Policy without evidence

Noosa Council – or more precisely, the anti-visitor elements within it – has doubled down in moving to amend the Noosa Plan in a way that will effectively ban expansion of short term accommodation in the Shire.

The majority of Councillors will do this by blocking enterprise in a market sector notoriously vulnerable to major economic shocks, such as Noosa experienced when the global financial crisis crushed tourism and kept the property market depressed for 10 years.

Overzealous councillors commanding a majority of votes are about to set up Noosa for a dreadful hiding next time the economy tumbles. There is a better way than the one being foisted upon the Shire by these impulsive politicians.

In July 2021, after several months in which the Council consistently approved applications for short term accommodation (STA) in medium and high density residential zones, assessment staff did a sudden about-face and began recommending that such applications be rejected.

Their justification for the change was as mysterious as it was unexpected. Without warning, Council staff decided to enforce a section of the 2020 Noosa Plan which dictates that “visitor accommodation is not to be located in areas which are predominantly permanent residential dwellings”.

The Noosa Plan does not define ‘predominantly’, but staff worked around this by adopting an estimate by Unitywater that, on average, “23 percent of dwellings within the coastal areas are being used for the purpose of short-term accommodation”.

This untested 23 percent benchmark, of uncertain derivation and reliability, was then arbitrarily applied by staff to each application.

Recommendations to refuse STA applications began to flow to Council’s decision-making meetings.

A number of Councillors, without questioning the basis of the staff’s assessment, then began to reject all or most applications.

It suited them to have a justification, however obscure, that matched their perception of Noosa as a place overrun by visitors.

So, on the basis of spurious reasoning and no substantive evidence, began the rejection of many applications to provide short term accommodation.

Previously, in 2019, in a draft of the Noosa Plan modified in response to public agitation, staff had proposed that short term accommodation be allowed for all residential dwellings – units, duplexes and houses – whether in low, medium or high density residential zones.

The modification was for a straightforward, flexible and publicly approved scheme.

But a majority of councillors rejected the staff’s position, deciding instead that in low density areas short term accommodation would be defined as an ‘inconsistent use’ of whole houses and that applications for such use would be ‘impact assessable’, and therefore likely to be rejected.

I dissented from this change that seemed to owe more to bias against visitors than good sense.

‘Inconsistent’ means what it says – that short term accommodation in low density zones is regarded as incompatible with the character of the area and unlikely to be approved.

‘Impact assessable’ means each application must be formally assessed to determine its impact on the neighbourhood.

In addition, applicants have to pay a $9,000 application fee and, in a submission, prove that their STA property will not have a negative impact.

In medium and high density zones, the plan defines short term accommodation as ‘consistent’ but still requires applications to be ‘impact assessable’. This requires a lower application fee of around $3,000 but it can still be rejected even though the notion of ‘consistency’ makes approval more likely.

Deliberately, STA applications were made expensive and complex, meaning applicants are likely to require the services of a consultant planner, and even a lawyer.

And even then, after the money has been spent and a thorough case assembled, there is no guarantee approval will follow from a Council dominated by Councillors who believe that visitors are detrimental to many communities.

It is hard to conceive that a more hostile process could be devised.

But it was not until July 2021 that staff and a majority of Councillors began to reject applications in medium and high density zones. This immediately created concern in the community and within the minority group of Councillors which includes the Mayor, as it was clear the staff recommendations were not evidence based.

After much debate, Councillors decided to seek both empirical data and an updated Housing Needs Assessment before deciding whether to amend the Noosa Plan.

The provision of such evidence had previously been mandated by the Planning Minister as a condition for approving the plan, but this had been ignored.

However when staff eventually supply this information to Councillors, there is no guarantee that limitations on STA applications will be eased; indeed it is possible they may be made more severe.

Short term accommodation has become yet another arena for winding back visitor numbers to Noosa without visitor numbers being substantiated as a real problem.

There is a long history in Noosa of objection to tourism and visitors and, associated with this in more recent times, fearmongering and hyperbole about short term letting “taking over” the Shire accompanied by detrimental gibes about the kinds of people who short term let. These debates, almost always evidence free, also occur at council meetings and in other public forums.

Online platforms like Airbnb and Stayz are regarded as malign, and property owners who want to short term let characterised as little better than interlopers. Emotional language drives out rational discourse using catchphrases like ‘housing crisis’, ‘rental crisis’, ‘tsunami of visitors’, ‘explosion of STAs’, ‘loved to death’, ‘ruined amenity’, ‘party houses’ and ‘community fabric destroyed’.

