Judy: To Airbnb or not to Airbnb? It’s a very tough question

Short-term holiday lets have been in the news lately, not just in Noosa but in many places around the world. It seems change is here before we’ve had time to think about the ramifications, and that governments at all levels are struggling to come to terms with the exponential growth.

There have always been holiday houses and apartments to let in holiday destinations, but the internet has brought something new into the mix, and multi-national corporations like Airbnb are there to exploit the opportunities and rake in the money.

We’ve probably all stayed in a short-term let. When you’re staying more than overnight and you want cooking facilities, extra space and the sort of experience you can’t get in a sterile hotel, they fit the bill nicely.

In Noosa, if you’re visiting with your kids and friends or perhaps the grandparents, and you bring a boat and a jetski and four cars, a holiday house let provides a comfortable place to stay together with a yard and perhaps a pool for the kids, a garage for the boat etc. It’s the sort of experience traditional accommodation just can’t provide.

We often hear that platforms like Airbnb allow ‘mums and dads’ to make ends meet by letting out their spare bedroom once in a while and, while this is true, it doesn’t seem to be the norm. Study after study has found that the majority of short-term lets are for whole houses or apartments that are available 365 days of the year and that many absent owners have several houses on the platform.

There are also businesses that manage short-term Airbnb properties for absent owners, so we are not talking about a cottage industry here, we are talking about a commercial operation that has grown without the sort of regulations that apply to other forms of accommodation. These are basically small hotels in your neighbourhood.

In Hobart, in Noosa, in Byron Bay and around the world there is concern that the unregulated growth in short-term lets is having a disastrous effect on the availability of affordable housing.

If much of our housing stock that might otherwise be available for long-term lets are being used for the lucrative tourist market, how are we to ensure people have somewhere to live?

In Hobart, the state and local governments are looking at building and otherwise providing affordable housing, but the community there is asking why their taxes and rates should be used for this purpose when a simpler solution would be to restrict short-term letting.

We face the same issues here in Noosa. Why allow smaller infill dwellings, shop-top housing, etc if you can’t ensure it won’t just add to the pool of tourist accommodation and do nothing for the problem of affordable housing?

In Western Australia there is concern about the effect exponential growth in short-term lets is having on the traditional holiday accommodation sector. A recent study by Curtin University found that about 25% of WA’s room capacity is now supplied by Airbnb and that Airbnb supply was growing at about 4% a month (in 2016). Demand for short-term lets was growing at a rate of 100% per year.

In Noosa we need to consider the ramifications, not only on our traditional accommodation sector, but on the demands the growth in short-term lets will make on our infrastructure. Right now we don’t even know the extent of the problem. Council’s long-term laissez-faire policy vacuum has allowed unregulated and unknown growth in the sector, and while Council is now beginning to look at the issues, policy responses are a long time coming and may not be adequate or appropriate. We are yet to see.

Tourism is our major industry and many tourists now prefer to deal online with a multi-national like Airbnb and to stay in residential areas in their own ‘mini hotel’ environment. To deal with the changes places like Bergen in Norway are now allowing the development of whole apartment blocks that will be used for short-term lets. How should Noosa deal with this new phenomenon?

Tourism Noosa might focus on the top end of the market for their 5-star experiences, but the growth in short term lets brings more people onto our roads, into our carparks, using our parks, bins, dog bags, sewers, boat ramps and in my experience (living next door to two short term lets) it’s an entirely different market. It’s also mostly from Queensland, driving in (up to six cars per property) and very big on take-away food and pizza delivery judging from the overflowing (recyclables only) bins.

There’s no doubt that hosts have benefitted from the lack of regulation and policy, but there’s also no doubt that communities and neighbourhoods have suffered from an influx of strangers in their midst who don’t share their values, who keep holiday hours, who generate lots of noise and trash, and who often think because they are paying they can live by different rules. Noosa Council has left residents living near short term lets to deal with the problem in isolation.

This new approach to holiday accommodation is here to stay. Policy responses in Australia have been thin on the ground and very slow to emerge, although many major tourist destinations in Europe now have regulation in place. We’re waiting for a new Noosa Plan, but is there more our Council can be doing?