2022-11-14 GC Agenda - Item 4 - Attachment 1 - Short Term Accommodation Monitoring Report 2022

events or celebrations associated with birthdays, holidays, weddings and other occasions. The
utilisation of a rented house for parties often causes impacts on the amenity of neighbours,
who are subjected to unreasonable noise, health, safety and security hazards, damage to
common property or obstruction from using their property. There appears to be an exponential
increase in the type and number of complaints about amenity issues arising from neighbours
residing near short-term let properties.
Public residential amenity – is the qualities, characteristics and attributes people value about
a place which contributes to their experience of a high quality of life, including landscape,
streetscape, vegetation, views, services etc.
The spread of tourism accommodation away from central tourism and accommodation hubs
into traditionally pure residential areas may be interfering with public residential amenity. There
are consistent anecdotal complaints in relation to:
      more traffic and on-street parking;
      reduced levels of traffic safety;
      increased levels of noise and other emissions from traffic; and
      greater potential for conflict between land uses.
   
Disruption to sense of community- As tourists, visitors and holidaymakers infiltrate
residential neighbourhoods, they contribute to a disrupted sense of community, exemplified by
feelings of mistrust, reduced perception of personal safety and increased alienation.
Airbnb may be disrupting the sense of community in the Noosa Shire, as property owners and
hosts disengage from their home by transforming it to a commercial operation. As most
residents or homeowners would attest, once you have lived in a street or area for a period of
time, you experience a settled feeling and higher perception of safety and security from
knowing your neighbours, sighting familiar vehicles each day and attuning to the social, work
and travel movements of those that live around you. With the infiltration of tourists into these
areas, the settled feeling and perception of safety is reduced by strangers, new vehicles and
different transitory movements throughout the week and weekend.
As property owners disengage, particularly owner-occupiers, the flow-on effect is that their
neighbours become less engaged and connected to their home, as they see strangers coming
and going. Arguably, homes neighbouring an Airbnb rental property incur the majority of social
cost.
Permanent rental market and housing affordability- the impacts of short-term
accommodation and the use of online booking platforms affect the stock and price of
permanent rental accommodation and housing affordability.
The Noosa Shire has certainly seen rising rental and property prices in recent years,
particularly since 2013, outperforming the state market in terms of growth.
…the premise that property owners now prefer the higher return that can be generated from
short-term letting and are electing to monetise their asset in this way, rather than through long-
term renting or selling. Property owners are aided and encouraged by the useability,
accessibility and simplicity of online accommodation share economy platforms…
Furthermore, properties that typically would have continued to circulate through the residential
property sale market are now considered of higher value as an investment property that can
generate a return as a holiday rental. Indeed, some local real estate agents in the Noosa Shire
are advertising properties for sale as being ‘great for Airbnb’...
There is also increasing evidence from overseas jurisdictions that the arrival of Airbnb and
other such platforms has had a direct impact on housing affordability, increasing permanent
rental prices and land values.


                                                                                           pg. 164
Noosa Council Monitoring Report 2022/23