KYOTO - Kyoto is preparing to effectively prohibit new private lodging operations in residential areas and other parts of the city as complaints over noise, smoking, garbage and operators ignoring existing rules intensify, even as some traditional townhouse owners say tourist accommodation can help preserve the city's historic architecture.
Kyoto already has some of Japan's strictest regulations on minpaku, or private lodging facilities, but the city this month presented a draft plan for further restrictions and is considering an ordinance revision at the February municipal assembly session next year.
The move comes as residents in neighborhoods popular with overseas visitors report a growing range of problems involving guests at private accommodation.
Complaints have included visitors speaking loudly for extended periods on video calls, smoking outside neighboring homes and leaving large quantities of cigarette butts behind. In another case, a lodging operator sought advice after guests ate crab in the bathroom and discarded shells there, clogging the drainage system.
In one historic neighborhood in central Kyoto, where traditional teahouses and old streets remain, a resident said cigarette butts had repeatedly been discarded in the narrow space between the resident's home and a nearby lodging facility.
On another occasion, a cigarette lighter and cigarettes were left outside.
"I thought it was frightening to see a lighter just left there," the resident said, expressing concern that the closely packed traditional buildings could easily catch fire.
Similar complaints about smoking have been reported elsewhere, with residents particularly worried about the risk of fire in neighborhoods filled with wooden structures.
Under Kyoto's current ordinance, operators are required to station staff at a location from which they can reach the accommodation within 10 minutes while guests are staying there. Check-in procedures must also generally be conducted face to face.
The rules are intended to ensure that guests are informed about local requirements, including noise restrictions and garbage disposal, and to allow operators to respond quickly when problems occur.
Residents and industry operators, however, say those requirements are often ignored.
One lodging operator said that even when an emergency complaint is made and a facility is asked to send someone immediately, staff sometimes fail to arrive promptly.
Kyoto believes a significant number of businesses may be operating in violation of the ordinance.
Miyamoto, who operates several private lodgings in Kyoto, conducted his own investigation this year into accommodation listings in the city.
He found more than 100 facilities that appeared potentially to violate the rules, including listings that advertised self-check-in procedures allowing guests to enter without meeting staff in person.
"If a listing says self-check-in is available and guests can handle the entry procedure themselves, there is a very high possibility that it violates the ordinance," Miyamoto said.
Foreign visitors interviewed in Kyoto confirmed that self-check-in remains common.
One visitor said the entire procedure was completed through an app. "It was just self-check-in using an app," the visitor said, adding that they did not meet anyone from the accommodation.
Another visitor said they had also checked in independently.
Some tourists said their lodgings had not explained neighborhood rules.
"I don't think the place where we stayed explained the rules," one visitor said. "We figured them out ourselves by looking at signs and watching what local people were doing, so it would be helpful if the accommodation explained them."
Miyamoto said he had long feared that failure by operators to address complaints would eventually lead Kyoto to impose even tougher restrictions across the entire private lodging industry.
"I thought Kyoto would definitely move toward regulating minpaku, and I also expected those regulations to become stricter," he said.
The city has now begun taking administrative action against businesses that violate the rules.
Following a special investigation, Kyoto announced that operators had been penalized for practices including telling guests by message where keys were located instead of meeting them face to face.
The city imposed penalties of 50,000 yen.
Four operators were also found to have violated the requirement to station an employee within a 10-minute walk of their facilities and were ordered to suspend operations for 30 days.
The measures marked Kyoto's first administrative penalties for violations involving private lodging operations.
A city official said inspections had created a strong impression that many facilities were failing to comply with the staffing requirement, suggesting the cases uncovered so far may represent only a small portion of the problem.
Against this background, Kyoto is considering effectively banning new private lodging businesses in residential districts and certain other areas.
The proposal highlights a growing dilemma for one of Japan's leading tourist destinations: how to accommodate millions of visitors while protecting the everyday lives of residents.
Yet private lodging also has another side in Kyoto, where aging traditional homes and declining occupancy have created a long-running challenge over how to preserve the city's historic streetscape.
Nishizawa renovated an approximately 80-year-old traditional Kyoto townhouse that had belonged to his grandmother after it stood vacant for about five years.
He spent about 20 million yen restoring the property and has operated it for the past 10 years as accommodation limited to one group at a time.
Nishizawa said he was determined to retain the atmosphere of a traditional Kyoto townhouse.
The garden, for example, had previously been surrounded by concrete and corrugated metal when his grandmother lived there, with a washing machine also occupying part of the area. Because the space had originally been a garden, it was restored so moss and plants could grow there again.
Kyoto has struggled for years with how to preserve its traditional townhouses and historic streets, and converting old properties into well-managed tourist accommodation has emerged as one possible way of financing their survival.
"If I hadn't done this, the refrigerator and washing machine would probably still be sitting here and we'd still be wondering what to do with the place," Nishizawa said. "Now it has become beautiful, and people who stay here leave happy. I think my grandmother would probably be happy too."
The debate has therefore become more complicated than simply deciding whether to allow or restrict private lodging.
Supporters of tighter controls argue that stronger measures are necessary to protect residents when guests disregard local manners or operators fail to comply with regulations.
At the same time, questions remain over whether exceptionally strict restrictions should be applied uniformly.
Other possible approaches raised in the debate include imposing additional penalties for nuisance behavior or increasing accommodation taxes to cover the cost of monitoring and enforcement, with the aim of preserving properly operated lodging businesses while reducing the number of violators.
For Kyoto, the challenge is increasingly one of balancing tourism with neighborhood life while also finding ways to preserve the traditional buildings and streets that draw visitors to the city in the first place.
Source: KTV NEWS
