Depending on who’s talking, short-term rentals are either depleting Pittsburgh’s housing stock and destroying local communities or helping the local economy and providing visitors with options beyond hotels.
The dueling opinions were presented Wednesday to Pittsburgh City Council members, who are contemplating regulating short-term rentals like those through Airbnb and Vrbo.
Council members Deb Gross, D-Highland Park, Bobby Wilson, D-North Side, and Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, sponsored bills that would require people operating short-term rentals get a permit from the city, limit how many rentals can operate in a building and ban such units from being used for “public assemblies, recreational entertainment, or hospitality activities.”
The measures would further require a daily register of guests, limit stays to no more than 28 consecutive days and mandate guests be at least 18 years old unless they’re accompanied by a parent or guardian.
More than 20 people shared their views with council. Some said the restrictions went too far and pushed against the proposed limits. Others urged council to prohibit short-term rentals in residential areas altogether.
“I don’t think what you’re doing goes far enough,” Mary Babush, of Allegheny West, told council members. “I challenge the whole idea of short-term rentals being in residentially zoned areas.”
Leeretta Payne said there are five Airbnbs on her Hill District street. She’d prefer those homes be filled with long-term neighbors.
“What this does is it diminishes the housing stock in the Hill District,” she said. “It disrupts families, it disrupts communities and it disrupts culture.”
Kathleen Whitney lives near a pair of short-term rentals in the East Allegheny neighborhood that hosted a raucous New Year’s Eve party, which ended with a bystander being shot.
“I think our block stands as an example of what happens when the city looks away,” she told council members, arguing that unregulated rentals have been allowed to fester with no accountability. “Bad actors quickly learn there are few — if any — consequences.”
In 2022, a shooting at an Airbnb in the same neighborhood left two dead and eight injured. It also sparked council’s first efforts to regulate short-term rentals.
“Enough is enough,” Wilson said Wednesday. “It’s about time that we did something.”
Airbnb in a statement said its sites seldom host disruptive parties. Incidents of gun violence, the company said, “are extremely rare.”
The bills’ sponsors said they’re not looking to quash short-term rentals altogether, only to regulate them.
Hosts’ perspective
Gross estimated there are about 3,000 short-term rentals in the city. About a third of them are operated by people who have only one such rental property in Pittsburgh.
Kelly Bethke is among them. She owns one short-term rental in Lawrenceville, which she described as “my first and only investment property.”
Operating a short-term rental, Bethke said, taught her new skills, like how to make home repairs and furnish a space. She pushed against the narrative that short-term rentals are synonymous with unruly parties and irresponsible visitors.
“Bad behavior isn’t unique to short-term rentals,” she said, adding that her permanent neighbors throw disruptive properties and leave dog waste in the yard.
Jake Tovey, of Shadyside, is part of the Steel City Short-Term Rental Alliance. He told council members he supported licensing requirements for short-term rentals but argued that other provisions — like the zoning regulations limiting the number of units in a building — “go way too far, way too fast” and risk “killing off an industry.”
He pointed out the short-term rental industry supports Pittsburgh’s tourism market, offering additional rooms for major events like the upcoming 2026 NFL Draft.
Gross said council will not vote on the bills — which must go through the Planning Commission and a public hearing — before the draft in April.
Ellie Harward, of Spring Garden, said her Airbnbs have hosted people traveling to Pittsburgh for medical care, tourists and crews looking for somewhere to live while filming shows locally.
“I’m not arguing against standards. We all want them,” she said. “Let us be part of the conversation about what those standards are.”