There are plenty of anecdotes but little or no evidence to support such extreme contentions. Short term accommodation has also become a proxy in Noosa’s tiresome culture wars in which a self-styled group of ‘guardians’ seek to exert control over visitors, newcomers, most business people, wealthy retirees, in fact anybody except themselves.

Impeding the economy

Noosa Council will take bad policy a big step further if it approves a foreshadowed amendment to the Noosa Plan which will essentially not allow approvals for additional short term accommodation (STA) in the Shire.

Devised under the previous Wellington Council, the plan had not been ratified then because of State Government concern about some of its elements. I too had been concerned about the harsh limitations proposed on short term accommodation and had voted against adopting the plan. But with the 2020 election out of the way, the Noosa Plan returned to
the Council for adoption.

With similar concerns to mine, the newly elected Mayor Cr Clare Stewart and Cr Amelia Lorentson voted against the Plan, but continuing Councillors, who retained a majority in the Council, voted to approve the plan.

However, a proviso from the State Planning Minister prevailed – that, because there had been no economic impact assessment of the proposed changes to STA, over a two year period the Council was required to monitor and provide “a detailed analysis…[including] annual comparison data, consider the economic and social benefits of the current situation [and] forecast the potential long-term impacts of short-term accommodation across the residential zones”.

In the first 12 months after the Noosa Plan was adopted, assessment staff consistently recommended, and Councillors approved, STA applications in medium and high density zones. Then unexpectedly in July 2021, staff began recommending refusal and Councillors began, but not unanimously, to followed suit by rejecting some applications but without the “detailed analysis” sought by the Minister.

When the Mayor and Crs Lorentson and Finzel raised this inconsistency, and possible breach of a ministerial requirement, the Council put changes to STA on hold until they had received credible data and an updated Housing Needs Assessment.

Noosa’s beautiful environment and relaxed lifestyle make it a magnet for retirees and visitors. It’s not surprising that tourism, hospitality, property and construction comprise the bulk of the Shire’s economy.

Since Noosa Council was re-established in 2014, Councillors have been elected promising to ‘diversify the economy’ and, when they fail to do this, make the same promise next time. But this is empty rhetoric because past Councils have consistently failed to encourage and facilitate diversification.

Indeed, the Council has a reputation for making commercial initiatives difficult to effect.
One of the Council’s major attempts to ‘diversify’ was to establish a digital IT hub which it said would be profitable and spin off digital enterprise in the Shire. Instead – after a demonstration of favouritism, poor planning and lack of business knowhow – the hub became a cost centre and there is no sign that the Shire will ever develop its own Silicon Valley.

Indeed, it seems some councillors lack an understanding of the real meaning of economic diversification.

At a recent Council meeting, Cr Tom Wegener said he would vote to reject an STA application in the interests of diversifying the economy by retaining the property as a home for a company executive, who presumably might lease it for long term occupancy.

In 2008 a combination of the Global Financial Crisis and strong Australian dollar battered tourism and left the Noosa property market on its knees, a situation that took nearly 10 years to alleviate.

In 2021, the Covid pandemic has had the opposite effect on Noosa, which at the time of writing had been mostly unaffected by lockdowns and, as an open ‘safe haven’ and with attractive property prices compared with the big cities, attracted visitation and inward migration.

Property and rental prices have risen steeply and vacancy rates are very low. At a macro level, the South East Queensland Regional Plan and Noosa Plan constrain the residential footprint and limit housing development, likely forcing up property prices for some time to come.

The truth is that short term accommodation, effectively managed and not blighted by unnecessarily restrictive rules, could be an important part of offering the Noosa economy more adaptability and flexibility in dealing with the cyclical housing and tourism markets.
This would add to the Shire’s now precarious economic resilience. But this opportunity to strengthen the local economy seems to be neither understood nor valued by most Councillors.

Cumbersome, costly and unfair

In 2020, Mayor Stewart successfully moved that the Council initiate action to enable affordable housing for lower income people. But in the political pressure cooker, the targeted “affordable housing crisis” morphed into a generic “housing crisis”, of which there is no evidence, but is a term frequently used by some Councillors to argue against expanding short term accommodation.

The shortage of affordable housing will not be addressed by limiting short term accommodation. Quite simply, the prices and rentals of most of these properties is beyond the means of low income people.

Banning STAs in expensive coastal areas will not help house low socio-economic groups. Issues of housing affordability and scarcity of affordable housing are problems at the lower, not the upper, end of the property market. Limiting short term accommodation will not solve this problem and assertions that it will are ill-informed or cynical.

