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The story
Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward has drawn up a proposed ordinance amendment aimed at easing regulations on minpaku (private home-stay lodging). Under the plan, “compliant operators” who meet certain conditions — such as having the host live on-site — would see their annual cap on operating days raised from 120 to 180. While wards like Shinjuku have been moving to tighten regulations in response to minpaku-related trouble around Tokyo, Setagaya is steering in the opposite direction. On 5channel threads, comments included “Why are wards taking such different approaches?” and “Could this also be about tackling the vacant-house problem?”, with opinions split over the ward’s reportedly high number of vacant homes and the potential impact on land prices.
Amid a string of minpaku-related troubles and a move toward tighter regulation across Tokyo, Setagaya Ward has drawn up a proposed ordinance amendment that would ease restrictions under certain conditions.
Operating days to go from 120 to 180
Footage filmed around 11:30 p.m. by a woman troubled by minpaku trouble in her neighborhood. Loud music and voices can be heard coming from inside the house.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
More of a Sazae-san vibe to me (@Kansai) (Sazae-san: a classic anime about an ordinary, old-fashioned middle-class family)
And then no charges get filed.
Land prices in Setagaya have gone completely insane. If legalizing minpaku ends up hurting public safety, it might throw cold water on that price surge.
The minpaku shut out of Shinjuku might come flooding into Setagaya instead.
Where would they even go, lol. Anywhere in central Tokyo is the same story, lol.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/6d6dc2279960fc9ed53f7c407e40fe022123f4f1
What a mess, lol
If a crackdown just pushes it underground, isn't Setagaya's approach of bringing it into the open the smarter move?
If underground listings increase, the police just need to do their job and crack down on them.
Probably because Setagaya has a serious vacant-house problem.
Apparently the number of vacant single-family homes there is staggering. Where did the kids go, I wonder — gave up on the family home for a tower condo downtown?
Isn't that a bit narrow-minded? Accepting inbound tourism and foreign workers is national policy. You didn't actually vote for the LDP, did you???
Maybe as a base for "yami baito" jobs (shady gigs, often scams or crimes, recruited anonymously online).
"Japan's No. 1 in vacant homes": Setagaya Ward, "We can't tear it down…" — the circumstances owners are stuck with
https://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/plus/business/entry/202508/17314.html
"I don't want to pay the taxes" — that one line would've covered it, but they dragged it out into a whole article.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Under Japan’s Private Lodging Business Act, minpaku operators face a statutory cap of 180 operating days per year, and Setagaya Ward’s proposed amendment would raise the limit up to that legal ceiling — meaning the easing stays within the bounds of existing law. By contrast, Osaka’s “special zone minpaku” operate under a separate legal framework with no such day-count limit at all, and the comparisons drawn in the thread between the Shinjuku and Osaka cases got tangled and are worth untangling. Setagaya has been reported to have a notably high vacancy rate, and some see the deregulation as partly aimed at putting empty homes to use, though this is not something the ward has officially confirmed. The thread also included posts speculating about the mayor’s political leanings and about residents of particular nationalities; these are unsubstantiated guesses and shouldn’t be taken at face value.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread “[Tokyo] Setagaya Ward considers easing minpaku regulations, expanding operating days to 180 — for compliant operators whose host lives on-site.”
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