Communities throughout New England have been attempting to regulate short-term rentals since sites like Airbnb took off in the 2

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问题     Communities throughout New England have been attempting to regulate short-term rentals since sites like Airbnb took off in the 2010s. Now, with record-high home prices and historically low inventory, there’s an increased urgency in such regulation, particularly among those who worry that developers will come in and buy up swaths of housing to flip for a fortune on the short-term rental market.
    In New Hampshire, where the rental vacancy rate has dropped below 1 percent, housing advocates fear unchecked short-term rentals will put further pressure on an already strained market. The State Legislature recently voted against a bill that would’ve made it illegal for towns to create legislation restricting short-term rentals.
    " We are at a crisis level on the supply of rental housing, so anytime you’re taking the tool out of the toolkit for communities to address this, you’re potentially taking supply off the market that’s already incredibly stressed," said Nick Taylor, executive director of the Workforce Housing Coalition of the Greater Seacoast. Without enough affordable housing in southern New Hampshire towns, "employers are having a hard time attracting employees, and workers are having a hard time finding a place to live," Taylor said.
    However, short-term rentals also provide housing for tourists, pointed out Ryan Castle, CEO of a local association of realtor. " A lot of workers are servicing the tourist industry, and the tourism industry is serviced by those people coming in short term," Castle said, "and so it’s a cyclical effect. "
    Short-term rentals themselves are not the crux of the issue, said Keren Horn, an expert on affordable housing policy. "I think individuals being able to rent out their second home is a good thing. If it’s their vacation home anyway, and it’s just empty, why can’t you make money off it?" Horn said. Issues arise, however, when developers attempt to create large-scale short-term rental facilities—de facto hotels—to bypass taxes and regulations. " I think the question is, shouldn’t a developer who’s really building a hotel, but disguising it as not a hotel, be treated and taxed and regulated like a hotel?" Horn said.
    At the end of 2018, governor Charlie Balke signed a bill to rein in those potential investor-buyers. The bill requires every rental host to register with the state mandates they carry insurance, and opens the potential for local taxes on top of a new state levy. Boston took things even further, limiting who is authorized to rent out their home, and requiring renters to register with the city’s Inspectional Services Department.
    Horn said similar registration requirements could benefit other struggling cities and towns, but " if we want to make a change in the housing market, the main one is we have to build a lot more. "
What does Horn emphasize in Paragraph 5?

选项 A、The urgency to upgrade short-term rental facilities.
B、The efficient operation of the local housing market.
C、The necessity to stop developers from evading taxes.
D、The proper procedure for renting out spare houses.

答案C

解析 根据题干中的 Horm 和 Paragraph 5 定位到第五段,其中提到 Hom 的观点为“当开发商试图建造大规模的短期租赁设施——实际上是酒店——以避开税收和法规时,问题就出现了”。问题就是有的开发商会躲税,会避开法规从而非法获利,那么既然说是问题,自然应该阻止开发商逃税,故正确答案为C。文中提到create(建造)large-scale short-term rental facilities,而非upgrade(升级)short-term rental facilities,故排除 A 选项。B 选项中的 operation of the local housing market在文中并未提及,故排除。文中提到 Horn认为“能够出租第二套房子是一件好事”,但是并没有提到租房子的步骤,故排除 D 选项。
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