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In late 2024, New York State enacted a law requiring counties to create a registry of short-term rental properties, unless counties opted out by the end of 2025. The goal was to give local governments the basic information needed to understand and regulate a rapidly growing lodging market operating inside residential neighborhoods.
Monroe County chose to opt out of that requirement, through legislation submitted at the last-minute as a Matter of Urgency that bypassed the committee process.
(Photo : Kelly Kester Photography)
To understand why, I obtained hundreds of pages of emails, draft legislation, and tax agreements between Airbnb, its lobbyists, and Monroe County officials. Those documents show how our county government worked with a powerful, multibillion-dollar corporation to shape policy behind closed doors, exaggerate risks that did not exist, and successfully sidelined the County Legislature—all while claiming to act in the public interest.
Airbnb lobbied counties across the state to opt out of the registry, but Monroe County was the only large urban upstate county to do so. That’s likely because Airbnb’s lobbyist in Monroe County was Nicholas Morelle, son of Rep. Joe Morelle. County Executive Adam Bello refers to the elder Morelle as his mentor. They are extremely close, giving the young lobbyist extraordinary access to county officials.
That access mattered. The documents, which cover a seven-month period, show Airbnb working directly with county attorneys to review draft legislation, object to specific provisions, and ultimately sign off on the final version of the law before it was ever introduced to legislators. At the same time, the county was negotiating an updated tax agreement with Airbnb from the original one signed in 2018—a fact never disclosed during legislative deliberations.
To understand what was really at stake, it helps to understand scale. Based on Monroe County’s own occupancy tax receipts, Airbnb now accounts for roughly one in 10 lodging nights here. That makes it, in effect, the county’s largest hotel. But unlike hotels, Airbnb is not required to register its properties, disclose addresses, submit to routine audits, or provide booking-level records. We regulate 105 hotels down to the dollar, yet we have no clear picture of where Airbnb operates, how many properties exist, and ownership of the units.
The Bello administration’s central argument against a registry was that opting in might jeopardize the county’s ability to collect occupancy taxes—of which Airbnb paid nearly $1.2 million in 2024, funding local cultural and tourism attractions. That claim that Airbnb would sever ties with Monroe County if we created a registry was repeated publicly and treated as fact. It was also false.
Airbnb collects occupancy taxes under what’s called a voluntary collection agreement, or VCA. A VCA allows Airbnb to collect the county’s 6 percent occupancy tax from guests at the time of booking and remit it to the county in a single payment, rather than forcing hundreds of individual hosts to register, file returns, and remit taxes themselves—a logistical nightmare for hosts that would undermine the platform.
In other words, Airbnb cannot abandon a VCA without hurting its own business—nearly $20 million in taxable receipts in Monroe County in 2024 alone. And in its correspondence with the county, Airbnb admits it has never terminated a VCA. The idea that tax collection would collapse if Monroe County created a registry was always an empty threat.
So why does it matter that a new VCA was being negotiated at the same time as the opt-out law?
Because had county legislators been allowed to read the new VCA, we would have understood that creating a registry would not have jeopardized tax collection. We did not see the new VCA because the Legislature does not vote on VCAs, per an interpretation of the county charter that gives the finance director the authority to decide how to collect taxes. The Bello administration did not tell us a new one was about to be executed.
The new VCA locked in Airbnb’s participation—while simultaneously restricting what information the county could obtain and how it could be used. The opt-out law and the VCA functioned as a package deal: tax remittance was preserved, but oversight was surrendered. Legislators were never told they were being asked to approve one half of a deal with Airbnb.
Other counties understood that Airbnb’s early threats not to collect and remit taxes were a bluff. Erie County has a short-term rental registry and a VCA. Airbnb continues to collect and remit taxes there without disruption. Monroe County officials knew—or should have known—this was possible. Yet legislators and the public were told otherwise.
In our final meeting of 2025, the Legislature voted 21-8 to opt out of creating a short-term rental registry. Some of my colleagues who voted to opt out said they felt rushed and reasoned we could still create a registry in the future.
