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The story
Osaka City is moving to tighten its own regulations on “minpaku” (private home-stay vacation rentals), which have been plagued by a string of noise complaints and other trouble. The city plans to add a requirement for buildings with high sound insulation to the licensing conditions for minpaku operated under the Hotel Business Act, effectively barring wood-frame and steel-frame apartments from opening as a general rule. The city had previously promoted “special zone minpaku” under the National Strategic Special Zones Act, but that scheme has already stopped accepting new business applications. On 5ch, the thread saw a mix of basic questions about the details of the new rules and a divided debate over the responsibility of the politicians who pushed special zone minpaku, as well as the surge in foreign tourists.
Published 9/3 (Thu) 5:00 AM
The Asahi Shimbun
In response to a string of noise-related and other troubles involving “minpaku” vacation rentals, Osaka City is moving to introduce its own regulations, including adding a requirement for buildings with high sound insulation to the conditions for obtaining a business license. The city had previously promoted “special zone minpaku,” a scheme under the National Strategic Special Zones Act with relaxed licensing rules, in order to prepare for the rapid increase in inbound foreign tourists, but it has already stopped accepting new business applications for that program. This time, the city will tighten licensing regulations for minpaku operated under the Hotel Business Act instead.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Thatch-roofed, obviously.
Tokyo: "We're going to start charging for garbage bags."
Wouldn't be surprised if they start charging for collection itself before long.
That's a good rule.
Great news for the management proxy agencies.
Though for guests and neighbors, I doubt they'll actually respond properly if something goes wrong anyway.
So applications for regular minpaku surged because the special zone minpaku application window closed in May. Why does Osaka City alone keep seeing this kind of increase?
It was also "Gā-sū" (nickname for then-PM Yoshihide Suga) back in the Abe era who let immigration policy go slack. Looking back, Suga was pretty rough.
[TV] Toru Hashimoto, on a Chinese owner's "illegal minpaku": "Who's the one who started special zone minpaku? Me!"
https://hayabusa9.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/mnewsplus/1749378621/
Hashimoto brazenly admitted with a smile, "That's right. It was me, along with Ichiro Matsui and [Hirofumi] Yoshimura, who called for turning Osaka into a minpaku city, pushed hard on the Abe administration, and expanded special zone minpaku. That was us!"
and the massive deregulation of special zone minpaku rules that let minpaku operate almost like full hotels —
both of those are thanks to the LDP and the Abe administration.
■ Minpaku New Law
■ The minimum stay requirement for special zone minpaku was deregulated down to 2 nights/3 days
https://minpakubusiness.com/kiseikanwasochi/
Number of special zone minpaku rooms (Feb 2024 – May 2026)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HM3vqYabEAArWnR.png
So the ultimate responsibility lies with Abe, doesn't it? He was the head of government at the time and held the final decision-making power.
The reason the numbers are so abnormally high only in Osaka is because Ishin pushed for it.
With the Expo and the casino, Ishin's economic policy is all-in on inbound tourism.
The economic scale of inbound tourism amounts to only a few trillion yen at most. Meanwhile, tens of millions of foreign tourists also generate social costs — dealing with noise, garbage, and even public defecation.
When Ishin says they'll do something, they actually follow through. That's one thing you have to give them credit for, unlike other parties.
Then hurry up and abolish the tax exemption for foreign tourists already.
They've said before that they'd "provide guidance," but the number of shops actually stripped of tax-free status has been zero.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HOY3L9ubUAAOs6K.jpg
Background and Key Points of Debate
It’s easy to misunderstand that this round of tightened regulations targets minpaku operated under the Hotel Business Act — a separate framework from the “special zone minpaku” system (which relaxed licensing rules under the National Strategic Special Zones Act) that Osaka City once promoted. Special zone minpaku has already stopped accepting new applications, and posters in the thread pointed out that this has caused a rebound surge in applications for minpaku under the Hotel Business Act instead. The thread’s opinions mainly split over the question of “whose decision drove the deregulation,” with back-and-forth arguments over whether responsibility lies with the Abe and Suga administrations, which led the push for special zone minpaku and the Minpaku New Law, or with the Osaka Ishin party and Toru Hashimoto, who actually made use of the special zone on the ground. Hashimoto’s own past TV remarks admitting “I’m the one who did it” were cited as material for understanding the background. Meanwhile, how effective the concrete details of the new regulations will actually be in practice — such as the sound-insulation standards or the requirement to station staff within 1km of a property — remains an open question in both the article and the thread.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “Osaka City to Tighten Regulations on Opening “Minpaku” — Wood and Steel-Frame Apartments to Generally Be Barred“.
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