Led by Mayor Stewart, Noosa Council has begun to take steps to address the scarcity of affordable housing, which particularly affects the workers on which Noosa relies, the homeless, older single women and victims of domestic violence. Addressing this issue will take many years before the real affordable housing crisis is alleviated.

Objectors to short stay accommodation also often blame it for traffic congestion and the cost of maintaining public infrastructure in the Shire. This year Noosa Council took steps to have STA owners, including resorts, pay more towards infrastructure through higher rates and a levy.

But the real causes of traffic congestion have more to do with the lack of Council action to establish park and ride stations on traffic corridors, shuttle buses to replace cars in heavy traffic areas and bicycle pathways to encourage an alternative form of transport in a place ideally suited to bike riding. Limiting short stays will make no difference to Noosa’s growing traffic problems. The argument is just a red herring.

Listening to opponents of STA, you’d swear that guests are the visitors from hell. Anecdotes abound of constant deafening parties, overspilling visitor hordes, rubbish dumped wantonly and parked cars blocking streets.

There’s no doubt some neighbours have bad experiences. But Council debates never moved beyond anecdotes to provide substantive evidence that the problems are widespread. Meanwhile Council local laws officers receive frequent complaints about chronically ill-behaved owner-occupiers and permanent tenants.

The bad neighbour is a rules-enforcement issue for relevant Council staff and the Police. The across-the-board solution to the problem with some short term visitors, long term tenants and permanent residents is a properly resourced complaints and monitoring process to protect neighbourhood amenity.

Bad neighbours are not an STA issue; they are being used as an excuse.

In summary, restricting short term accommodation is not an answer that will diversify the Noosa economy, nor will it fix housing unaffordability, remove traffic congestion or ensure neighbourhood amenity. Each of these is an issue to be addressed in its own right.
Using the planning scheme to regulate short term accommodation is cumbersome, costly and unfair, and it will entrench Council approvals in perpetuity, since these are permanently attached to properties.

STAs seem likely to cause distortions in the market because some properties will have existing use rights, some will have approvals, and many will have neither.

A more nimble approach is epitomised in Barcelona, Spain, where the city council manages short term letting not by applications for land use, but through a permit and quota system to control the number of short term rentals.

In some precincts the number of permits can remain the same, in others they can increase and in others they can decrease – settings which the council can change as conditions change.

Adopting a more agile STA framework would allow Noosa Shire to stay in tune with changing circumstances and not be nailed down by a rigid scheme that seems purpose-designed to advantage some property owners, disadvantage others and do nothing for the Noosa economy.

Neither will the current approach solve any of the matters claimed by the opponents of short term accommodation, who appear mostly motivated by an antipathy to visitation and tourism in general.

An experienced manager, management consultant and policy analyst, Ingrid was a Noosa councillor from 2016 to 2020. As councillor Ingrid advocated for improved governance, including transparency, evidence-based decision-making, objective merit-based selection and procurement, and a fair go for residents and their businesses. During her career Ingrid specialised in human resources management, communications, change management, organisational design, executive development and performance appraisal systems. Ingrid has worked in public service, financial services, utilities, retail and agribusiness in Australian and international corporate and government organisations. Her qualifications include MBA (AGSM, UNSW), Graduate Diploma in Education (UNSW), BA (University of Alberta) and graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Does Ms Jackson discount the hundreds of submissions from concerned and affected residents that were received when she was a councillor as ‘anecdotal’ and therefore not worth considering? Does she discount the hundreds of people who have attended public meetings to air their grievances with STA’s? If so then she’s suggesting Council’s should not listen to their constituents through participatory processes, even those who might agree with her. Has she read some of ‘substantive’ evidence of the effect STA has on the viability of traditional accommodation providers or the impacts on the local community, especially the socially disadvantaged of ‘gentrification’ that occurs when neighbourhoods become STA havens?

    I’d like to see evidence that Council has ‘rejected many applications to provide short term accommodation’ How many? What percentage? Where’s the substantive evidence? And of course hundreds have been approved and added under the superceded planning scheme provisions.

    Clearly the thing Council has to do is define ‘predominantly’ – all the rest is pure speculation and opinion without evidence. If it means more than 50% does that mean we’re willing to accept 50% of Noosa’s housing stock being used as STA?

    Ms. Jackson suggests that staff and some councillors questioning the proliferation of STA are ‘anti-visitor elements’, but it is possible to be both pro-visitor and pro-resident. Council does not have to choose between residents and visitors. What it does need to do is balance the desires and needs of residents against the impact of visitors, and especially of STA.

  2. Hundreds [fact check please] of submissions are not evidence.

    When Cr Jackson asked Council staff for statistics on complaints, staff could not provide them.

