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“The local council ‘owns’ the zoning regulation”
Gee, that’s pretty much what you shot me down for saying on this site abut 5 months ago! You said the councils said they didn’t want to do the regulation… to which I replied that it didn’t matter. It is their job! They already regulate B&B’s, hotels hostels etc short term. It is obvious that they should be the ones to regulate Airbnb.
Stats mangers are not equipped or willing to police Airbnb or other short term rentals that might come along. It’s just a very bad idea!
Sorry to sound like I was telling you how to do your job but I see leaving out council obligations as dropping the ball if you write an article about options for handling Airbnb. It’s not just my opinion that this is a council responsibility. The article has a list of Council regulations:
https://www.domain.com.au/news/nsw-government-investigating-airbnb-rentals-20150627-ghu7l0/
Its not an opinion that councils have regulations around short term rental that they need to be enforcing. This is their job. Sydney City Council for example do acknowledge their responsibility (As you say, without doing much about it):
This might not be the most current version, but it clearly states:
“Tourist accommodation means a building or part of a building that provides temporary or short term accommodation for travellers and tourists who generally have their principal place of residence elsewhere. Tourist andVisitor Accommodation includes serviced apartments, backpacker accommodation, hotels, guest houses, bed and breakfast accommodation, motels and the like.”How is this not the very definition of what Airbnb do?
Yes it would suit me to have the councils do their job, that doesn’t rule it out as being the best option to fix the issues. You might be right that large building strata’s might have a lazy $60,000 available to fight Airbnb, but should they have to? My experience is more around smaller buildings where there is no $60,000 fighting fund or the skills or the will to fight.
I look forward to your Uber vs Airbnb article. I see taxing Uber drivers a road tax as different to licensing which would allow restricting of inappropriate drivers. This seems to be another government failure to act.
If we were looking to licence Uber driver (and we should), would we let the nearest 20 or so cars driving next to the Uber driver’s home be responsible? I mean they just happen to be the closest people? They could take a vote once a year to see who is on the Uber licencing executive committee for that street. Let them decide what constitutes a breach of passenger transportation regulations.
OR should the same government department that licences taxi’s be responsible for Uber licences? And if Transport for NSW just said that they are “not interested” should we just let them refuse this? Or do we need to push for the government to do the job we pay them for?
(Perhaps a bad example cos they haven’t licenced Uber)
“Because it is not, so far as I know, being seriously discussed and that’s because councils have made it clear they aren’t interested.”
If it’s the right way to handle the issue then it should be discussed and it is irrelevant to me as a taxpayer that the councils are stating that they are not interested. Councils are the right people to manage this and everyone, especially journalists, should make an effort to highlight that.
Executive committees are not capable or willing to own this responsibility and the outcome if they are will be very bad in many ways. Their involvement should be limited to reporting possible licencing violations to council. Council should have very little trouble in finding licence breakers. As your college at SMH, Sue Williams, (like me a Kings Cross local), wrote this week, the ATO will have access to all Airbnb records so it would be very easy to match addresses from Airbnb money taken with the addresses of short-term rental licences.
Thanks Jimmy for the details response. I agree with your analysis of the situation, but perhaps not the solution.
If we were talking about muggings, and the police were known to be turning a blind eye because they are under-funded, the solution would not be to arm the neighbourhood watch. The reality that many people are trying to break law is not a reason to give up on policing it.
If the councils need to make the licence fee high enough to cover the cost of what I would call ‘doing their job’, then that’s ok. Isn’t the Airbnb proposal to take a large cut from hosts and give it to strata? Why not make the licence expensive instead? The 23,000 hosts we have now is way too high. Not every property is suitable for short term rental. That number should be halved.
I’m still left with a couple of questions about the way you and other journalists write about Airbnb. Firstly, if you believe that Council ownership of short-term rental management is ‘makes a lot of sense’ then why did you not list it as one of the options in your article explaining the down sides it brings? You gave 5 very detailed options but left out a major one.
Secondly, I understand why Airbnb continually represent themselves as ‘mum and dad making some extra cash’, by why do journalist not talk about the people buying units for Airbnb exclusively? That’s the real issue. I can’t imagine there are any issues for neighbours in properties where the owners are living there at the same time.
Full disclosure, my wife and I own properties that are being rented Airbnb, but they are in Kings Cross, are high end, require 1 week min stay and don’t offer stereos or allow parties. We have never had a genuine complaint. We did though face an issue with one property when we started. The chairman of the executive committee is a bored old man who came up with a range of fictitious issues. He wrongly though there would be more noise, and water costs even though the place is only rented 70% of the time. He didn’t want ‘strangers’ in the building even though the guests are all fully vetted well off tourists and the building is between two Kings cross hostels. He called the council who came to inspect but they told us that the ONLY issue they have with a well-run Airbnb like ours was that in event of a fire, a short term guest will be less well orientated and unlike a hotel there are no staff to help.
I mention this because my concern is that a plan to let strata executive committee’s manage short -term rental will mean there will be a reduction in the number of Airbnb, but not the places that genuinely need to be refused the option to rent short term but in buildings with the most ‘angry’ and forceful committees.
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