Short Term Lets – An Update

The headline in Noosa news of July 13^th reads ‘Council leads in short stay policy’. Apparently (according to the beginning of the article) State Tourism Minister Kate Jones has already developed a code of conduct for hosts and guests using short stay letting…… but read on……. no, it seems that a code is being developed, and it seems it is being developed without any public consultation.

Our Council is to be congratulated for bringing the issue to the fore and working for the establishment of a stakeholder reference group, and it’s great that our Mayor Tony Wellington is one of the members. While the rest of the world has woken up to the need to restrict unregulated growth in short term lets it seems Australia has been lagging behind.

In the article Mayor Wellington suggests Queensland may follow NSW in what he says is a ‘relatively stringent’ legislative approach. The NSW proposals are stringent when compared to the current absence of any regulation, but they seem to me remarkably soft when compared to regulations being introduced in other countries.  Given that Queensland seems to be following NSW’s lead in this it’s worth having a look at what’s happening there.

Under the proposed NSW regulations hosts in Sydney will be allowed to let their property 365 days a year if they are on site, or 180 days per year if not (that’s all weekends and all holidays) and outside Sydney there are no restrictions, but local councils have the right to decrease this to no lower than 180 days per annum.  Owners of strata units will need a 75% majority of the body corporate before they can prevent short term lets, but only if the owner does not live on the premises, otherwise they have no say.

There will also be a yet to be written mandatory code of conduct and a ‘two strikes and you’re out’ policy for hosts or guests who commit serious breaches of the code, but what the code of conduct entails, what constitutes a ‘serious breach’, and how it will all be policed is not clear, although press releases say NSW ‘will use the data supplied by the platforms to assess complaints’. (Not calls to the police or complaints to Councils?)
‘Serious breaches’ does nothing to address the disruption to communities and the everyday living of neighbours of short term lets, although NSW Minister for Better Regulation Matt Kean says the new laws would address impacts like noise levels, disruptive guests and effects on shared neighbourhood amenities. It will be interesting to see what this code looks like, the mechanisms in place to enforce it, and to see who is going to pay for compliance. Experience in Australia and other countries shows the hosting companies and non-complying hosts have not been forthcoming in providing information or paying fines.

Short term letting agency Airbnb has welcomed the regulations but residents’ groups say the reforms don’t go far enough. Airbnb says the reforms are “fair and balanced” (which maybe gives you an inkling as to who has the best deal, and who has not). Lobby groups are concerned that there is no ‘platform’ accountability; that the large overseas multinational hosting corporations are able to operate at arms length and deny local responsibility. On the other hand, hosting platforms like Stayz have said the NSW government was seeking “to arbitrarily impose restrictions on the use of private property” and slammed the new strata powers as a “retrograde step”. They’re also unhappy about the distinction between hosted and unhosted accommodation in strata units.

The provisions for strata units are of particular concern for lobby groups who say there will be no guarantee for those buying into a complex that it will not become a holiday village. The same might be said of any neighbourhood of detached housing, particularly residential neighbourhoods in holiday destinations like Byron Bay (and Noosa). The 365 days open slather in regional areas (even with the minimum 180 days provision) have given Councils little control over the growth of short term lets which means they have little control over future demands for infrastructure, transport, and the impacts of tourism in their communities.

The idea of using a house as a commodity is not new, and short term lets are here to stay. It’s clear they’re loved by travellers, by the multinational corporations making big dollars, and by hosts who are making income from them, but perhaps not so loved by the neighbours and those who see their communities disrupted and disappearing. Over time our idea of what we buy into when we purchase a house or a unit might change and with it our reliance on and commitment to things like neighbours and community. Whatever the future holds it’s good to see Queensland beginning to come to grips with the need for regulation and transparency.

The NSW legislation has been introduced after lengthy and broad consultations, but residents’ groups say the Liberal NSW government has ignored their submissions and gone too far in supporting the industry at the expense of communities.  If similar legislation and a code of conduct for short term lets are on the drawing board for Queensland, as Mayor Wellington and Noosa News suggest, I’m hoping  they will not just clone the NSW approach without public consultation