Airbnb trumps Q’town’s council

Talk about bad timing.

Just as Queenstown’s rental accommodation crisis hits overdrive, with much of the problem sheeted home to property owners Airbnbing their homes rather than having them as long-term rentals, an Environment Court consent order, issued this week, makes this practice even easier.

Those living in low-, medium- and high-density zones can now put their homes on Airbnb, or a similar platform, for up to 90 days, as of right — provided they register their details with the council.

Till now, you needed a resource consent for this activity.

Essentially, the court order’s a kick in the guts for the council which, as planning & development GM Tony Avery notes, ‘‘tried to significantly restrict the number of days houses could be used for residential visitor accommodation in a bid to improve the availability of housing for rent’’.

The consent order was signed off following mediation between the council and other parties, including Airbnb Australia Pty Ltd.

The problem, which Avery alludes to, is the majority of submissions and submitter evidence put before a district plan hearing panel sought
less restrictive rules.

In a press release issued yesterday, mayor Glyn Lewers expresses his disappointment but accepts, under the Resource Management Act, there wasn’t deemed to be enough evidence to correlate housing issues with the supply of visitor accommodation.

In other words, despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, there wasn’t enough hard and fast evidence proving houses going into Airbnb are affecting the supply of desperately-needed rental digs.

While it’ll be easier for home owners to now Airbnb their properties for up to 90 days per annum, they’ll still of course be able to put them into long-term rentals for the balance of the year.

But will they?

Alternatively, they could just as easily seek resource consent to Airbnb their home for even more than 90 days — up to six months, for example.

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