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

and tourists, at the exclusion of permanent residents. Events were also focused around
Hastings St, Lions Park and Noosa Woods, and to a lesser extent Noosa River.
Multiple dwellings (units, townhouses and duplexes) developed prior to NP2006 had
development rights for either permanent living or short-term accommodation and during the
life of NP2006 the legal interpretation of a detached houses also allowed for its short-term or
permanent use. These dwellings become part of the tourist accommodation offer across
Noosa Shire.
With the commencement of online booking platforms like Airbnb in 2012, individual property
owners and investors took advantage of the higher rental returns expanding tourist
accommodation beyond the main tourist precincts and into residential neighbourhoods. This
increased the supply of tourist accommodation and diversified the accommodation offer
providing larger self-contained houses for larger groups and often a higher end premium
product.
As noted in 2.6 the importance of tourism and the provision of tourist accommodation was a
key component of NP2006 and its landuse planning strategies, with priority placed on tourist
accommodation and the protection of key sites.
The HNA2017 also recognised the accommodation needs of visitors and tourists as part of the
overall “housing needs” in Noosa Shire stating:
       From the perspectives of housing needs and the local economy, it is important that the
       accommodation demands of tourists or visitors are taken into account in developing
       the New Noosa Plan, and are planned for as far as possible given the land constraints
       in Noosa Shire, in alignment with future needs.
Whilst it was important to plan for the provision of visitor accommodation, its inclusion as part
of the housing needs assessment, and inherent competition for the same dwelling stock, was
somewhat problematic, particularly as it was difficult to estimate, or secure long term, both the
quantum of short term accommodation dwellings and the quantum of permanent housing stock
due to past planning schemes and the provisions of Noosa Plan 2006.
Also at the time of the HNA2017’s preparation, the true impacts of short term accommodation
in terms of residential amenity, housing supply and affordability, whilst noted in the report,
were only just emerging as issues.

2.5.1 Housing Needs Assessment 2017 – Tourist accommodation
The number and type of dwellings used for short-term accommodation was identified by the
HNA2017 as being particularly difficult to estimate as there were no restrictions under NP2006
on dwellings being used for permanent residents, visitors or tourists.
The HNA2017 identified that ABS data significantly under-estimated the provision of tourist
accommodation with their survey data only including tourist accommodation establishments
with 15 rooms or more; Tourism Noosa data only captured data from its members; census
data was also inconclusive in determining whether vacant properties were usually occupied
by residents or visitors; and Unitywater’s 2016 DMATT model overcounted attached visitor
dwellings and significantly under counted detached dwellings used for visitors. In addition,
interpretation concerns around the use of the terms “visitor dwelling” and “short-term rental
accommodation” in the HNA2017 also made the estimates in the HNA2017 uncertain.
Due to the variation in different estimates of visitor / tourist accommodation in the HNA2017,
the figures and estimates in this section will only be noted, with more accurate figures identified
in the Tourism Carrying Capacity Analysis in section 2.5.2. The HN2017 stated:
       The implication of the difficulty in identifying dwellings used for visitor accommodation,
       and visitor accommodation used for permanent residents, is uncertainty in estimating
       the true stock of dwellings available to either…. There are generally no restrictions on


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Noosa Council Monitoring Report 2022/23