What Airbnb actually feared was not paying taxes. The correspondence with Monroe County officials showed it feared data. A registry would make the true scale of Airbnb’s operations visible. Address-level information would allow the county to identify concentrations of listings, distinguish between casual hosts and commercial operators, and begin governing a hotel-scale business operating inside residential neighborhoods. Airbnb fought aggressively to keep that information out of the county’s hands—and Monroe County agreed.
The result is a system that relies on blind trust. We audit hotels routinely and recover underpayments when they occur. With Airbnb, the county receives aggregated totals and little else. Oversight is replaced with dashboards the company controls.
Airbnb is Monroe County’s largest hotel. We chose to let it write the rules.
Rachel Barnhart, D-17th District, has been a Monroe County legislator since 2019.
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I’m wondering how this is negatively financially affecting local hotels, like the Wyndham, and like the one that used to be right near the airport on Brooks Avenue. Losing these formerly active businesses has a much worse effect on quality of life in Monroe County than you realize. At least in hotels if people get out of line, someone is there and they can call the police, which is the specific point of THIS comment.
There’s a Monday to Friday daycare on our street in the 19th Ward, and in a pretty good Street too, and there was a full-house rent out (which, if I read applicable regulations online correctly, is illegal) to what appeared to be a weekend graduation party and it was a disaster. Ill-behaved/aggressive teen girls came from who-knows-where, to stand outside the house at 2 am and scream and holler physical threats at the people (apparently girls) there. They cowered behind the curtains didn’t want to even try to talk to them. Apparently there were NO ADULTS in the house to get out there and tell them to stop, get lost, or call the police to stop this. Two days in a row! And yes, WE called the police. Each time. But not everybody wants to do that because they feel intimidated.
[Great way to start bringing down neighborhoods that were finally moving up, and encourage people to reconsider living in the city of Rochester!]
And then we had some young (teen) men who were there. Why we didn’t know, because if they were actually there and related, they should have gone out and told them get lost or at least called the cops. But nobody was sure if they were there all the time or were just “occasional guests” (IYKYK)) who were shooting craps in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day, not bothering to move out of the way, and looking at neighbors’ houses awful closely, if you get my drift.
We’ve already had problems with The Usual Suspects going down our street, casing the houses, then young hoodie wearing men breaking into cars (even houses!) at 3:00 in the morning. That’s at least three times so far this year, including just a couple days ago. And this was a neighbors third time having his car broken into, and he said he can’t report it to the insurance company because they’ll cancel him!
Thank you so much, Rochester and Monroe County elected officials, for NOT taking long-term and lifetime residents and homeowners into consideration.🙄 Just more elected Representatives who are apparently in it for the big bucks and benefits they get from government that we fund with our taxes, while struggling to get by. And since this is entirely Democrat-run, I’m definitely not blaming. Republicans
Absolutely agree – largest hotel in the county and also why would anyone agree to letting unregulated hotels operate in their community. It’s crazy and destructive to our neighborhoods. I have seen first hand how the last few homes to sell near me have affected my neighborhood in a negative way. They went to buyers who exclusively use the property as a “hotel”. So the houses either sit empty much of the time, or they are full of people who could care less about the neighbors, the neighborhood – the quality of life. As a county resident and as a city resident – if our elected representatives care about OUR quality of life: they should not allow this type of unregulated hotel at all. If someone wants to actually “share their space ” while they also live there – by all means go ahead. That was the original intention of Airbnb.
Will Ms. Barnhart move to have this issue revisited by the county legislature?
The mechanism would be to repeal the local law we passed opting out, but right now it does not have the support. I have said it will be exceedingly difficult to revisit the issue because the county attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the county executive also serve as the legislature’s attorneys. Bello will fight any effort to opt in, and he has very loyal members of the Democratic Caucus. On the other hand, when it becomes clear registries are working well statewide, that could pave the way for us to join in.
Thank you!