2023-03-07 Planning & Environment Meeting Agenda

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                     7 MARCH 2023


building classifications. Requirements for a contact person to be available to address complaints
within 30 minutes and located within 20 minutes of the property is also assessed.
The team also receives a daily log of complaints made to the 24/7 complaints hotline and follows
up on complaints that have not been dealt with at the time by the nominated contact person for the
property. The team is also required to undertake compliance action where there are breaches of
the local law.
Whilst Council required a 12 month review of the local law, there has been ongoing review and
improvements made to systems and processes over the entire 12 months the local law has been
in operation to improve the efficiency of the approvals process and respond to industry feedback.
Improvements have been made to the application forms, lodgement process, supporting
information on signage requirements, and webpage explanatory information. There has also been
ongoing review and improvements made to the operation of the 24/7 complaints hotline.
Overall, administration of the local law is considered to be running smoothly and efficiently with a
higher than expected number of applications made and decisions made under the local law within
its 12 months operation than what was originally forecast.
2.1   Approvals
The main focus for the team for the first 12 months was to assess short stay letting and home
hosted accommodation applications to identify and refuse any properties operating unlawfully and
get the lawfully operating short stay let properties onto Council’s “register” as quickly as possible
to have a contact person identified and responsible for dealing with complaints.
Approximately 5265 properties have been identified as operating short term accommodation in
Noosa Shire, 4000 of which require a local law approval to manage their operation as short stay
let properties. Approximately 1265 properties are exempt from requiring an approval as they are
within the Hastings Street Mixed Use Precinct identified for tourism and visitor accommodation or
within a site already approved for visitor accommodation only, at the exclusion of permanent
residents.
Many of these properties have been operating under lawful planning approvals or existing use
rights under former planning schemes, but have been unregulated in terms of how they operate
and manage guest behaviour and complaints. Council introduced the new local law to manage the
operation of short stay letting and home hosted accommodation to capture and determine the
lawfulness of all properties undertaking short term and home hosted accommodation and regulate
them under the local law requirements. Approval under the Local law only occurs where those
properties have a lawful right to operate either under the Planning Scheme or a previous
Development Approval.
Within the 12 months of operation 2720 of applications were lodged. 2379 of those were lodged
within the fee waiver period. The number of applications received within the first 12 months was
much larger than expected and caused pressure on staffing resources to manage the workload.
Accordingly, application processing times were delayed creating a backlog of applications, with
697 applications currently awaiting assessment. Notwithstanding this, a large number of
applications were assessed in 12 months, and importantly the “register” of approved properties
with contact persons to deal with complaints grew significantly. Within 12 months the following
applications were assessed and decided.
1968 applications were approved including:
     440 dwellings houses
     107 dwelling houses (maximum 4 times and maximum of 60 days);
     1341 units / townhouses;
     22 units (maximum 4 times and maximum of 60 days);
     58 home hosted accommodation.



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