In Russia, hostels in residential buildings were banned
The State Duma adopted in the second reading a law banning the placement of hotels and hostels in residential premises. The initiators of the document are deputies and Chairman of the Committee of the lower house on housing policy and housing G. Khovanskaya.
It was proposed to introduce amendments to the Residential Code of the Russian Federation, according to them, “residential premises in an apartment building cannot be used to provide hotel services.” Hostels are often housed in residential apartments - this is a violation of the rights of other people.
The law was considered in 2015, and in the first reading it was quickly adopted, but the amendments agreed three years.
According to the initiators of the law, a profitable business should not disturb the peace of residents of apartment buildings, and the rules are required to protect the hostel from the status of a lodging.
“A businessman who decided to turn his privatized apartment into a hostel should transfer this apartment to the category of non-residential premises,” says Khovanskaya.
This room assumes a separate entrance, i.e. the hostel can only open on the first floor. On February 19, the Housing Policy Committee supported the tough amendments: “residential premises in an apartment building cannot be used to provide hotel and temporary accommodation services.”
The initiative sparked protests in St. Petersburg as hostel owners protested against the law. According to the organizers of the rally, if the amendments to the law are adopted, three thousand mini-hotels and hostels will close in the Northern capital, more than 20,000 people will lose their jobs, and the cost of living in St. Petersburg will increase.
City Committee for Tourism Development: foreigners stay in hostels (60%), and in mini-hotels they make up 90% of all guests.
G.Khovanskaya proposed to supplement the article with a ban on “accommodation in residential premises of hotels and other places of accommodation”. This will affect the private sector, which rent vacationers at sea resorts.
“If your own house or part of the house is used as a hotel, then it should be transferred to the category of hotels: there are no problems for this, especially since the owner of the house does not require anyone’s consent,” says the first deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Housing Policy S. Pakhomov (“United Russia”). According to him, all members of the committee from all factions voted for the hard option. After all, it is not about people who have settled in non-residential premises, but about business that comes to where people should live in peace.
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