This op-ed originally appeared in the Rochester Beacon December 8, 2025
On Tuesday night, the Monroe County Legislature will vote on whether to opt out of a new state requirement to create a short-term rental registry. Every other large upstate county including Erie, Onondaga, and Albany, is moving forward. We would be the only one walking away from basic transparency, enforcement tools, and fair taxation.
Right now, we don’t know how many short term rentals exist, where they operate, or how much housing they’re taking off the market. The new state regulation requires counties to maintain a public registry of all short term rentals and use a uniform system to collect state and local taxes from Airbnb, VRBO, and similar platforms. It is the bare minimum needed to understand what STRs are doing to our housing market, ensure everyone pays taxes, and hold bad actors accountable. And it’s even designed to pay for itself!
We are in a housing crisis and a funding crisis. Now is not the time to delay. New York State has given us a tool to bring transparency, protect housing, and collect needed revenue. Other counties didn’t hesitate. They put residents first and opted in, we should too.
So why is the county pushing to opt out of this requirement?
State lobbying records show extensive lobbying of Monroe County officials by Airbnb staff and Ostroff and Associates, the lobbying firm that employs Congressman Joe Morelle’s son, who is listed on the Airbnb account. Morelle is extremely close to County Executive Adam Bello, and Ostroff’s principals have long-standing political ties in this community. Airbnb and Ostroff lobbied counties across upstate. Only Monroe County took the bait.
The law allowing counties to create STR registries passed last December. If transparency were the goal, it would have gone through the normal committee process. Instead, the administration waited until the last minute and is now trying to force an opt-out without real public awareness.
On Tuesday at 6 p.m., residents can speak at the public hearing (call 753-1950 to sign up). Corporations have high paid lobbyists, advocates and neighbors just have each other. If you believe in fairness, in data, and in good governance, now is the moment to say so. Tell your representatives to vote no on the Short Term Registry Opt-out.