Council fine-tunes short-stay letting controls

A resourcing boost will help fine-tune Noosa Council’s regulation of short-stay properties following a review of the Short-stay Local Law, introduced a year ago. 

Owners of more than 2500 properties being used for short-stay accommodation have now applied for approval under the new Short-stay Local Law.

Two new temporary compliance officers will help work through a backlog of short-stay applications, increase enforcement and identify unapproved short-stay properties.

Short-stay property annual renewal fees will cover the costs.

Mayor Clare Stewart said the Local Law’s first 12 months had been a success.

“We’re the first council in Queensland to regulate short-stay accommodation in response to community concerns, and we’re making solid progress,” she said.

“With the Local Law, approval process and complaints hotline, we’ve been able to implement a code of conduct for short-stay guests, compile a healthy database of short-stay properties, deal with complaints and begin to identify owners not playing by the rules.

“About 2500 property owners have applied in the first 12 months, which is a good result. Mornington Peninsula set a strong benchmark achieving 2500 in just under three years, so given we’ve achieved that in a third of the time we’re doing very well.”

With the high number of applications being lodged, Mayor Stewart said Council was comfortable with the level of compliance with the new Local Law so far, however there are still around 1200 properties that are yet to apply for approval.

“It’s been an informative 12 months with lots of stakeholder engagement. I’ve sat down with many residents to discuss their concerns, and the extra resourcing will not only support greater enforcement, but it answers industry calls for a quicker approval process.

“We said we’d review the Local Law after 12 months and make tweaks and we’re doing it.”

Environment and Sustainable Development Director, Kim Rawlings, said in addition to assessing more than 2000 short-stay applications, staff are working through 600 more.

“We received the early flurry of applications as we temporarily waived the application fee, and while the influx highlighted a need for more resources, it’s been a good response so far,” she said.

“There is still work to be done, but the extra resourcing will assist the approval process and allow us to better enforce the rules, as the community expects,” the Mayor added. 

In its first 12 months the 24-hour complaints hotline answered 612 calls.

Short-stay annual renewal fees will be set at $400 for detached houses and $200 for units, with a reduced $100 fee for home-hosted accommodation and units and houses where the planning scheme limits short-stay use to a maximum of four times a year and 60 days.