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

       The range of visitor accommodation available in Noosa has recently diversified with
       some residents offering spare rooms or at times their entire house to visitors seeking
       a more localised experience through on line booking sites such as Stayz and AirBnB.
       Many houses are also permanently used as holiday accommodation. Some residents
       also accommodate overseas students in spare rooms.
       Priorities for housing choice - Investigate whether there is a need to identify certain
       areas as being suitable as attached housing for use for permanent living only.


Following the Paper’s public consultation, issues regarding amenity and traffic impacts from
short-term accommodation on residential neighbourhoods were raised, as was the use of
homes for backpacker and student accommodation with concerns for overcrowding. The lack
of smaller units for permanent residential accommodation and the conflict between permanent
residents and visitors for units was also raised during consultation.
The Paper was a reflection of the time it was prepared, being prior to the preparation of the
HNA2017 and prior to the increased growth in short-term accommodation in the detached
housing areas and the full impacts being experienced.


2.7.3 Short-term Accommodation – Online Platforms Issues Paper 2019
With the sharp rise in dwellings being used for short-term accommodation and an increased
number of complaints, Noosa Council commissioned an Issues Paper on Short-term
Accommodation online platforms and associated issues in early 2019 (Issues Paper). The
Issues Paper aimed to explore the challenges arising from the sharp growth in the short-term
online rental market in Noosa Shire, explore the complexities of the issue and develop a suite
of reasonable and actionable responses.
The report identified “challenges” with online booking platforms. Most challenges were relevant
to landuse planning, the housing market including rental stock, rental prices, vacancy rates,
housing affordability and sales prices, as well as other issues around the increased transitory
nature of communities, over-tourism and residential amenity issues around increased noise,
waste, traffic and parking.


2.7.3.1 Negative affects of short-term accommodation and online platforms
A number of key negative effects and implications of short-term letting, whilst not all
experienced in Noosa to the full extent at the time of the report’s preparation, were identified
as risks if short stay letting was left unchecked including:
      Over tourism
      Tourism Gentrification
      Reduced residential liveability
      Private residential amenity
      Public residential amenity
      Permanent rental market and housing affordability
      Disruption to sense of community
These negative effects are further elaborated on in Appendix 6 to this report.

2.7.3.2 Responses and actions
The Issues Paper outlined a number of actions and response opportunities for Noosa Council,
supported by appropriate resources and key performance indicators. Key responses included,
but were not limited to:
   •   monitoring, registration and information collection on short-term accommodation;

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Noosa Council Monitoring Report 2022/23