In the not-so-distant past, traveling on the cheap meant staying at a seedy roadside motel and deciphering cryptic bus schedules in whatever metropolis you happened to be visiting. Not anymore.
Welcome to 2015, where sharing is caring and smartphone apps allow the average Joe or Jolene to lend or borrow everything from cars to spare bedrooms to clothes to toilets — more on that later.
Called by many names — the shareconomy to some, the on-demand economy to others — its tenets are simple: if you’ve got something people want, rent it out.
In the last two years alone, Savannah has experienced growth in shareconomics. In any given search, at least 150 rooms are listed on vacation rental site Airbnb, and ride-sharing service Uber even did a trial run during St. Patrick’s Day last year, although it has yet to launch full service.
As city officials struggle with using antiquated zoning laws to craft policies to accommodate these new technology-based activities, the question remains: Is Savannah ready for a full-blown shareconomy?
Airbnb
Website Airbnb hit a milestone in the last week after Barclays released a report suggesting its bookings could outpace the largest hotel companies within a few years. The website already boasts more rooms than the largest hotel groups despite legal challenges from cities big and small.
That fight has been acute in the Historic District after the City Council passed a short-term vacation rental zoning ordinance, effective Jan. 1, that puts a host of new restrictions and rules in place for those wanting to rent out entire houses.
The ordinance does not, however, add much guidance for those who just want to rent out a bedroom. Currently regulated under the prim description of “Bed & Breakfast Guest Units,” depending on where a person lives determines whether they can list their spare air mattress on Airbnb.
Savannah resident Susan Trimble lives on 66th Street just east of Bull. In her seven months on Airbnb, she’s hosted more than 100 people from 22 countries, charging them a modest $55 a night for a sunlight-filled spare room with a bookshelf filled with Savannah guide books.
“I had gotten a severe case of shingles and neuralgia and was housebound for three months,” she said. “I had heard from other people who did this in their home, so I thought it would be a great way to earn some income and stay at home.”
Not only did she love the interaction, but she was able to hire a landscaper to improve her front lawn and put on a screen door.
Then in December 2013, Trimble was netted in a citywide crackdown on illegal vacation rentals. She still had reservations booked through May, which she accommodated to avoid bad online reviews, and she was subsequently fined $1,300 by the Hostess City for her hosting.
Trimble has no beef with the city, but she is asking city staff for a text amendment allowing her to continue her Airbnb operation. Her request is pending review — a similar amendment for just the Cuyler-Brownville neighborhood was shot down by City Council just last year.
If it doesn’t pass, Trimble said, she may consider moving to another part of the city that does allow it.
Right now, those living in residential neighborhoods are forbidden from renting on a short-term basis but can rent for 30 days or more. Airbnb supporters argue that allowing people to stay a month or longer is far more intrusive to neighborhoods than hosting a few European backpackers on the weekend.
“Owner-occupied single-unit rentals are not a commercial venture,” said Rabbi Arnold Belzer, an Airbnb supporter who lives in Ardsley Park. “Why? Hospitality in the world is a religious imperative in all Abrahamic and Eastern religions. Hospitality is not suggested; it’s commanded.”
Nor does hospitality mean giving away services for free, he said.
Belzer was also sent a cease-and-desist order from the city for his Airbnb activity in a residential neighborhood. His listing, dubbed “Georgia Colonial with pool and spa,” rents for $105 a night and has received more than 100 five-star reviews.
Belzer, who’s contesting the ruling in court, said he’s hosted hundreds of people in his home over the years before Airbnb, not always for compensation. He, too, has never heard complaints from neighbors.
“We’re not doing it for money. We’re doing it for stimulation,” he said. “I crave meeting new people and serving people around me.”
In fact, certain residential districts do permit, with Zoning Board of Appeals approval, a host of home occupations, including adult and child day care centers and private schools.
City staff and City Council, however, have suggested residential neighborhoods should be kept free from commercial activities.
Earlier this week, Alderwoman Mary Ellen Sprague said the majority of constituents she’s heard from are opposed to Airbnb in residential neighborhoods.
“They want a stable neighborhood, and that does not promote a stable neighborhood,” she said.
Yet each time an Airbnb petition has been heard before the Metropolitan Planning Commission board, a recommending body, its members have voiced support for the idea. Commissioners such as Adam Ragsdale and former member Ben Farmer say the service is a relatively benign use compared to a whole-house rental.
The mixed signals coming from the MPC and City Council may reflect just how green this territory is for policymakers.
“Every city is wrestling with this problem,” Sprague said.
Trimble believes it’s a case of people misunderstanding the peer-to-peer model.
