AIRBNB OWNERS HIT BACK AT CRACK DOWN

AIRBNB owners have leapt to the defence of the short-stay sector as the Hobart Planning Committee considered a move to clamp down on new wholehouse permits on Monday.

Marius Engelbrecht, who owns a five-apartment Airbnb on Paternoster Row, said council was unfairly singling out shortstays as the cause of Hobart’s housing crisis.

Mr Engelbrecht said he was a hardworking dad who relied on the income from his Airbnb to spend time raising his two baby daughters while their mother worked.

“Without this opportunity we would not have been able to make this choice of having time with the kids while they are still small,” he said.

“As a person who has worked hard … I now have to give up my right, my choice, my investment so that council can be seen as trying to help the housing crisis when instead they should be focused on approving plans for low-cost housing.”

In his submission, Airbnb host Phillip Wells said his short-stay property was what funded his “modest” retirement.

Mr Wells said he wanted to pass the house onto his children one day who would otherwise find it very hard to enter the housing market.

He said state and local governments should have a good hard look at their own housing policies, rather than blaming Airbnb owners for the housing crisis.

“Now because the government has failed to build adequate affordable housing we are being penalised,” he said.

“It’s time the HCC and the Tasmanian government took some of the blame for the situation we find ourselves in with rental housing shortages and start building more affordable housing.”

But renters struggling with the rising cost of living wrote to support the move, which would stop more houses being turned into Airbnbs.

Homeless campaigner Jacqui Stocks said Airbnbs were pushing more people onto the streets as the “gluttonous” landlords reaped a profit. “As someone who has felt the angst of looming homelessness each time a landlord decides to sell, I think the council really need to regulate and minimise short stay accommodation,” Ms Stocks said.

“When are we going to condemn this blatant greed that’s destroying our community?”