    If Ms Barrass wants to view evidence of the current acceptance/rejection rate, she can check the Council minutes online (as I have done) and work out the percentages for herself.

    There are four councillors seeking to put a stranglehold on short term accommodation. They have based their position on opinion not evidence.

    Let’s hope they can meet the Planning Minister’s demand and understand that STA policy should be grounded in evidence.

    Ms Barrass likewise.

  3. The old chestnut ‘lack of complaints’. Of course there is no record of complaints because anyone approaching Council was immediately told they had NO role in regulating behaviour in STA’s and would NOT receive complaints.

  4. It is notable that Ingrid is a newcomer to Noosa. While she gives a good summary of recent Council actions she has totally disconnected, or maybe never connected, with the long term locals and their wishes. For once Noosa Council seems to have listened to the long term locals and their wishes for the community to be retained as a place to live not just a place to visit. Ingrid isn’t aware of how good Noosa was when it was still a town where everybody knew each other. That was what made Noosa famous not just the beach.

    The big thing that seems to be missing from what Ingrid says is that Noosa Council isn’t working towards building a community to live in. If they aren’t allowing STA then what are they doing to reinforce the community that is living here already? Surely if they are refusing the visitors then they have to start providing the community with what it needs for long term living. The first question I would ask is when are the Noosa Council going to balance out the age groups in the Shire? Noosa Council has been quick to intake the elderly through the paid developments but this is very detrimental to the population living here. Where are the amenities for the growing young families? Where are the Marina’s for the boats locals will own? Are there enough boat ramps and trailer parking for the growing population? When will the river be made access able to bigger boats? When will there be a bridge to the North Shore to avoid traffic Kaos in Tewantin? When will the Sewerage infrastructure be replaced to deal with the existing population? The list is long of major issues that have developed over the last Fifty years. None of them have been addressed as Noosa Council was too busy approving more suburbs for STA’S. They just disguised all of their work as Retirement Home development. That was their fancy name for selling out the community for STA.

    The answer is the Council have to start providing community based development not STA or Industry development. Noosa Civic should of been kept for community purposes to build the missing resources this town doesn’t have. The Noosa Council has always been pathetic in their foresight of Noosa as a community. To them it was an unlimited resource that needed to be tapped as much as possible. It was never a town that needed all of the resources of a decent sized town. They let developers do that instead. The developers soon worked out if they set up some environmental benefit the people would support them so they had fractured groups everywhere getting funding for further development. They still have that happening today and now call it trail networks. The beginning of opening up more country to benefit from.

    I think that the Noosa Council must provide the community with a much better standard of living than they do now. The standard of public transport throughout the Shire is appalling at best. The environment is dying faster than ever without any qualified intervention from anyone. The Environmental Department of Council is a laughable joke and not worthy of running a chook raffle at the local. Not a single Councillor including Ingrid has made any attempt to address the levels of the deadliest chemical in the world proven to be in our river and seafood. They are all too interested in how to make more money for Noosa Council from developers. None of them consider how to make the place better for the locals that live here.

    I expect someone from the City to think like Ingrid and consider STA as appropriate for a town. They are totally ignorant to the fact the people like the small towns because they don’t have STA’s and all the trouble that comes with them. People that bought in Noosa Fifty years ago because it had no STA outside of the resorts are entitled to want to live in those same towns. They are the people that have paid all the money to Council to keep it in existence so should be respected for that. Ingrid is not showing that in her article. She is showing the thinking of a City dweller and not a long term resident of a small Australian town.

  5. Mr Gamble seems to have missed the whole point of my article. I did not say that neighbourhoods should not be valued as places for residents to live.

    I simply suggested a more flexible and agile STA management methodology, such as the permit and precinct quota system used in Barcelona.

    Permits can be relinquished and transferred, and quotas can be used to limit STA numbers – just what Mr Gamble says long term locals want.

    In contrast entrenching approvals via the town planning scheme ends up with a proportion of houses and units given STA “approval’ forever (even after they get sold to someone else).

    As I explained, the planning scheme method of approvals does not cater for adapting to changing economic conditions or housing needs. Nor does it build a better community for our residents – an objective which I value and share with Mr Gamble.

    I can understand Mr Lloyd being nostalgic for an earlier time. And no doubt the Noosa of today is no longer like less auspicious small Australian towns. But fortunately, localities become richer for having more diverse residents. And an inclusive approach is always better for the community living.