“I think it’s a combination of pressure from the hotels and then when the residents hear about it, the homeowners associations,” she said. “They really don’t know what it’s about too much; it’s based on fear.”
Trimble said she talked to her eight closest neighbors and got positive feedback for her operation, but she’s unsure whether it will be enough to persuade the elected bodies.
If Trimble’s amendment comes before council again, Sprague said, she would vote no.
Ride sharing
Kevin Klinkenberg came up with an idea a few years ago for a service called ShareSavannah, a business he described as “basically Airbnb for cars.”
Klinkenberg set up a website and had a dozen people show interest in sharing their cars, another two dozen were interested in being potential borrowers and about 200 were on a mailing list. Yet every time he went to pitch to local investors, he said he mostly was met with blank stares.
“We had a lot of interest and curiosity, but in the end, there were too many questions related to insurance,” he said.
Ride shares have been getting a lot of press lately thanks to well-capitalized venture companies such as Uber and Lyft upending the business models of taxi and rental car companies nationwide.
Klinkenberg, now executive director of Savannah Development and Renewal Authority, said he still believes the model has promise in a town with such a dominant tourism industry and where parking and mobility remain key issues.
“I still firmly believe there’s a market for that; I think Savannah is ready for that piece of it,” he said. “I still get an email or two a week from people who want to join the car-sharing service.”
He said part of the reason Savannah has been slower to attract these technology-based services is mostly due to its smaller size and the lack of a large university.
“I have no doubt they will be here soon rather than later,” said Klinkenberg of Uber.
Uber, a service that allows anyone with a car to become a for-hire driver, says it operates in more than 200 cities worldwide. Last year it launched a temporary run for St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah so festival attendees could easily get to and from their hotels.
“While we haven’t firmed up any St. Patrick’s Day plans for Savannah in 2015, last year we saw that revelers really embraced the added option to safely move around the city and found that local drivers welcomed the economic opportunity,” said spokeswoman Kaitlin Durkosh via email.
Durkosh said the service may eventually expand to Savannah, although she has not confirmed plans to do so.
Ride sharing isn’t exclusive to cars, either. Chatham Area Transit launched its pilot bike-share program, CAT Bike, a little over a year ago, serving as an example of how small programs can take root.
Ramond Robinson, the chief development officer at CAT, said the bike share had a solid first year with a little more than 3,500 passes sold in 2014.
“That in itself is a really good metric for a place with just two stations and comparable to other places like Spartanburg with similar sized bike shares,” he said.
With the help of a new federal grant, CAT is deciding where to put as many as five new stations this year.
“I think the presence is here, the infrastructure has been laid and the image is moving toward becoming a more accessible place,” he said. “Savannah Bike Campaign and the city of Savannah have been paramount in this push for this additional arm of mobility.”
Robinson described one couple who visited last April who utilized CAT’s airport shuttle to get to CAT’s multimodal center on Oglethorpe Avenue where they checked out two bikes to get to their hotel.
“Not only were they aware, but they see CAT as multi-modal and they researched it,” he said.
Shared mobility is still a small fraction of their business, but Robinson sees this embrace as wider reaching.
“What’s happening now is you’re actually seeing that shift,” he said. “It’s definitely moving in the right direction to show how there are other options that dictate mobility than just cars.”
Office sharing
One example of the shareconomy has been the recent influx in co-working space, office environments in which multiple companies or entrepreneurs share their resources, including coffee makers, copy machines and conference rooms.
ThincSavannah was the first to pilot this at its third-floor location on Barnard Street overlooking Ellis Square. Now there are three other variations with the introduction of another flexible space on Bull and Broughton and two new startup incubators.
Economists have a few theories as to why collaborative consumption has become such a vibrant sector.
One reason is certainly generational since most young and middle-aged working adults never leave home without their smartphones glued to them. This has made accessibility to services even easier thanks to tech-savvy entrepreneurs who’ve capitalized on connecting people to one another more efficiently.
Second, for those hit hardest by the economic downtown, renting out homes, cars or tools has served as an important revenue stream in an increasingly stratified economy where wages have stagnated for many. Economists also suggest that younger generations do not place the same value on ownership as previous generations might have and are more willing to share common resources.
Forbes estimated in 2013 that money flowing through this economic model would surpass $3.5 billion with expected growth of 25 percent. This has even created markets for resources previously considered untouchable as technology companies get ever more creative.
One new service aptly called Airpnp finds available bathrooms for people in dire need of one, whether they’re at a large outdoor concert or on the road.
The site is pretty new, so the closest toilet pinned is the utilitarian looking Buckhead Office Bathroom in Atlanta. Yours for just $2 a visit.