations, property addresses of listings, annual number of rental days, amount charged, fees and taxes, as needed to audit and determine compliance with tax regulations. The hosting platform must also provide notice directing hosts to Chapter 351 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances. Las Angeles, California The City of Los Angeles, California has a Home-Sharing Platform Agreement with Airbnb. The agreement establishes the platform’s responsibilities pursuant to the City’s Home-Sharing Ordinance. According to the ordinance, the hosting platform may complete booking service transactions only as authorized by the municipal code. In order to ensure the legality of bookings, it is mandatory for the platform to include and display the registration number on each short-term rental listing. The platform must also remove any categorically ineligible listings. The hosting platform must also display a link to the city’s webpage, including information regarding penalties associated with failing to obtain a valid registration. 9 In addition, the booking platform must develop, create, and maintain an interface system to monitor and determine the validity of listings. The system must track certain data including unique listing identification numbers, listing web addresses, registration number, physical location of the unit, etc. This data can help municipalities have a better understanding of the local short-term rental landscape. Fillmore, California Hosting platforms are prohibited from completing any booking transaction for short-term rentals in the city. Hosting platforms must provide the city with the names and contact information of any person attempting to use the platform to complete any booking transaction. Any hosting platform in violation will be ordered to remit all illegally obtained rental revenue to the city so that it may be returned to the home-sharing visitors Fresno, California The hosting platform must be listed on the owner’s short-term rental permit application, or the property owner must submit a written request and receive written approval from the city to lists on another hosting platform. Panama City Beach, Florida Hosting platforms which display user-inputted City-issued business tax receipts but fail to verify the validity of the data is exempt from penalties. However, the platform shall remove the listing within ten days of notice from the city. Hickory Creek, Texas It is unlawful for an owner to advertise a short-term rental in any medium, including but not limited to newspaper, magazine, brochure, website, or mobile application without including the current permit number assigned by the city. Big Bear Lake, California A property owner may not hold more than two short-term rental licenses per year. One license is required per rental unit. Any person operating an unlicensed vacation rental property shall be permanently ineligible to operate a vacation rental in the city. Los Gatos, California Short-term rental hosts must provide proof of permanent residence with at least two of the following: a motor vehicle registration, driver’s license, voter registration, tax document, or utility bill. A person may only have one primary residence and must reside there for a minimum of nine months per year. If the host is planning to advertise the short-term rental unit, the listing numbers or URL/website addresses of where the short-term rental is advertised must be provided. Short-term rental licenses are capped at 5% of the housing stock in the Town of Los Gatos. If the number of valid short-term rental licenses issued exceeds that percentage, the issuance of licenses will cease and additional applicants will be placed on a first-come first-served waiting list. In a hosted rental, the number of nights that the property can be used for short-term rental purposes shall be limited to 180 nights per calendar year. If un-hosted, the number of nights shall be limited to 30 nights per year. 10 Short-term rentals are prohibited in new accessory dwelling units, senior housing, and below market price units. Short-term rentals are prohibited in all apartment complexes. Commercial or assembly uses, such as weddings, corporate events, and parties are prohibited short-term rentals. Conclusion The rise and growth of short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb, Vrbo, and HomeAway has created plenty of debate amongst local governments, the hotel industry, the real estate lobby, housing activists, and local residents about the impact of such rentals on the availability and affordability of long-term rental housing. According to a recent article in the Harvard Law & Policy Review, the theory behind the “Airbnb Effect” goes as follows: short-term rentals reduces the affordable housing supply by distorting the housing market in two interconnected mechanisms. The first such mechanism is one of simple conversion: any housing unit that was previously occupied by a city resident, but is now listed on Airbnb year round, is a unit that has been removed from the rental market and has essentially been added to the community’s supply of hotel rooms. This leads to a real, but likely mild, increase in rents, an effect that is concentrated in affluent or gentrifying neighborhoods along the community’s central core. More disconcertingly, conversion reduces the community’s already limited supply of affordable housing. The second mechanism is “hotelization.” So long as a property owner or leaseholder can rent out a room on Airbnb for cheaper than the price of a hotel room, while earning a substantial premium over the residential market, there is an overpowering incentive to list each unit in a building on Airbnb rather than rent to local residents thereby creating mini “home-hotels.” This decreases the supply of housing and spurs displacement and segregation. Given that the short-term rental market has grown by 800% since 2011, it is therefore not hard to see why many people are concerned about the industry’s impact on affordability and availability of long-term rental housing. While not the primary cause of affordable housing problems, the conversion of long-term housing into short-term rental use are such a concern that it’s becoming a major rationale for regulating short-term rentals. Recommendation Staff recommends that the City of Bozeman pursue four types of affirmative obligations: 1. In order to ensure the legality of bookings, the booking platform must include and display the registration number on each short-term rental listing. 2. Short-term rental hosts must upload a signed and approved copy of the City-issued short-term rental permit along with the registration number for each unit listing. 3. If the host is planning to advertise the short-term rental unit, the listing numbers or website addresses of where the short-term rental is advertised must be provided. 4. The booking platform must provide to the City, on a predetermined basis, an electronic report of the listings advertised by the booking agent within the City.