  6. I also support the Barcelona model Ingrid! Require permits, but don’t issue any 🙂

    Short-term rental restrictions around the world

    Amsterdam: Entire home rentals limited to 60 days a year, set to be halved
    Barcelona: Short-term rentals must be licensed but no new licences are being issued
    Berlin: Landlords need a permit to rent 50% or more of their main residence for a short period
    London: Short-term rentals for whole homes limited to 90 days a year
    Palma: Mayor has announced a ban on short-term flat rentals
    New York City: Usually illegal for flats to be rented for 30 consecutive days or fewer, unless the host is present
    Paris: Short-term rentals limited to 120 days a year
    San Francisco: Hosts must obtain business registration and short-term rental certificates. Entire property rentals limited to 90 days a year
    Singapore: Minimum rental period of six consecutive months for public housing
    Tokyo: Home sharing legalised in only 2017. Capped at 180 days per year

    Sources: Airbnb, Amsterdam City Council, Government of the Balearic Islands, Reuters, the New York Times
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45083954

  7. Thanks, Steve, for providing the 2018 BBC article with some big city examples. It’s useful to be aware of a range of approaches.

    But for the record, the Barcelona policy is much more complex than BBC’s summary, and deserves in depth scrutiny.

    According to Barcelona council’s website, their regulations are periodically changed to adapt to the current context and needs – a responsiveness which is valuable.

    In 2021 the policy proposed was ‘zero growth’ of tourist accommodation. In the context of Barcelona’s permit system, this means that the total number of permits is capped, but the system has intrinsic flexibility as permits can be transferred from establishment to establishment.

    As permits are relinquished, new permits are allowed in the same area or in another area.

    A Special Tourism Accommodation Plan defines four specific areas, each with different regulations pertaining to the distribution of total tourism accommodation in the area, the ratio between tourist places and current resident population, local impacts, and presence of tourist attractions. All tourist accommodation is counted including STAs, hotels, youth hostels, etc.

    Area 1: Negative growth. No new and no expansion of tourist accommodation of any kind

    Area 2: Current numbers maintained, but no expansion of existing establishments

    Area 3: New establishments and expansion allowed

    Area 4: Special areas. No new tourist accommodation allowed.

    This Barcelona council webpage provides more details
    https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/pla-allotjaments-turistics/en/

  8. My response to Cr Wegener’s response –

    COUNCILLOR WEGENER, YOU ARE WRONG, WRONG, WRONG

    In Noosa Today (Friday 15 October), Cr Tom Wegener wrongly asserts that I “lamented” a draft local law on short term accommodation in a previous article I wrote titled ‘The STA debacle: cumbersome, costly and unfair’.

    Having thus constructed his misinterpretation, Cr Wegener used it as a basis for a number of other spurious arguments with a couple of personal slurs thrown in for good measure.

    Contrary to Cr Wegener’s statement, I support the concept of a local law. In fact, as a councillor I voted in favour when the first draft was put before Noosa Council in September 2019. So let me illuminate those matters on which Cr Wegener misrepresents me.

    First, as my original article explained, there are deficiencies and biases in the approach of some councillors, including Cr Wegener, to short term accommodation. If these flaws make their way into the Noosa Plan they will do the Shire no favours.

    I also recommended a more flexible approach, such as used in Barcelona where short term letting is managed with a precinct-based, permit and quota system rather than embedding highly restrictive short term accommodation protocols in the Noosa Plan and entrenching council approvals in perpetuity.

    Finally, I highlighted the need for a properly resourced complaints and monitoring system to protect neighbourhood amenity (I note that this is proposed in the draft local law).

    But there’s more than misrepresentation included in Cr Wegener’s article.

    He selectively quotes what I wrote to claim to make it appear I blame loss of neighbourhood amenity on owner occupiers and permanent tenants. In fact, I included short term visitors in this description, but that did not suit Cr Wegener’s argument so he just left it out.

    Cr Wegener also writes that a Council ‘cost benefit assessment’ says that 19,600 residential properties will benefit from the proposed local law. In fact the cost benefit analysis (correct title) refers to 10,610 residential properties.

    Cr Wegener also claims to be quoting ‘facts’ from the cost benefit analysis, except the following is nowhere to be found: “Without effective local laws, many of them will continue to suffer from anxiety, sleep deprivation, stress, and safety issues by the inundation of STAs”.

    Cr Wegener is entitled to his own opinions but he is not entitled to invent facts and purport them to be from an authoritative source.

    Regardless of Cr Wegener publicly calling what I wrote “ramblings” and “hogwash”, my correction stands – I am in favour of Noosa Council having a short stay letting local law and always have been. I am also in favour of Cr Wegener checking his facts.

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